The Gringo Gazette Published My Letter. The Ships Are Still There.

Last week the Gringo Gazette ran a piece warning that Mexico's new federal cruise fees would sink Baja Sur's season. New Zealand was the model Mexico should copy, cruise lines were about to flee to the Dominican Republic, and a strengthening peso was pricing Mexico out of reach. I read it from my terrace, where I can see the ships, and the numbers didn't match the view. So I wrote a response.

The short version: New Zealand charges visitors NZ$100 — about US$60 — after tripling its own levy in 2024, and had a record NZ$11 billion visitor year anyway. The Dominican Republic is in a different ocean; a ship homeported in San Diego cannot swap a Cabo call for a Caribbean one. The fee went from about US$5 to about US$10 per passenger, charged once per itinerary, published in the federal register in June 2025. The Tren Maya earmark in the article doesn't appear in the actual budget. And the peso slid roughly 7% against the dollar during the exact month the story said it was strengthening. Mexico got cheaper while the warning ran.

But the ships are the only poll that matters. Mexico counted 8.2 million cruise passengers through August. Cabo closed its high season up 30%. San Diego, the gateway for Baja itineraries, just opened its biggest cruise season in 15 years — 183 voyages against 109 last year.

The Gazette printed the letter with an editor's note, next to the original story. That is the correct outcome, and it's why the paper matters to this community.

I have a rule for situations like this, and now it has a name: the terrace test. If a story predicts something you can verify by looking out your own window, look out the window before you share it.

One disclosure before someone finds it: the editors transcribed my letter faithfully, including the typo. "Cabo San Lucus" is now in print, and the error is mine, typed into the contact form. Of everything I sent them, the spelling is the part I didn't fact-check.

Read the letter here: Reader Challenges Warnings Over Cabo Cruise Fees

The ships keep coming. I checked.