We Stayed at Marquis Los Cabos for My Birthday

For my birthday this year, George and I made a decision we almost never make: we slowed down. No city-hopping, no itinerary stuffed with reservations across three neighborhoods. Just four days at an all-inclusive resort in Cabo San Lucas with a pool, a hot tub, and an ambitious goal of eating at every single restaurant on the property. We chose Marquis Los Cabos, and it delivered on some fronts more than others.

About Marquis Los Cabos

Marquis Los Cabos sits at the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, right where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez. It's positioned as one of the more intimate, upscale all-inclusive options in the area, smaller than the massive resort corridors you'll find further up the strip, with a focus on culinary variety. On paper, the property has multiple restaurants covering Mexican seafood (Vista Ballenas), Asian fusion (Sakke), Italian Mediterranean (Pergola), plus rotating buffets and event dinners. The ocean views from basically everywhere on the property are genuinely stunning.

We went in August (Jasmine is a Leo, shoutout to all my fellow Leos), which meant temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s Fahrenheit, humid and completely relentless. You are not going outside for fun. You are going outside because the pool is outside and the pool is the entire point.

What I wish someone had told us before we arrived: the restaurant reservation system at this resort is unlike any all-inclusive we've stayed at before. When we checked in, our check-in host mentioned we should book restaurants soon because it gets busy. What she did not make clear is that basically every restaurant for our entire four-night stay was already booked out. You can't walk in. You can't double-book two restaurants on the same day through the app. If it says unavailable, it means unavailable. We spent a solid chunk of our first evening trying to figure out how to strategically eat at more than two restaurants during our stay, which is not the vibe you want on a birthday trip. Plan ahead. Book everything the moment your reservation is confirmed.

Day 1: Poolside Lunch and Vista Ballenas

We got in, dropped our bags, and immediately needed food and drinks. First drinks of the resort stay: I got a Midori sour, George got a piña colada. We both like our drinks sweet and sugary (neither of us are big alcohol people), and both delivered on that front. Very coconutty piña colada. Very sweet Midori sour. No complaints.

The Poolside Lunch

For lunch we ordered at the pool bar: chips, pico, and guacamole to start, plus an "Acapulco ceviche shrimp pizza" and fish tacos. The chips were fine but could be better. The pico was really good. The shrimp pizza (thin crust, shrimp, pineapple) was genuinely impressive for an all-inclusive pool lunch. The crust had a good crunch to it, the sauce was very vibrant and acidic, and everything melded together in a way that surprised us both. George: "The shrimp is juicy. It's voluptuous." Not much individual flavor from the shrimp, but the texture and the sauce made it work.

The fish tacos were not the move. Fried, corn tortilla, but soggy on the inside. The fish itself wasn't seasoned: all the flavor was coming from the pico de gallo, specifically the onions. By themselves they were one-note. That said: George had a bite and found it passable. "It's not like an amazing fish taco, but it's not bad."

The best thing from lunch, hands down, was the ceviche. Garlicky, good onion, lots of lime, a hint of spice. "We should just put the ceviche inside one of the corn tortillas and swap it out with the fish. It would be amazing." We were right. If you're eating at the pool bar, get the ceviche.

Dinner at Vista Ballenas

After a nap (we had slept a combined maybe one hour before the flight), we cleaned up and headed to Vista Ballenas for our first proper sit-down dinner. The reservation system frustration hit us right here: only two restaurants were actually bookable for our entire stay, but we made the best of it.

The food arrived at a genuinely reasonable pace and came in tasting-size portions, which is exactly how we prefer to eat. We always want to try as many things as possible, and tasting portions mean you can actually do that without waddling back to your room.

The grilled octopus appetizer was decent. It came with cactus and a blue corn tortilla, which felt like it was trying to do more than I was looking for. My preference is octopus, grilled, on its own, maybe with some lemon and a spicy sauce. This one was fine but not my favorite version. The Aztec broth soup, though: that was something. Rich, roasty, smoky, with onion, beef, and what we thought might be bell pepper. The more you ate it, the more the flavors kept building on each other. George ordered a shrimp appetizer that came in a sweet corn sauce that was just too sweet, like someone decided the corn wasn't sweet enough and just added sugar. We ended up putting the shrimp directly into the Aztec broth and it was immediately better.

The tamal was dry. The flavor was okay, but eating it on its own was a little flat. Dipped into the Aztec broth? Completely transformed. The masa soaked it up and it became the best bite of the night. By the end of dinner we were using the broth as a sauce for everything.

The ribeye tacos for my entrée were really good: juicy, beautifully wrapped in an incredibly thin flour tortilla. George compared it immediately to the thin pancake that comes with Peking duck. "You know that Taiwanese tortilla?" is what we call it in our family even though I'm pretty sure that's not the actual name and my mom had no idea what we were talking about when we said it. Q, stretchy, chewy in the best way. A solid ending to a solid dinner.

Day 2: Birthday at the Pool and a Tale of Two Dinners

Happy birthday to me! I had my one-piece swimsuit and skirt combo ready, George had his birthday suit (his words, not mine), and we headed to breakfast.

Birthday Breakfast and the Fruit Situation

The breakfast buffet had a made-to-order taco station, and getting a fresh taco at a breakfast buffet is always the right call. I had birthday tacos. They were good. We also got iced tea and what George was thrilled to discover was a traditional Mexican drink: the horchata he'd been hoping for was unavailable ("Do you have horchata?" "No." "...") but something close was on the menu and he was very happy about it.

