A beautiful condominium resort with SWEEPING VIEWS of the ocean and GORGEOUS PICTURESQUE sunsets at night!
I've booked stays at Club Marena through Airbnb and this was my 2nd trip to the same Grand Villas building. Each stay was so pleasant and relatively inexpensive at around $100 per night! Many units are owned by Americans and used as Airbnb investment properties/ vacation homes.
It can be a bit confusing to get here especially if you are from the states and are not used to driving in Mexico. Yelp has the address as Carr. Tijuana-Ensenada Km 38. 5 and Waze has it mapped out to "Club Marena Condos" at Carretera Federal 1. Well, Waze is perfectly dependable and you can just map it and navigate your car ride through Waze.
There's a security gate in front and you will spend a few minutes to register. Hopefully, your Airbnb host has already forwarded your registration to the security guard. We unfortunately had to fill out the same form twice even though we had already sent it to our host.
Security guards are a constant presence along the beach behind the buildings and we felt safe throughout each of our stays.
There's a parking garage underneath each condo building and if you're lucky, the Airbnb host will give you access to their garage door opener. Otherwise, you will park in their visitor spot.
The condos are usually 2 bedrooms/2 baths with wonderfully high ceiling windows and glass sliding doors to the balcony overlooking the ocean. You can easily see the surfers swimming in the ocean and even spot the large Jesus statue in the distance!
Unfortunately, there's a new building being constructed next door. It was still in the works even a year ago when we last visited. So I hear the thunderous banging of the construction nearby during the day even a year later.
You can easily access the beach by walking past the community pool. The pool is only reserved for owners and not for the rental guests. However, the beach is a nice perk to an otherwise fine resort!
We even stopped by the sales office. Apparently they plan on constructing 3 more buildings! YES, THREE MORE BUILDINGS over the next decade. The interior of the the new building is really gorgeous with tasteful modern designs but prices are around $550k with nearly 20% in additional closing costs and a $300/month HOA. The kicker is that even though the existing buildings allow short term Airbnb rentals, the soon-to-be constructed buildings WILL NOT ALLOW SHORT-TERM RENTALS under a month. This would make purchasing the new condos as an investment property an unwise financial decision, especially with the flood of new units over the next decade!
Despite the disappointment as a potential investment property, Club Marena is a great condo resort for vacationing! AWESOME VIEWS! And a very reasonable rental price through Airbnb! Will be visiting again next year! read more