Baja California Is the Perfect Place for ’92 to Go South

There are few better ways to observe New Year’s Eve than by sipping a frosty margarita at poolside in a Baja California hotel.

There are several hotels just south of the border that give the holiday a decidedly Mexican twist.

Rooms at the ever-popular Rosarito Beach Hotel are long gone for New Year’s Eve, but there are still seats for that night’s special Mexican cabaret. It’s like Viva Las Vegas, Baja-style. The show--featuring singers, traditional Mexican dancing, and rope tricks--follows a buffet dinner. Total cost (not counting drinks): $45 per person.

Several other hotels in the area do have rooms available. The Quinta del Mar Hotel is right in Rosarito. The New Port Baja Hotel and the Hotel Las Rocas are five to 10 miles south of town.

A few more miles south (15, to be exact), the Plaza del Mar will offer a different taste of Mexican tradition. The entertainment will be the standard live music, but shortly before midnight, each guest will be handed 12 grapes. As each hour is rung, a grape will be eaten, in memory of the sweetness of each of the past 12 months.

It’s part of a $79-per-person package that includes a three-day, two-night stay (through Saturday afternoon) and on New Year’s Eve itself, a buffet dinner and bottle of champagne. Meanwhile, for the real party beasts, there will be an open bar for an additional $20.

A $45-per-person package at the Estero Beach Resort, a hotel/RV park on the shores of Punta Banda about six miles south of Ensenada, includes a New Year’s Eve dinner (chateaubriand or shrimp with tournedos of beef and a glass of champagne), music, dancing, pinatas and other entertainment starting with a posada, a re-enactment of Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter. Performers in costumes indigenous to Bethlehem in Jesus’ time will walk in a parade, singing traditional posada songs.

Rooms (with ocean views) are extra, starting at $82 per night, double occupancy. There are still several rooms left, but the hotel suggests calling for reservations before heading all the way down there.

And if you don’t want to travel that far, there’s fun to be had right at the border.

Tijuana’s largest hotel, the 422-room Fiesta Americana, has a special New Year’s Eve package--room, dinner and dancing--for $227, double occupancy. Elsewhere in town, the Hotel Lucerna is offering the same sort of package at $214, double occupancy.

“We have the same people come back year after year,” said Laura Urive, reservations manager at the Plaza del Mar. “A lot of Americans like to celebrate New Year in a different way, so they come to Mexico.”