If your hotel tastes run to the sleek and modern, with a taste of whimsy, The Cape Hotel is your spot in Cabo San Lucas. In a region teeming with luxury hotels that evoke a strong sense of place through its Spanish colonial history, there would seem to be room for one that takes a different approach. This Thompson Hotel, now part of the Hyatt group, just celebrated its 10th birthday after making a big glam and contemporary splash that has held up well.
This resort on a surf break beach is more rock band than mariachi band, complete with Sid & Nancy Sex Pistols biopic movie photos in the rooms. While you’ll still find some 60+ guests here like you do all over Los Cabos, there’s far more new money checking in here and more first-time visitors to the area rather than those who have been coming to Los Cabos for a decade or more.
The huge open-air lobby and bar looks out at the water, with a view of the famous arch past the town and– in the months between December and April — often a few whales emptying their blowhole and breaching offshore. Down below is a large infinity pool with a swim-up bar and lots of deck space for taking in the view, including a sunset show each night. Right above the pool is an indoor-outdoor restaurant open for all three meals.
The easy thing to do here at The Cape Hotel would have been to just make the place all “international modern” like so many other resort aimed at the young and style-conscious, with the same furniture, soundtrack, and lighting you see from Shanghai to San Francisco to Santiago. The architects and designers here clearly wanted to do it with some flair though, using black-dyed concrete, brutalist angles looking out from the hallways, and a lobby that’s bathed in the unrelenting sun’s glow.
Rooms at Those at The Cape are more inviting and warm than the public areas would imply. VIP and suite guests get a bottle of custom tequila created especially for The Cape and enter a spacious room with traditional colonial patterned tiles on the floor and a free-standing tub with a pounded copper exterior. This may be contemporary Mexico, but Mexico nevertheless: artworks by the Mexican ceramist José Noé Suro and surfer photos framed on the wall go a long way toward making it clear you’re not in a city. Almost every room has a view of the water, the waves, and the distant arch.
There’s also a large whale sculpture made of driftwood by the entrance and the lounge on the roof deck serves Mexican craft beer and sunset cocktails. Throughout it’s a nice mix of flip-flop beach casualness and Mexico City design cool. Take a tour and check it out:
When I first reviewed this resort I said that every public room except the spa had a view of the water, but now they’ve expanded the spa to add some welcome sunshine and a view via one relaxation area with two pools. The spa has an extensive menu of treatments plus you’ll find scheduled yoga classes and a great fitness center.
The Cape Hotel also wins the prize of having the best English proficiency of any Latin American hotel I’ve ever visited: every staffer I spoke to was not just school-fluent, they were “I lived in The States for two years” fluent or made comments like, “I want to the University of Michigan for undergrad.” I’m not sure how Thompson Hotels recruited all these bilingual workers in such a competitive market for talent, but kudos for them for pulling it off and keeping them happy enough to pass up offers from elsewhere.
Maybe they were promised extra time off for surf breaks. You can see some of the surfers in the video tour above and here was the show from my balcony one morning:
See our detailed review of The Cape – A Thompson Hotel in Los Cabos. Book direct with Hyatt or check rates online here.
