So every time Mary Kaye and I come down to Cabo, we’ve hit a nearby restaurant, Romeo Y Julieta, which serves fine Italian food. Well, this time, we went on Saturday night, and service was slow (as it often is in Mexico), but while we were waiting for the check, a woman came to us to pitch us to come to a timeshare pitch. My wife and I said no a couple times, but the woman would just not go away — even after we told her that we were leaving on Monday and just had the following Sunday to do some final shopping.
Look… I know that Cabo is a huge tourist trap, and most of the money that flows around here is connected to only a couple of groups that own most of the resorts, local restaurants, and activities centers, and a large portion of the money comes from selling time shares. Apparently, 1 out of 3 people who go to a presentation buy, which seems surprisingly high to me, but the real number is still probably higher than I’d imagine. That’s why they’ll give about $200 worth of value (which is usually in the form of discounts to stuff they own, so it’s probably more like $50 worth of actual cost). And I do find it a bit fun to see how much crap I can get these folks to offer just to go to a presentation. Last time, we (arguably foolishly) got sucked into one on the shuttle bus over here, and then got the Finisteera to up the offer to visit the resort they were building next door, the Plaza Grande. For those interested, on the Los Cabos Express, which costs $13 per person to get you to any of the nearby hotels, they’ll pitch you to come see the Western Regina, which is a resort like all the others. What they’ll do is ask for $20, and in return when you go to the presentation they’ll give you the $20 back, they’ll pay for the bus to your hotel ($26), will provide free transportation in a van back to the airport when you leave (about $30), and will give you two tickets to the big boat for a booze cruise ($85 / person, so $170). So, you’ve just been offered about $226 worth of value to you (assuming you want the cruise) that you would have had to pay, just for a few hours of your life on vacation.
The Finisterra upped this with $100 off our room service bill. So hey, $326 worth of stuff… and for a resort right next door, vs trucking out 30 minutes to the Regina, so it did work out reasonably well. Again, this was back in 2001. The Finisterra is now being much more slick about their offer… they’ll just invite you for $100 off and activities discount, but we overheard some people trying to set them up, and they were a bit of a pain — only one discount for something, not per person, and you could only pick certain days. Lovely. However, while pestering people when they get off the plane, on the bus, or when you check-in is one thing. It’s annoying, but ignorable. However, pestering people while they’re waiting for the check at a restaurant is just offensive. I didn’t go to a restaurant to be pitched, I went there to eat.
So, Romeo Y Julieta - you are now dead to MK and I. No On Notice or anything — there are plenty of other places in Cabo, we’ll go there. Oh, in other news — I left my ATM card in the ATM yesterday right before we went. Spent most of the evening tracking down the 800 number to call; ended up calling a friend who looked it up for me. Housekeeping found it and has it, and called me this morning — so at least the staff is honest here. But then again, they work for a living. 