The fruit plate was watermelon, papaya, and one singular plum. The papaya was funky, funky as hell, and I loved it. George loved it. If you're not a papaya person, try it with condensed milk. It sounds odd but it completely transforms the fruit. Put it in a smoothie or pour the condensed milk right on top. Trust me.

The Pool, Nacho Bar, and Paletas

We spent most of the day at the pool, which was the right call. The water temperature was close to perfect: cool enough to be refreshing in 98-103°F heat, warm enough that you weren't gasping when you got in. We stayed until about 3:30.

The poolside lunch this day was a nacho bar. I was hoping for a taco bar and a little disappointed, but the spread was genuinely good. New York steak, ribeye, cactus, pickled onions, radish, more peppers, and the juiciest limes I've seen in a while. The limes were actively juicing themselves. "Oh yeah, these are juicing already." They were very good nachos.

After lunch, resort staff came around with paletas. I got guava. George got pistachio (if you've seen our Italy video, you know where this is going). The guava paleta tasted like I was eating actual fresh guava, seeds and everything. It was perfect. George's pistachio had actual pistachios in it. Not pistachio flavoring. Real pistachios. On a 100°F day, these were 10/10.

Dinner at Sakke and the Mexican Fiesta

Dinner at Sakke, the Asian fusion restaurant, was a mixed experience. The edamame was great: tossed in chili, soy sauce, and garlic, very umami, very gourmet. The sushi selection was more complicated.

The salmon looked unusually orange (George kept side-eyeing it), but tasted fresh and was fine. The tuna tataki we both agreed we'd prefer not seared: being seared gives it a chewy texture that neither of us loves. But the real problem was the ebie. We both tried it, looked at each other, and spit it out. It tasted like mildew. This is a hard lesson we keep reinforcing for ourselves and for you: if something smells wrong, looks wrong, tastes wrong when you're eating raw fish, put it down. Don't try to push through it.

The vegetable tempura was a highlight: eggplant, pumpkin, broccoli all beautifully done. My ranking for tempura will always go: taro first, then pumpkin and the squashes, then eggplant. Potato at the bottom. This didn't have taro, but everything else was well executed.

After Sakke, we crashed the Mexican Fiesta event happening on the property that night. The event had dancers, tap dancing performances, and food, and the al pastor taco at that event was better than our entire dinner at the Asian restaurant. Better than all of it. The al pastor had that proper charred-sweet-savory balance you want. If the Fiesta is running during your stay, make time for it.

Day 3: Chair Wars, Spa, and the Pergola Disappointment

We woke up on Day 3 and went downstairs at 8:30 to find chairs. There were none. Not a single chair available at the pool. At 8:30 in the morning. We were told to get there earlier if we wanted a good spot, which on vacation means getting up at 6 or 6:30, which is psychotic. We understand the logic. We reject it on principle.

Breakfast was a tosta (a large tortilla grilled with cheese on top), plus skirt steak and pico with guacamole. Good. Simple. Exactly what we needed.

We eventually got spa appointments, which included access to the spa facilities when you book a treatment. Post-spa, the plan was to eat at two restaurants in one night: Sakke (hibachi/teppanyaki menu) first, then Pergola for Italian Mediterranean.

Sakke's hibachi menu was significantly better than the previous night's sushi selection. Simple flavors: soy sauce, yum yum sauce (which tastes very similar to Thousand Island dressing), clean proteins. It's hard to go wrong with teppanyaki. The food came out well, the portions were generous, and we ended up eating more than we planned before our second dinner.

Pergola was not good. We only ordered one entrée each because we were already full from Sakke, so we didn't give it a completely fair shot, but George's salmon didn't taste right, and my lasagna had pasta so soft it was nearly indistinguishable from the béchamel sauce it was sitting in. The whole thing felt waterlogged. We went to bed a little disappointed.

Day 4: Last Breakfast and Goodbye

Our last morning. We had breakfast and finally hit the breakfast taco station one more time, and this time George got the huitlacoche tacos, which we both agreed were the best tacos of the entire trip. Soft, not too salty, beautifully made. He should have gotten these on day one.

One last pool sesh. The tan, as George put it, was not a golden brown, more of a charcoal purple from the chlorine. We packed up our wet suits in plastic bags, took one last look at that ocean view, and called it a trip.

The Final Verdict

Marquis Los Cabos is a beautiful resort with genuinely great views, a fantastic pool setup, and a few meals worth going back for. But the reservation system is the thing we keep coming back to: book every restaurant the moment your reservation is confirmed, because by the time you check in, your options will already be limited. That's not something you expect at an all-inclusive.

Our top dishes from the stay:

1. Al Pastor Tacos at the Mexican Fiesta: better than any sit-down meal we had
2. Ceviche at the pool bar: fresh, garlicky, bright with lime
3. Ribeye Tacos at Vista Ballenas: the thin flour tortilla made these
4. Huitlacoche Tacos at the breakfast buffet: George's favorite thing he ate all trip

Skip or temper expectations: The ebie at Sakke (trust your instincts with raw fish), the lasagna at Pergola (very soft pasta), the fish tacos at the pool bar.

Practical tips: Book every restaurant reservation before you arrive. The August heat is no joke: pack sunscreen and actually use it before you go outside. And if resort staff come around with paletas, drop everything and get one.

Overall, this was exactly what we needed: a proper reset, a few incredible meals scattered between some forgettable ones, and way too many hours in the pool. For my birthday? I'd take it.