Accommodations – The rooms at the Cancun Solaris are much nicer. They have personality whereas the Cabos rooms are boring and very small. The maids at both hotels do a good job so room service is not something that needs to enter this comparison.

Hotel Building – There is no comparison – Cabos wins hands down!! The public areas of the Cabos building, if they finish it correctly with fine art, will be on the line of the FAGCB in Cancun. The Cancun Solaris is okay, but the rooms and activities are what is so special about that resort.

Pools -- This is probably the hardest thing to compare because they both win, and lose. The pool in Cabos is far prettier than the Cancun pool. It is all one level and flows through the center of the resort. There is a small pool that is also free form and very pretty. They also have a fenced off 10-foot diving pool that we were not allowed to use. There was no dive demonstration as promised so this beautiful pool sat empty all week long.

The pools in Cancun, while not as pretty are used much better, and the design of the pools are more functional than the design of the Cabos pool. The best thing at Cabos is the location of the pool bar in the center of the pool. See my pictures later to understand the difference.

Meals -- There is no comparison here – Cancun wins hands down. The strange thing is that I think the evening meals in Cancun are the weakest part of that resort, but the meals are still good. This week we had a few meals that were not eatable. Breakfast in Cancun is an event at the Solaris. In Cabos it is, as I described, not good. Lunch around the Pool in Cancun is FAR SUPERIOR to lunch around the pool at Cabos. They have the same type of food, they just have not mastered it, and there is something to be said for that grill in Cancun that they have been grilling on for 20+ years. I'm a firm believer in a seasoned grill. Dinner is where the biggest difference is between these resorts. I don't go to Cancun for the dinners at the Solaris, but I do enjoy them. They did go down in quality for a year or two, but in Cancun they have come back to the quality you expect at an average all-inclusive resort. In Cabos the evening meals were poor at best until the last two days we were there. I really don't think that my talk to the manager had anything to do with it. I just think they hold the better meals for the end of the week. I also think they went out of their way to make Thanksgiving special for a hotel full of Americans.

Beverages and bars -- I give a slight advantage to the Cancun bartenders, and a great advantage to the bars in Cabos. This building was well thought out when it comes to the public areas. The sports bar in Cabos is beautiful and well used. Two pool tables and about 5 televisions make this a special place. The bartender in the sports bar in Cabos is by far the very best on site. The lobby bar is nicely placed and the area is very large. Much better planned out than the Cancun lobby bar. I give an advantage to the Cancun lobby bartenders as they serve faster and the drinks are comparable between the resorts (with the exception of the sports bartender in Cabos who is GREAT).

The drinks in the restaurants are MUCH better in the Cancun resort, and the waiters in the Cabos resort should all be replaced. We did not have a single good waiter the entire time we were there.

SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT TEAMS and ACTIVITIES -- The activities and Sports and entertainment team in Cancun make that resort special. That place ROCKS all the time. They do a show 6 out of the 7 nights of the week with the Mexican Ballet doing the 7th night's show. In Cabos they do 3 shows a week and they are pretty weak around the pool. It's just not the same. On the other hand, the Latin show performed by the S/E team was outstanding. Chucho and Justin steal the show. We missed the last night's production because we had to leave early. The Mexican Ballet does the other show in Cabos. I just don't think Casino night and guest Karaoke should count as a S/E show. I must give Kudos to the Cabos S/E Team for the way they handled the rainy day with the young kids. They were FANTASTIC!

Hotel Staff -- This is a major weakness in Cabos. There is a MAJOR difference between the 7th floor staff and the Club people in Cabos – like they should not even be there because they are a waste. I enjoyed the check out of Humberto over the years, and Debbie was also a hoot in Cancun. The Cabos staff was snotty. Especially the little young girl whose mother needs to teach her how to dress. She was always dressed like she was going to a disco, not very business like at all. There is NO DOUBT that the number one function of the club staff at Cabos is to get you into a timeshare presentation. I know 1000 times more about timeshare than they do and they were totally shocked when I tore into them. The line – Cabos is the number 1 requested place in the RCI system and you get 2:1 weeks in Hawaii for a Cabos week. They freaked that I knew the hotel occupancy rate and I could tell them the most requested places in RCI and the hardest to get resorts. Look out for the club staff in Cabos – they should be labeled “BEWARE OF SHARKS”.

The front desk staff was rude on the good days. Cold reception and check in, not to mention they could not find our reservation when we arrived. We also had to have our bill corrected when we checked out due to a $148 error.
I must say that there was one nice young man in the lobby at the hotel services desk that was VERY NICE. The men in the travel agency were also very nice.
I think that Cabos has an inferior staff to Cancun, and the vast majority of the problems in the hotel are due to the poor staff.

One last comment here – I wrote a 5-page letter to the hotel manager on Tuesday night. He had 2-days to call and leave a message in my room responding to my wishing to speak with him. No call, no I'm sorry, no go to H____. I expected at least a call. I did tell him I was posting this report on the Internet and gave the URL for this site. I hope he is reading it. I also hope that his potential guests read it and choose the Cancun Solaris over his hotel as it is far superior overall.

Location of the Resort -- I much prefer the location of the Cabos resort in that it is very pretty and also in a small Mexican town that is not night club happy. San Jose del Cabos is a wonderful little town. I much prefer the location of the Cancun resort when it comes to the warmth and overall beach atmosphere. Both are nice, so I would choose the resort by the quality of the resort and not by the quality of the location.
Beach -- This is important and the beautiful beach in Cancun is what I prefer, along with the “air conditioned sand” of Cancun. The beach in both places can be rough, but the roughest day we have ever seen in Cancun is not as rough as the water we saw in Cabos. If you are just into sitting on the beach and watching the water the Cabos beach is hard to beat because of the mountains in the area surrounding the resort.
Getting there – We found getting into Cabos to be a pain in the rump compared to Cancun. From our area it was much more expensive. Customs in Cabos was a great experience although we have never found the people in Cancun to be anything other than polite (but we have heard stories). Overall, if I was in love with the Cabos resort I would find a way to get there since it would be worth the hassle.

In conclusion – I would love to see the Royal Solaris in Cabos under the control of the Fiesta Americana, Hilton, Omni, or Marriott. This could be a world class resort. The building is fantastic, the pool could be fantastic, the bars are good, but the food and the service are very weak. There is no perfect resort, especially one that you have gone to on prior vacations. It's hard for a hotel to live up to a repeat visitor's expectations, but there are some hotels that are good enough that you go back over and over again because the good out weighs the bad no matter how many times you visit.

I wonder if I will ever return to a Royal Solaris Resort. If they read this report they may not want me to ever come back. I expect a lot for my hard earned money. In return I will tell everyone I know about a great resort. I expected a lot from the Royal Solaris Cabos and I got about 30% of what I expected. So here are the big questions:

Would I tell my friends to visit Cancun? YES!!!

Would I tell my family or friends to go to the Solaris in Cancun? YES!!!

Would I tell my friends to visit Cabos? YES!!!

Would I tell my family or friends to visit the Royal Solaris in Cabos? ABSOLUELY NOT.