For the third year running, the World Surf League is bringing a Qualifying Series event to Playa Cerritos, this time as the Corona Cero Surf Open Cerritos, scheduled for November 19 through 22. State tourism officials met with WSL organizers earlier this year to lock in the date, and the event now carries enough weight that organizers have tied it to points toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. That is a real trajectory. What is less discussed is what has happened to the beach itself in the years since the event first arrived.
When the inaugural Pacifico Surf Open Cerritos ran in November 2024, the bluff above the beach still had Hacienda Cerritos on it. The cliffside hotel had been a fixture since 2010, its lookout tower visible from the sand, its swim-up bar and helicopter pad the kind of detail that made the property a scene-stealer for anyone driving Highway 19. By the time the third edition rolls around this November, that hotel is no longer operating. The event has grown. The building that used to sit above it has not survived to see the growth.
Three Editions, One Hometown Surfer
The event's short history is worth laying out plainly, because it explains why this year feels different from a one-off surf contest passing through.
In 2024, the Pacifico Surf Open Cerritos became the first WSL Qualifying Series stop ever held in mainland Mexico, a men's QS 1000 that drew competitors from 13 countries. Jett Schilling won it with a comeback finals-day performance, but the storyline locals actually followed was Lucas Cassity, a 16-year-old from Los Cerritos who pushed to a Semifinal finish in front of his own hometown crowd, the best result of his career to that point.
By 2025, the title sponsor had changed to Corona Cero, the points on offer had risen to 2,000 toward Challenger Series qualification, and Cassity was back, again reaching Finals Day with the same hometown support behind him. Hayden Rodgers won that edition in a rematch final against Ryan Huckabee.
Now the third edition is set for this November, backed by the same coalition that has supported it since the start: the WSL, the Baja California Sur Surfing Association, the state tourism office, the municipal government, the state Sports Institute, and Grupo Modelo. Three consecutive years, a rotating cast of sponsors, and one Los Cerritos native who keeps giving the event a local face instead of letting it feel like an import.
What Used to Sit on the Bluff
Hacienda Cerritos was never just a place to sleep. It hosted weddings, concerts, corporate retreats, even political gatherings, and it functioned as the closest thing Cerritos had to a landmark lodging option right on the beach. As of this spring, travel coverage of the area confirmed the property is no longer operating, a correction editors had to append to earlier guides that still described it as open.
Here is the part residents should actually know before event week: several major booking platforms still list Hacienda Cerritos as available, with room rates, amenities, and check-in instructions intact. If a friend or houseguest searches for lodging near Playa Cerritos this fall and books what looks like a working hotel on that cliff, they may show up to find nothing operating there. It is worth mentioning this directly to anyone visiting for the Surf Open who is arranging their own stay.
The loss of that anchor does not mean Cerritos has less to offer. It means the businesses actually absorbing surf-week crowds are smaller, sit closer to sea level, and were never designed to be the singular destination the way the hacienda was marketed to be.
What Actually Carries the Beach Now
Ask anyone who spends real time at Cerritos where they eat and drink, and the same handful of names come up. Barracuda Cantina remains the easy, unhurried choice for fish tacos and cocktails right off the beach. Shaka's Cantina is the biggest full-menu restaurant in town, the kind of place that can seat a group without a wait even when the sand is packed. Freesouls has built a following for Mediterranean plates a short walk from the water, and Cerritos Tropical, tucked under the palm trees on the beach's northeast corner, is the spot locals point newcomers to for guacamole and shade. For a dinner worth planning around rather than grabbing between surf sessions, Hierbabuena in El Pescadero is still considered one of the strongest kitchens in the corridor.
On the water, two surf schools do most of the teaching. Get Stoked is run by Jibran, a Mexican local who has been surfing, competing, and teaching in Cerritos for more than two decades, and Siempre Mar has built a similar reputation for lessons that fill up fast in high season. Neither business needs a cliffside hotel next door to draw students. They have been the actual infrastructure of Cerritos surf culture for years, hacienda or no hacienda.
Four Days When the Routine Changes
Event week does not just add visitors. It rearranges how the beach functions for people who live nearby. A few things worth planning around:
- Parking tightens fast. On a normal day, Cerritos has no curbs or posted restrictions, and residents park loosely along the access road. During the competition, organizers typically bring in shuttle services or designate specific lots, which means the casual parking pattern locals rely on the rest of the year will not hold for those four days.
- The highway gets slower. The stretch of Highway 19 between Todos Santos and El Pescadero already sees heavy traffic in peak season. Add a multi-day international competition and that drive takes longer than usual, especially in the late afternoon when competition heats wrap for the day.
- Single-use plastic is out for the event footprint. The Surf Open partners with Cero Basura BCS to run a zero-single-use-plastics policy across event grounds, with recycling stations and waste-management workshops built into the schedule. If you're heading down to watch, bring your own cup or bottle rather than expecting disposable options onsite.
- The competition zone occupies the best stretch of sand. The beach break that draws surfers here on a normal Tuesday becomes, for those four days, a roped-off arena with heats running on a schedule rather than an open lineup.
None of this is a complaint about the event. It is simply what four days of hosting an international sporting competition does to a beach that spends the other 361 days of the year running on a much smaller scale.
A Growing Event on a Thinner Shoreline
Put the two threads together and the picture is clear. The Surf Open Cerritos is institutionally expanding, three straight years, a sponsor upgrade, Olympic qualification points now attached to the results. At the same time, the physical shoreline hosting it has lost its most recognizable piece of built infrastructure. That is not a contradiction so much as a sign of where the town's identity actually sits. The event's growth has never depended on a boutique hotel on a bluff. It depends on a beach break that receives consistent Pacific swell, a stretch of highway that keeps improving as more people find reasons to drive it, and a small cluster of restaurants and surf schools that have quietly done the work of hosting visitors long before the WSL showed up.
Outside of event week, nothing about the surf itself has changed. Winter remains the best season for clean waves at Cerritos, and the combination of a northwest swell with an offshore easterly wind still produces the conditions locals wait for. That mechanism has not shifted and will not shift because of a hotel closing or a sponsor rebrand. What has shifted is who residents point visitors toward when they ask where to stay, eat, or watch the competition from, and that list now runs through sea-level businesses that have earned their place rather than a single landmark on the cliff.
If you are already living the daily rhythm of Cerritos, plan your November around shuttle-managed parking and a slower highway, not around a hotel that no longer answers the phone. And if this stretch of the Pacific side, from the surf break itself to the corridor of restaurants and lots between Cerritos and El Pescadero, has you thinking beyond a visit, our team at Christie's Real Estate Cabo knows this coastline block by block. Start Your Cabo Search whenever you're ready to talk through what ownership actually looks like out here.
