In the first three installments of this series, we followed Conrad Stanley from the Cross Border Express terminal in Tijuana down to Cabo San Lucas, where he spent 14 days on vacation just before Christmas. In this post, we follow him home, with a surprise twist at the end.
When the trip was up, Conrad caught his Volaris flight back to Tijuana. Walking from the Tijuana International airport terminal, through the Cross Border Express and U.S. Customs, then outside to the curb in the U.S., total elapsed time: 9 minutes flat. Awesome!
Then he walked from the CBX terminal to a bus stop. The bus delivered him to the trolley to downtown San Diego, where he caught another bus to the airport for his flight back to Vegas. All for an $8 day pass.
Another aspect of traveling to Mexico is exchanging dollars into pesos. While Cabo merchants widely accept U.S dollars, they provide change in pesos at a noticeably unfavorable exchange rate. Some travel experts recommend using credit or debit cards in Mexico, especially at resort destinations, but Conrad doesn’t want to risk fraud or identity theft via a card skimmer at a business or ATM machine down there.
Before he left for Cabo, he exchanged $750 for 14,660 pesos — not quite the prime rate, but very nearly, with no added transaction or commission fees. He received 19.55 pesos per US$1 at the Foreign Money Exchange on Convention Center Drive just east of the Strip. Wells Fargo was offering 17.50 per dollar.
An advantage of exchanging dollars for pesos in advance is that the moment you cross into Mexico, you have money to spend. For Conrad, that came in handy for paying for sustenance at the Tijuana airport bar while waiting for his flight — without having to use the airport exchange at its horrific rate.
He arrived back in the States with $26 worth of pesos. In the end, instead of paying more than $4,000 for his flight, accommodations, food and drink, and extracurriculars, he wound up spending less than $700, not quite $45 per day. Not to mention paying half of what the next dinner table over was paying, plus discounted activities.
Conrad can’t wait to return. He’s so anxious, in fact, he just booked another week-long trip for later this month. Round-trip from Tijuana to Cabo is all of $76.33 total. Of that, Volaris keeps only $16.09 each way; the rest goes to fees and taxes.
This time, he’ll stay at the Marina Fiesta, the best location for nightlife. It’s right on water at the marina and the pool has a swim-up bar. Cost for accommodations for the week with another special timeshare-owner deal: $242. (Trip Advisor lists rooms at the Fiesta for $142 per night.) Like the del Palmar, the Fiesta also offers an all-inclusive option for $100 per day. Thing is, it doesn’t have its own restaurant, sending guests to seven restaurants at the marina. However, six of the seven are included on the Cabo Passport 50% off list. So it would make no sense whatsoever for him to opt for the all-inclusive when he can eat at the exact same restaurants for half-price.
Viva Mexico!
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