Stayed the first week in oct, from the minute you arive the time share folks start & dont let up. The dining is so so at best. The pool is nice & the room was alright. Just I expected more.

The Villa Del Arco Hotel flows with a natural, elegance. This hotel is classy! The decore is so tastfully done. It's earthy and flows beautiful with the natural surroundings! The staff is top knotch! Everyone is friendly and helpful! The food at the Villa Del Arco was delicious! Their menu was different with great fish entres. We had something differnt every night, and were never disappointed. Our room was beautiful , clean , romantic! The beach was perfect and clean! Lots to do or just relax this hotel is the best in Cabo! We had no problems with late check out, all we had to do was ask! I would come back to The villa Del Arco again!

My husband and I were traveling with our 1 and 1/2 year old. We typically stay at the Marina Fiesta (though not on the beach, you can't beat the short walk into town), and had booked the Marina Fiesta for this trip. A couple of days before we left for Cabo, we got an email that the hotel pool was being renovated. Considering that is where we spend most of our time, we had to book another hotel with less than a week's notice.

After reading the great reviews of the Villa del Arco, we decided to give it a try. I was extremely disappointed for a number of reasons.

The first half of our trip (5 days), we were at the Sheraton Hacienda del Mar (which I highly recommend) for a wedding, then we moved to the Villa del Arco to be closer to town for the second half. We had a late check out (1:00) from the Sheraton and went over to the Villa del Arco. They refused to let us check in before 3:00 or 4:00. We have been going to Cabo for years and years and have never had a hotel make us wait until the "official" check-in time. Even after explaining we had a baby, they made us wait.

As others have posted, there is construction everywhere at this hotel. We asked that we be as far from the construction as possible because of our baby. They put us in a room on the first floor right next to the lobby and RIGHT next to the construction. Our room was hot so we turned the a/c in both the living room and bedroom on full blast and left for dinner.

Upon our return at 8:30 pm, the room was still hot even though the a/c was blowing full blast. We told the front desk and they sent a repair person who said the doors weren't shut all the way and that was the problem (we hadn't opened any of the patio doors). He told us to give it 20 minutes and it would be fine. At 9:00 it was still not working and they finally switched us to a different room.

The a/c in the new room worked in the living room but not the bedroom. We didn't realize this until halfway into our trip because the weather was a little cooler and the a/c from the living room helped keep the bedroom cool. Finally the day before we left I had them fix it. Also, our room smelled like sewage, as did most of the outside area near our room. We think they were doing something with the sewer line in the construction. One other bad point--the water pressure is HORRIBLE.

The day we checked out, I called and asked for a late check out. The guy at the front desk asked for what time (check out is 11:00am) and when I said 1:00 he actually laughed at me and said no. I asked for noon and he said he'd check. He then told me they did not have late check outs at all in that hotel (????). I asked to speak to a manager and after telling me to hold on, he came back and said the manager had said 1:00 was fine. Needless to say, they of course disabled our keys at 11:00 anyway.

Our friends who stayed there at the same time had similar experiences.

I do have to say the rooms are beautiful. We were in the 1 bedroom suite, which is great. I especially love that there is a washer and dryer and full kitchen. Also, the pools were great. There is one area near the ship that is great for kids--very shallow with water that shoots up. Our daughter had a great time in the pool.

Overall, though the hotel looks great, it needs a lot of work when it comes to management. The waitstaff at the pool was great, though.

Considering we had to drive into town any time we wanted to go (despite what the description says, it is too far to walk way into town from hotel), I would much rather stay at the Sheraton over the Villa del Arco.

We stayed at VDA for 10 days recently. Overall there are some very, very nice aspects of the hotel, and some that we thought needed some improvement.

For the great parts...
The pool/beach scene- We did not spend too much time at the beach, but it is nice, with beach chairs and umbrellas, and it is cordoned off so that the beach vendors can't bother you too much. The water is swimmable and blue, but still a rough surf and undertow even on Medano beach.

The pools are all very nice, relaxing, beautifully laid out. The waiters surrounding the pool are attentive and after ten days and some tips, got to know us and were very nice guys. We went during a relatively off season, so there were no problems with poolside chairs. There are definitely some families and kids around, but it was not overrun with children running around.

The location-Nice, close to Cabo ($7 cab ride each way) with a beautiful view of the arch and daily cruise ships coming in. We did not walk to Cabo (they don't reccomend walking at night on the beach), but we did see lots of people walking into town, day and night, and it seems perfectly safe (I'd probably walk in a bigger group at night).

Our room- We had a perfect room, all are new, very clean, the maid staff kept our place impeccable for our entire stay. We had a one bedroom unit, with a nice large porch which directly overlooked the Sea of Cortez. Made for beautiful sunrises every day.

The OK:
The restuarant- Decent food, probably a little on the expensive side (although average for hotels). We did the all inclusive, and if you eat every meal there every day (we certainly didn't) it could get boring. Breakfast (they have a menu option and a buffet option) was pretty good.

The construction- The place is, as previously mentioned, still undergoing lots of construction all day. In truth, it really is not distracting. On a number of occasions I didn't even notice the noise, even though it's there. Overall I wouldn't let the concern over construction keep you from going.

The bad:
The management- The front desk/operator/management staff needs some training, I think. We arrived having payed for the all inclusive before arriving. They tried to offer me the all inclusive on arriving and it took a minute for them to realize that I had already payed for it. I went to the desk one day to ask how to mail an item to the US, and where I could get postage, etc. They had absolutely NO idea what I meant or how to help me. They had me call the "premium services desk", which was the hotel operator who had no idea how to help me either. I finally figured out on my own that they sell stamps in the little gift shop 50 feet from the desk. The front desk staff had no idea. When I checked out they tried to charge me for the all inclusive again until I went and straightened it out. The hotel directory in the room is filled with misspellings (it spoke to me about the level of professionalism). Finally on checking out, we had to wait at the front desk while they sent housekeeping to the room to make sure that the room was OK before we left.

Timeshare- There is a definite timeshare atmosphere here. When you check in you are forced to meet with a "concierge" who is sweet and nice and then tries to get you to go to the "welcome breakfast", which at one point we were told was 75 minutes then another time 90 minutes. When we said no, she tried to talk us into it, but she did stop after three or four nos. The next day we were approached by someone at the pool, again trying to sell us on the welcome breakfast. We had to say no four times again. Apparently the "gold card" that they give you if you go gives some decent deals. We saw a great number of people on these tours each morning (my guess is that there are 30-40 groups a day), and overheard a lot of the conversations. My impression is that the pitch is relatively low pressure, but still some pressure.

The all-inclusive must be relatively new, because a lot of the wait staff were unsure of exactly what was included, they kept trying to give us two for one happy hour drinks when they were all free anyway, etc.

Overall we enjoyed our stay here. We felt extremely safe here. I did get the feeling that I needed to be on guard financially, check everything twice in terms of bills and charges. I sometimes got the feeling from the hotel, and a little bit from all of Cabo, that they were trying to get some extra money out of us, and I felt that it was/could be somewhat difficult to fix problems with the bills if they came up.

There's a lot more I could say, feel free to email if there are particular questions.