Review: Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos Hotel

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is an all-inclusive resort situated on ocean-front property in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, on the southern end of the Baja California peninsula. The resort is a little more than 20 minutes from Los Cabos International Airport and about 25 minutes north east of Cabo San Lucas. Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos features over a dozen restaurants and bars, plus a 24/7 coffee shop.

There are a lot of factors to consider when booking a resort — especially an all-inclusive one. Let’s take a closer look at Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos Hotel. This review is based on a trip taken in May 2023.

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos rooms

While Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos offers several upgrade room options, including swim-up rooms and various suites, the standard rooms are quite nice, spacious and clean. The standard Master King room on our trip had a bed and TV area, as well as a sitting space with couch, two chairs and a table. There was also a standard-sized balcony with a small table and two chairs. The bathroom came with dual sinks, a roomy shower and a large tub.

In addition to the typical amenities — such as a safe, ironing board, air conditioning and closet space — the standard Master King room also came with a mini-fridge that was stocked daily with snacks, water, soft drinks and beer.

We had no problems with the Wi-Fi on property, but keep in mind that streaming services you use in the U.S. may not be available in Mexico, so download content ahead of time if you plan to do some late-night binging.

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos pools

There are four pools at Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos. In the center part of the resort, you’ll find the main pool. Daily activities take place here, such as water yoga, water volleyball and water aerobics.

Just past the main pool is the infinity pool; it looks out towards the ocean and has the swim up bar. Both pools have a variety of seating options, including lounge chairs, cabanas and in-water lounges.

Off to one side of the resort, away from the hustle and bustle of the central pool area, you’ll find the adults-only pool for guests ages 18 and over. There’s a bar and a variety of in-water and pool deck seating options here, too.

On the opposite side of the property from the adults-only pool is the kids pool, complete with slides, dump buckets and a mini-waterpark.

Finding pool area seats will largely depend on how crowded the resort is during your stay. During our shoulder-season trip, we never had trouble getting a spot, but the earlier you arrived, the more likely you were to snag a prime location or in-water seat. Despite signage asking people not to, there was “spot saving” going on, as guests would place personal items and towels on chairs before they headed off for breakfast.

Pool cabanas were available to rent during our time there, ranging from $105-$180 per day, depending on type, location and included amenities. Some cabanas were sometimes available day-of, but others (especially those in prime locations) had to be booked several days in advance. You should contact the concierge directly if you’re interested in reserving one.

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos restaurants and bars

One of the draws to the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is that it is an all-inclusive resort where most of your meals and drinks (excluding premium alcoholic beverages and some specialty high-end menu items) are included in the upfront price.

Over the course of our stay, we ate at every restaurant except for the Japanese restaurant Dozo, which is also the only one that required advance reservations. We also ordered room service.

Generally speaking, the food quality was very good — nothing we had was bland or bad. There was also very little that I would qualify as amazing, but broadly speaking, you’re going to get good meals at any on-site restaurant.

The service was consistently impeccable. From the hosts to the servers to the managers, the hospitality was top notch — every single meal.

Here’s a quick rundown of the restaurants we ate at and our experience:

• El Molino (Mexican): A great place if you didn’t get your fill of Mexican food at lunch from the food truck or pool bar. We tried a little bit of everything, including chips with guacamole and salsa, burritos, enchiladas, and churros for dessert. All of it was great, and we would have gone back here if we had more nights on our trip. 

• Maria’s Tacos at Baja Bar: The bar at the adults-only pool serves up fresh tacos during lunch hour known as Maria’s Tacos. During our stay, Maria herself was at the grill fixing up the tacos. They only came in beef, but we ordered them three at a time and often came back for a second round. Do not miss out on these tacos during your stay, it’s worth the short walk to the Baja Bar.

• Zaffiro (Italian): This spot offers an amazing beach side location for dinner. We had wine, salads, penne pasta, lasagna and dessert here. The lasagna was one of my favorite items of the entire trip. You don’t want to skip this place, especially if you can be there during sunset. 

• Cortez (Mexican/South American): Also located beachside, we ate breakfast here twice. The views are second-to-none, and the menu has a wide range of options. Its smoothies were a great start to the day, and they have a variety of classic breakfast dishes, like eggs, pancakes and french toast. 

• Bon Vivant (French): This is an adults-only restaurant. Here, we ate bread, salad, drinks, steak and dessert. Dress code is enforced, so you’ll need to head back to your room and change after a day at the pool. 

• La Plaza (Buffet): The international buffet has a nightly theme for dinner. During our stay, it rotated between Mediterranean, Indian, BBQ and Mexican. The buffet offering is more consistent for the breakfast and lunch hours. Personally, we preferred the breakfast food more than the lunch food, especially given the other lunch options around the property. If the theme of the night is a cuisine you like, especially one not offered at the other restaurants, the buffett makes for a nice easy and fast meal. 

• Coco Loco (Snack bar / tacos): During lunch hours, Coco Loco served up pizza, burgers and fries. Take a pass on the burgers, but the pizza and fries were solid and the food came out fast. In the evening, the space transitioned to a taco shop, where the flank steak tacos were amazing. 

