Cabo San Pharma
January 20-23, 2025 - Sometimes, the best shore excursion can just be staying on the ship
Dessert in Toscana. Image © 2025, Steven Sande
Since this post is a bit negative in tone, I’ll start off on a positive note. We had one of the best dinners of the trip on Monday night (January 20) in the Toscana Italian specialty restaurant aboard Vista. Barb had a Giada De Laurentiis specialty, which was a spaghetti with shrimp done with a mascarpone lemon cream sauce. Me? I had the Toscana Trio, which consisted of small servings of a yummy carbonara, a really delicious pesto gnocchi, and a lobster risotto, all three of which were excellent.
Of course I had to overdo it on dessert, which for me was that four-piece extravaganza you see in the top photo.
Giada is the godmother of Vista, meaning that she was the person who wasted a perfectly good bottle of champagne by smashing it against the ship.
Cruise ship shore excursions can be a blessing or a curse. For example, on this cruise we had our day in Guatemala — seeing the old city of Antigua was a highlight, and having an excellent tour guide and driver (as well as several stops for delicious local food) was the icing on the cake. We skipped a few port calls (Acapulco, Mexico and Cartagena, Colombia) because we’ve been to both ports before and there really was no reason to make a repeat visit. And then there are excursions like the one yesterday in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico that are better forgotten.
Before I get into the details of our “fun” day in Cabo, let me tell you what we’re finding to be the best shore excursions; those that highlight local foods, that provide an opportunity to see unusual wildlife, with smaller group sizes, with excellent guides who speak passable English and have a depth of knowledge about their country, and that leave you wanting to return to the port or country. Oh, and there’s one more thing we like: excursions that aren’t obvious attempts to get you to buy questionable stuff that you don’t need.
The “Lands End Boat Tour and Cabo View” shore excursion was none of those. The tour company “Tropical Tours” ran this rather unappealing pit stop, so if you see them as the tour organizer for a shore excursion, pass on it.
(Reminder: with any of these photo galleries, if you want a full-size view, just tap or click on the images and a “slideshow viewer” appears that you can scroll through)
We started by taking the ship’s tender to the Cabo San Lucas boat harbor; just before we got onto the tender, a pair of humpback whales surfaced right next to it. Sadly, we didn’t see them! For Barb, getting on and off of the tender was somewhat difficult as it was experiencing all six degrees of motion at once, but the ship’s crew did an outstanding job of helping her and other people with varying levels of disability in what could be a dangerous transfer.
Looking out of the open door on the tender on the way to the harbor, Barb saw a sea turtle — sorry, but no pictures were taken. Once we got to the harbor, we debarked the tender and walked to a boat for our “exciting” boat tour. It wasn’t really a boat; it was a large catamaran called the CaboRey, and most of the decent viewing was from the upper decks, reachable only by steep and narrow stairs. Barb chose to stay on the first deck in a large “restaurant” and was the only person in there during our short tour.
I saw a few seals while we were waiting to board the CaboRey; it’s a wonder that any wildlife is alive in that harbor, which is overrun with speedboats, fishing boats, dive boats, tour boats, jet skis, parasailing boats, and the occasional yacht. The “tour” took us from the harbor past several beaches that allegedly had sea lions on them — I used my 3,000mm lens Nikon Coolpix P1000 and saw nothing, and I’m pretty good at picking up any wildlife.
Deftly dodging the 10,358 other watercraft taking a boat tour of the pile of rocks called “Land’s End” (it’s at the south end of the Baja Peninsula), we quickly went over to the Pacific side of the peninsula, turned around, and headed back. During this entire quickie trip, which took no more than 30 minutes, some guy gave a rambling narration that really taught us nothing (and Barb didn’t hear it in the restaurant area, where she was pining away, alone...) The highlight was him exclaiming “Thar’ she blows!” a few times when humpback whales were spotted in the distance. Before we knew it, the boat tour was over with. Darn.
