Ask a broker how you get into Twin Dolphin Club and you'll likely hear two words: Maravilla or Montage. Ask Twin Dolphin directly and its own membership page names four paths: Twin Dolphin Casitas, Dos Arroyos Ranches, Maravilla, or Montage Residences Los Cabos. That gap between what gets repeated and what's currently published isn't trivia. It matters because the four paths don't carry the same rights, and the one most buyers assume is universal, the ability to rent out what you own, only applies to some of them.
If you're shopping the Corridor between Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo and Montage keeps coming up in your search, the club membership is usually presented as the headline benefit. It's a real one. But membership is a separate contract layered on top of the real estate, and its terms shift depending on which door you walked through to get it.
Four doors, one clubhouse
Twin Dolphin's master plan sits on the former site of Hotel Twin Dolphin, a property opened in 1977 by Texas oilman David J. Halliburton Sr. that once hosted Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, and John Wayne, who reportedly built his own airstrip on land that is now part of the golf course. Ohana Real Estate Investors redeveloped the land into what exists today, and residential access to the club now runs through four distinct products:
- Twin Dolphin Casitas — secluded single-family homes of four to five bedrooms built directly into the golf course routing.
- Dos Arroyos Ranches — a newer homesite product named for the club's Dos Arroyos adventure zone, home to its hiking, mountain biking, and glamping programs.
- Maravilla — a residential community organized into Las Playas near the water and Las Colinas at higher elevation, offering villas, townhomes, and custom homesites, including an oceanfront enclave called El Cielo where lots run up to roughly 2.43 acres.
- Montage Residences Los Cabos — 52 branded, fully furnished two- and three-bedroom condos tied directly to the Montage resort.
Most of what's written about this community online still describes only the last two, Maravilla and Montage, as the way in. That may simply reflect how sales have historically flowed, but if you're evaluating inventory today, it's worth knowing the roster of entry points has grown wider than the conversation around it suggests.
Same membership, different contract
Here's the part that changes the math for a buyer. According to reporting from 2020, Maravilla ownership came with a rental prohibition. Sales moved through word of mouth among existing owners rather than open marketing, and roughly a third of released homesites, villas, and townhomes were available at the time starting around $3 million. Montage Residences, by contrast, explicitly allows owners to enroll in the resort's rental management program and draws on the full service infrastructure of a five-star hotel, from housekeeping to the front desk.
Same clubhouse key. Different ownership contract.
That distinction is the actual product you're buying, more than the golf course or the beach. A Maravilla homesite buyer is purchasing land and a build-out timeline, with the club membership as a lifestyle amenity attached to a non-income property. A Montage Residences buyer is purchasing a turnkey unit that can, if they choose, generate rental revenue through a program the resort itself manages. The membership badge looks identical from the outside. The financial instrument underneath it does not.
Here's how the four paths line up on paper, based on what's currently published:
| Property Type | What You Own | Rental Rights | Price Context | Sales Channel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twin Dolphin Casitas | 4-5 bedroom single-family home on the golf course | Not publicly specified | Not publicly listed | Direct through Twin Dolphin |
| Dos Arroyos Ranches | Homesite along the adventure terrain | Not publicly specified | Not publicly listed | Direct through Twin Dolphin |
| Maravilla | Custom homesite, villa, or townhome across Las Playas or Las Colinas (El Cielo lots run up to roughly 2.43 acres) | Rentals prohibited, per 2020 reporting | Historically from around $3 million (2020) | Largely word of mouth among owners |
| Montage Residences | Branded 2- or 3-bedroom furnished condo | Owners may enroll in the resort's rental management program | Two-bedrooms from roughly $3.95 million, three-bedrooms near $5.2 million, per the most recent pricing available as of February 2026 | Through the resort's sales team |
The gaps in that table for Casitas and Dos Arroyos Ranches aren't an oversight. Pricing and rental terms for those two products simply aren't public yet, which tells you something on its own about how new they are relative to the two paths everyone already talks about.
What membership itself costs
The club fee is its own line item, separate from the real estate. A 2020 Forbes report put initiation at $75,000 with $20,000 in annual dues, covering up to eight members of an immediate family. That figure is now several years old and given how much the surrounding real estate has appreciated since, buyers should treat it as a historical data point rather than today's price, and confirm current terms directly before assuming it still holds.
What hasn't changed is the value of what that membership unlocks. The Fred Couples Signature course opened in December 2018 as an 18-hole layout with a bonus 19th hole nicknamed the Gambler's Hole, and one golf directory lists non-member green fees for outside play at $650 in high season with a GPS-equipped cart included. Owners fold that access into their annual dues instead of paying per round, which is the clearest way to see what membership is actually worth against the alternative of playing as a guest.
The Mezcal test
There's a simpler way to feel the difference between the two documented paths than reading fine print. Walk into Mezcal, the modern Mexican restaurant at Montage, or grab a table at Marea for beachfront dining, and you're inside hotel infrastructure that Montage Residence owners access as a built-in benefit alongside the Thai pop-up Talay and the casual marketplace Paletas. Drive over to a Maravilla homesite under construction and you're standing on private land with a service ratio of several staff per household, but no restaurant lobby to walk into. Both experiences carry the same Twin Dolphin Club card. One comes wrapped in resort infrastructure. The other comes wrapped in acreage and a build permit.
Matching the path to the reason you're buying
If your plan is a turnkey second home with the option to offset costs through rental income while you're not using it, Montage Residences is the only one of the two well-documented paths that supports that model. The furnished condo, the resort's own rental program, and the branded services solve for exactly that use case.
If your plan is a custom build on land you control, with the club membership as a lifestyle add-on rather than the main event, Maravilla's homesites, particularly the oceanfront lots at El Cielo, are built for that. Just factor in the rental restriction from the outset rather than discovering it after you've already envisioned the property as an income asset.
If you're a developer or land buyer weighing Twin Dolphin Casitas or Dos Arroyos Ranches because they're newer to the roster, go in expecting to negotiate pricing and rental terms directly rather than finding them laid out online. That's not a red flag, it's simply where those two products are in their sales cycle right now.
For all four paths, remember that foreign ownership in Mexico's coastal restricted zone runs through a fideicomiso, the bank trust structure that gives non-Mexican buyers full rights to sell, rent where permitted, renovate, and pass the property to heirs. It's standard across Los Cabos and not unique to Twin Dolphin, but it's worth having your notary and closing team confirm the specifics before you sign anything tied to club membership.
FAQ
Does every Twin Dolphin property come with the same club rights? Ownership unlocks Twin Dolphin Club membership across all four current property types, but the specific rights that come with your real estate, particularly whether you can rent your property, depend on which of the four you buy into. Maravilla and Montage Residences have documented, and different, rental policies. Casitas and Dos Arroyos Ranches terms aren't yet public.
Is the $75,000 initiation fee still accurate? That figure comes from 2020 reporting and predates several years of price appreciation across the community. Treat it as historical context and confirm current initiation and dues figures directly with the club before budgeting around it.
Can a foreign buyer purchase at Montage or Maravilla? Yes. Purchases go through a fideicomiso, the bank trust structure that gives non-Mexican buyers full ownership rights within Mexico's restricted coastal zone, including the right to sell, renovate, and pass the property to heirs.
Comparing Montage Residences against a Maravilla homesite, or weighing either against a newer product like Dos Arroyos Ranches, means comparing four different financial instruments that happen to share one clubhouse. If you want a broker who's tracked exactly where those distinctions sit and who has the construction background to walk you through a homesite build alongside a turnkey purchase, Own In Cabo Real Estate works this stretch of the Corridor directly. Call the broker and start your search.
