The agreement, in plain words

Who these terms are with

These terms are between you and Chonchos Hideaway, which operates the property at Los Chonchos, Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco, Mexico. In these terms “we” and “us” mean that entity, and “you” means the person making the booking and everyone traveling in their party.

By sending a booking request and paying for a stay you accept these terms on behalf of everyone in your party, and you are responsible for passing them on.

Booking and payment

There is no instant booking. You send dates and a little about who is coming, and we reply within two days.

If the dates are available and the fit is right, we send a secure payment link. Card payments are processed by Stripe; we never see or store your full card number.

The booking is confirmed only once payment has cleared in full. Nothing is held before that.

Rates quoted are valid only for the dates inquired about.

The booking must be made by someone aged 21 or over.

Three nights is the minimum stay. Reservations cannot be transferred between bungalows.

Each bungalow sleeps a set number and the rate is set against it. You may not exceed the number of guests on your booking, and you may not have visitors to stay without asking us first. If more people arrive than were booked, we may decline to accommodate them, charge for them at the going rate, or end the stay.

Arrival is at 1pm and departure is at 9am, to match the water taxi. A later departure can usually be arranged on request.

Rates, and what they include

The nightly rate includes tax and one five-gallon jug of filtered drinking water for the bungalow. Each additional jug is 200 pesos, payable in cash.

Taking all six bungalows at once takes 5% off the total.

The rate does not include getting here. The public water taxi, private boats and the mules are run by other people — we neither operate them nor set their prices, and we take no payment for them.

There are no ATMs and no card machines at Los Chonchos, in Chimo, or anywhere between. Everything on the ground is cash, in pesos.

Cancellation and refunds

Cancel more than 72 hours before your arrival date and you receive a full refund of the accommodation, less Stripe’s processing fee.

Cancel inside 72 hours, up to the end of the day before your arrival date, and you receive 75% of the accommodation, with nothing deducted.

On your arrival day itself, or if you simply do not come, there is no refund. The booking is charged in full to the card.

On a full refund we deduct Stripe’s processing fee, because Stripe keeps it whether or not we refund you and we cannot get it back. On a 75% refund we absorb it.

We do not cancel for weather. A storm, a rough sea or a crossing that cannot run is part of coming to a place like this, and it does not cancel your booking.

The one exception is damage. If a storm leaves a bungalow unfit to stay in and we cannot take you, you get a full refund. That is the only circumstance in which we cancel a confirmed stay.

What we cannot refund is everything else you booked around it — your flights, your nights in Puerto Vallarta, the rest of the trip. That is what travel insurance is for, and it is the reason we keep recommending it.

Changes and cancellations must come from the cardholder, in writing. Refunds take up to two weeks to come through.

Getting here is your responsibility

Los Chonchos has no road. Reaching it means a boat crossing with a wet landing on the sand, or a mountain trail from Chimo on foot with mules carrying luggage.

Arriving here is physical. You step off a moving boat into shin-deep water, onto sand, and walk up an unlit path. If the swell is too high the alternative is fifty minutes over a mountain on foot. There is no road, no step-free route, and no medical help closer than Puerto Vallarta.

So before you book, tell us if anyone in your party would find any of that difficult — mobility, a recent injury, a heart or breathing condition, a pregnancy, anything at all. We are not asking to be nosy and we are not looking for a reason to say no. We are asking because the day you arrive is the worst possible day to discover it, and because there is often something we can do if we know in advance.

We use what you tell us to plan your arrival and for nothing else, and we do not keep it after your stay.

Arranging and paying for that journey is yours to do. If weather, sea state, mechanical failure or anything else prevents or delays the crossing, that does not alter the booking or create a right to a refund under the terms above. If the swell is too high to land at Los Chonchos, the water taxi runs to Chimo instead and you walk in over the mountain. Staff meet the boats and help guests on and off them, and handle luggage at the landing.

Build slack into your plans in both directions, particularly on the day you fly.

House rules, and charges

The house rules published on our Policies page form part of these terms. The short version: quiet hours 10pm to 8am, no loud parties, no amplified music outdoors, no beach fires, no pets, no firearms, no nudity, no commercial activity without written consent.

The booking is in your name, and so is the responsibility. You are answerable for everyone in your party as you are for yourself — the rules, the charges, the damage, and the way people behave towards the staff, the other owners and their guests.

If you are bringing anyone under 18, you must be their parent or legal guardian, or have that person’s written authority, and they are in your care for the whole stay.

A charge of $150 applies if excessive cleaning is needed after your stay. A charge of $150 applies if glass or food is found in the general trash. A charge of $500 applies if septic maintenance is required because of misuse.

Those three charges are the common ones. More generally, you are responsible for the cost of repairing or replacing anything you or your party damages or loses beyond ordinary wear, and we will show you what it cost rather than charge a round number. We have up to thirty days after you leave to raise it with you, and after that we will not.

Los Chonchos is a private community of individually owned bungalows inside an ecological preserve, not a hotel. Other owners and their guests may be on the property and on the beaches during your stay.

If someone is putting other people at risk, damaging the place, or ignoring the house rules after being asked once, we may end the stay and ask the party to leave on the next available boat.

There is no refund in that situation. We cannot fill a bungalow at a day’s notice on a coast with no road, and the cost of that sits with the party that caused it. Getting away is arranged the same way getting here was, and at your own cost.

You stay at your own risk

This is a remote, off-grid property in the jungle, on an undeveloped coast, reachable only by sea or mountain trail. There are no emergency services, clinics, hospitals or pharmacies at Los Chonchos or in Chimo. The paths are unlit and uneven. The sea is open Pacific, unpatrolled, with no lifeguard. The bungalows are open-sided and wildlife comes and goes freely.

The bungalows are open-sided. That is the point of them, and it is also why there is nowhere here that locks. There is no safe, no reception desk and no luggage room. Los Chonchos is a quiet place and theft is not something we have had a problem with, but bring only what you would be relaxed about leaving on a table, and keep your passport and your money on you on the boat.

Salt air, humidity, sand and rain get into everything. A dry bag is the single most useful thing you can pack.

You, and everyone in your party, stay entirely at your own risk. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we accept no responsibility or liability for any injury, illness, death, loss, theft or damage to person or property suffered by you or anyone in your party, however caused, during your journey here, your stay, or your journey away — including anything arising from the boat crossing, the mountain trail, the beaches, the sea, the wildlife, the off-grid systems, or the acts of third parties such as boat operators and muleteers.

Children are the responsibility of their parent or guardian at all times.

Comprehensive travel insurance, including medical cover and evacuation, is strongly recommended. We are not responsible for losses an insurer would ordinarily cover.

Nothing in these terms excludes any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The version that applies to your stay is the one published when your booking was confirmed.