• El Catrin Food Truck (Quesadillas): Located poolside in the center area, this food truck serves up lunch-time quesadillas with a variety of meat options. If you want steak, pass the food truck and head to Maria’s Tacos instead, but it’s chicken or shrimp quesadillas are a solid lunch item. 

• Healthy Bar (Smoothies / bowls): Also in the center pool area, the Healthy Bar serves a variety of smoothie options by morning and transitions to poke bowls for lunch. We had several different smoothies and bowls over the course of our trip and they were all solid. The board out front lists all the options and ingredients so you can pick to your liking. 

• Hacienda Baja Grill (Steakhouse): Having traveled to Mexico several times, my stance on hamburgers remains the same: Don’t order them. If you love burgers, they will always let you down. I didn’t follow my own advice and while the burger here wasn’t bad, there were too many other options on the menu I should have tried. The salads were both great but the steak came overcooked. This was probably the most disappointing restaurant during our trip. 

• Coffee House (Drinks / snacks): Adjacent to the lobby and open 24/7, you’ll find the Coffee House. You can get specialty coffees, snacks, ice cream, donuts and sandwiches here. We went here each morning for our caffeine fix, but the coffee wasn’t anything amazing. Try the donuts.

• Room service (24/7): We ordered room service a couple times and the food was both fast and decent. 

There are several bars around the property, but we did not spend much time at them, other than the ones at the pool.

Your bar options include:

• Spirit of 1968: Sports bar with games.

• El Piano Lobby Bar: Has nightly entertainment. 

• Baja Bar: Poolside in the adults-only section, home of Maria’s Tacos. 

• Bar AZul: Swim-up bar in the infinity pool. 

• El Mirador: Martinis and special hand-crafted drinks. 

• El Agave: Under the waterfall and featuring tequila drinks, this spot also hosts tasting events where reservations are required. 

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos fitness center

The fitness center is located on the fourth floor of building #1, and our room happened to be just down the hall from it, which was a nice convenience. The gym had a cardio section with treadmills, ellipticals and seated exercise bikes.

On the other side was a weight room with a full range of free weights as well as weight machines. Yoga mats and blocks, exercise balls, and resistance bands were also available. The fitness center had a large balcony area with views of the pool and the ocean, which could also be seen from the cardio area inside.

A basketball court and tennis court were located just outside from the fitness center.

During our stay, we never ran into a crowded fitness center, and were always able to get the equipment we needed. Granted, we were there during shoulder-season and often worked out first thing in the morning.

We were sent a Zen Spa menu in advance of our trip, but did not indulge given the pricing. A standard full body relaxing massage was $219 for 50 minutes. Instead, we walked across the street to Natura Spa where the cost was just $50 for a 60-minute Swedish massage.

Natura Spa lacked some of the ambience of a resort spa, but the massages were good; we went there twice during our trip because it was much more affordable. Reservations were not required and we walked up both times.

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos beach

Its oceanside locale was one of the big draws for us to the resort. So, we spent a large portion of our trip watching the ocean from various spots on the property. The resort offers beach seating for guests who prefer the sand as opposed to the pool deck.

During our trip, and as is fairly normal in San Jose del Cabo, the ocean was not suitable for swimming or playing in. Danger flags were posted on the beach, and the crashing waves were very large and rough. We also saw sting rays jumping out of the water.

The resort has a roped-off area so the merchants selling items on the beach cannot come into the sitting area, but you are welcome to walk out to them if you want to shop. The beach area also had a variety of games available, including volleyball, cornhole and basketball.

Booking Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos

The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos just recently went up a category level in Hyatt’s award chart and now sits as an Award Category D. All-inclusive resorts in Category D cost anywhere from 25,000 (off-peak) to 35,000 (peak) points per night. At Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos, that price includes two people in the room. Additional people in the room will cost you another 13,000-17,000 points per night, depending on the day.

You can pay cash rates as well. Depending on the time of year, we found rates in recent searches from $400 per night in low season up to nearly $600 in high season.

The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is a family-friendly resort. Children 2 and under are free, and we saw several families taking advantage of that policy during our trip. When you’re booking, you have to accurately provide the breakdown of adults and kids in your travel group. Kids ages 3-12 incur a child cost, and anyone 13 and older count as an adult.

Cards for earning points toward stays at Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos

One great way to earn some World of Hyatt points and cut the cost of a future stay at Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is to open a co-branded Hyatt card or a card that earns points you can transfer to World of Hyatt.

Here are a few cards to consider:

Final thoughts on Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos

All in all, our experience at the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos was very good. We enjoyed the wide variety of food options, the service was amazing, the room was spacious and the location on the ocean was what we wanted.

Our chief complaint from the trip was the inconsistencies of the physical and digital menus and schedules. Since these were not always accurate, we sometimes showed up for events at the wrong time, or expected certain things to be open when they were not. Still, these were minor inconveniences in what was overall a satisfying all-inclusive experience.