Next up? The “Cabo View”. We boarded a nice coach to go to a beautiful restaurant which was touted as having the best view of Cabo’s bay, and where we would get a “free drink” (yeah, like we didn’t pay for it with the price of the shore excursion). When we got to this place, it was obvious that renovation work was under way. There was no place to sit and enjoy the drink (a choice of water, soft drinks, Corona, or Modelo), so we stood and saw more whales off in the distance.
Back on the bus, and off to San José del Cabo. This is another tourist town on the southern tip of the peninsula. The road between the Cabos is lined with resorts, giving a clue as to the major industry in the region — tourism. Our guide seemed to revel in telling us how expensive many of the resorts were, as if we were all going to jump at the chance to spend $1,500 to $25,000 a day at these “all-inclusive” places.
Once in San José, we had about 50 minutes to wander around. Sadly, the area around the town square was pretty much lined with three types of businesses — restaurant/bars/coffee shops, pharmacies, and t-shirt shops. That’s what most of Cabo San Lucas seemed to be like as well, although to the city’s credit there were also several “gentlemen’s clubs” as a fourth genre of business.
Pharmacies where one can buy all sorts of prescription drugs without a prescription seem to be big business in border and port towns in Mexico. What do they sell? Oh, all the favorites — Ozempic, Cialis, Viagra, Ivermectin, most forms of antibiotics and antivirals, and various varieties of painkillers. Honestly, even if I had a need for any of these drugs at a discount price, I’d be concerned about them being dangerous Chinese knockoffs. Apparently enough people frequent these pharmacies to make it a thriving industry.
Enough of that. We took a few pics of the old Spanish Mission that dominates the downtown area, chatted with a few fellow ship passengers who were also on the same excursion, found a restroom, and got back on the bus. Exciting.
Barb and I were both dreading the next stop; the “Glass Blowing Factory”. The only time we got excited about the art of glass blowing was on the island of Murano, just north of Venice, Italy. There it is truly an art. In the rest of the world, these places are cranking out cheesy pieces and trying to pass them off as art items.
I wanted to do one thing at this stop; get some change for a $50 bill so we could tip our driver and guide. Even on lousy shore excursions, I still think it’s appropriate to show appreciation. Well, I didn’t want to buy any glass items, so I thought I’d buy a Coke and a beer to get the change. Nope, they couldn’t do it. I then tried to pay for the refreshments with credit card, but they only wanted cash. I left them with an open beer (they opened it, I didn’t), an unopened Coke, and a grumpy look. Oh, and did I mention that the Glass Blowing Factory is next to the municipal water treatment plant (see Google Maps image below)? At least the smell wasn’t too bad.
At long last, we got back to the port, where we gladly hurried our way past the tequila bars, pharmacies, and t-shirt shops to take the tender back to the ship. Just before we arrived, our tour guide positively glowed when she pointed out the “Cabo Wabo” cantina (a competitor to the omnipresent Señor Frogs cantinas in every port) and praised owner/musician Sammy Hagar of Van Halen fame as the greatest thing to happen to Cabo San Lucas since Cipriano Ceseña arrived from Hermosillo, Sonora in 1788 and founded the town. Alrighty, then.
We had a much more fun time watching humpback whales from our veranda than we did on the entire shore excursion. The only good thing? We never have to get off of the ship in Cabo San Lucas again.
Tomorrow we’re skipping Ensenada, Mexico (us, not the ship). The shore excursions there actually did sound interesting, as there is a thriving wine industry in the area. However, we’re at the point we just want to pack our bags and get ready to fly back to Denver on Friday.
There will probably be a few more posts from this trip coming to your mailbox soon. I have taken some 360° spherical panoramas in various ports, so once I clean those up and have them ready to go, I’ll post them so you can experience being on the ship. Barb always does a detailed summary of our trips, perfect for those who are planning on similar journeys. Until then, happy travels!