Food at All-inclusives in Cozumel

[LoveOceanicGears]

I wonder why there are no photos of AI "bad" food in this thread. My wife is crazy about taking pictures of everything. Here are some pictures of food at Cozumel Palace:

Mexican Restaurant:


Italian Restaurant:


And dessert for lunch buffet:



At Palace, breakfast and lunch are buffet style. But chefs are behind the grill and you can order omelet, eggs for breakfast, fajita, tacos for lunch. Dinner is a la carte. There are 3 restaurants serving Italian, Mexican, and Oriental food, plus a grill next to pool serving buffet dinner.

During my two week stay at Palace, we ate in Palace all the time. However one night, my family went out to this place famous for its margarita and tried their food. Margarita is better than Palace, but we don't think food is better. We ordered too much food and we cannot finish. I ended up giving a dog two beef tacos and he surely is happy.

 

[cvchief]

When people say 'good not great' - can you give some comparisons? I mean is good Golden Coral and great Applebees? Or is good Outback and great is Ruth Chris?

I'm pretty easy to please, if we're talking Applebees/Chili's level food, I'm great for the week (though in terms of dining, that's not great food to me).

My biggest worry about an AI is that the same thing is offered every day. I don't eat a lot of variety, so that worries me I will be eating one thing 7 times... Thus far, on cruises- which kind of feed to the lowest common denominator, I've generally been happy for 5 days, and then bored with food for the next 2 or 3. I'm assuming it will be the same at an AI. I hope it isn't worse...

Usually they rotate some of the swill, I mean choices....

Seriously I liked the food at the Grand and the Ibero was better, but it was too much and not outstanding. You won't go hungry and you probably will be fine. Mossman on the other hand RAVES about AI food, but I think he goes at the Ultra Platinum Plan so he even has people to rub his feet during dinner.

You take a trip to Kinta and get a FABULOUS food magazine cover dinner for less than Applebees at home and it aint a gorge fest.

 

[Chilidog11]

We stayed at Park Royal in June and thought the food was excellent. Breakfast buffet with an omlet station, tons of fresh fruit. Lunch is the buffet or you could eat at the pool snack shops. The snack shops had gross fozen pizza, nachos with a cheese wiz like sauce, burgers and a grilled chicken. The burgers and chicken were pretty good.

They have two restraunts for dinner, a Mexican and an Italian. We only had the Mexican which was wonderful. The dinner buffet was a different theme every night. We talked to people who had the ate at the Italian restraunt and said the Italian buffet was better.

All the buffets offered alot of cold salads, cold cut and cheese platters and tons of desserts.

 

[robint]

more Scuba Club Cozumel

Breakfast buffet

and

and

dinner, grilled wahoo with mango salsa

dinner, beef kabobs

 

[Mossman]

Usually they rotate some of the swill, I mean choices....

Seriously I liked the food at the Grand and the Ibero was better, but it was too much and not outstanding. You won't go hungry and you probably will be fine. Mossman on the other hand RAVES about AI food, but I think he goes at the Ultra Platinum Plan so he even has people to rub his feet during dinner.

You take a trip to Kinta and get a FABULOUS food magazine cover dinner for less than Applebees at home and it aint a gorge fest.

I don't exactly rave about it, but there were some excellent dishes at Secrets. There were also some that were less than excellent and some that were mediocre or worse. Inconsistent.

But we all have different tastes. Another poster said he didn't like the Pan-Asian restaurant at the Palace, for instance, while I've always enjoyed what I've had there.

I'll post some pics of Secrets food tonight, along with the menus if the shots came out OK. Still haven't downloaded my point & shoot land pics from the June trip.

 

[judydivescoz]

We stayed at El Coz with friends who insisted on AI and choose the hotel. Breakfast was nice, served buffet style with an omelet and egg station. The problem was the birds diving into the buffet table. They had an attendant covering up food and shoing the birds away. We missed the lunch buffet while we were out diving but were able to have hamburgers and ice cream. The ice cream was excellent! Dinner was also buffet and the had entertainment along with it. It included chicken in a sauce, fish in a sauce, beef in a sauce and vegetables. One night they had a fajita station. That was great. El Coz has an off the menu restaurant that requires reservations even when it is not even close to full. The restaurant also has a dress code. Unfortunately, we never got to have dinner in the restaurant. Wish I had pictures to post but we did not take any.

 

[robint]

I have heard that some of the AI's need reservations and have dress codes. That kinda sucks when you are on vacation. We always seem to be in shorts and t-shirts or swimsuits.

At SCC most people wear swimsuits and shorts to breakfast and lunch. No problem with shorts at dinner, either, but I think a swimsuit might not work.

One night we did the Boat night dive, and they held our dinners until we got back at 8:30pm. The restaurant manager met us at the dock and told everyone to just drop our gear at the rinse tanks, grab a towel, and come eat. The waiters served us out on the patio. It was so nice! We were all starving and didn't want to have to go to rooms and shower and change.

robin

 

[Skittl1321]

I have heard that some of the AI's need reservations and have dress codes. That kinda sucks when you are on vacation. We always seem to be in shorts and t-shirts or swimsuits.

It can definitely be a problem for some. We don't mind dressing up a bit for dinner, since it is still relatively casual, and we'll want to shower after a long day anyway. We purposefully selected an AI that did not require reservations for the non-buffet meals, as we had read multiple times in reviews that reservations could only be made during a certain time-frame: when divers tend to be out on the reef! It seems that it is rare when you can get the hotel to bend this and allow you to make them at another time.

 

[Mossman]

I have heard that some of the AI's need reservations and have dress codes. That kinda sucks when you are on vacation. We always seem to be in shorts and t-shirts or swimsuits.

A couple of the Palace restaurants and the Secrets restaurants and the Occidental Grand a la carte restaurants require long pants for men for dinner. I've seen the Palace ignore the requirement, but I saw it enforced at both Secrets and the Occidental to the consternation of the wanna-be diners who claimed that they had no idea (it was hardly a secret at Secrets and the Occidental gave you a reservation confirmation printout that clearly explained the policy).

For the nicer restaurants, dressing up makes it even nicer IMO. Although some guests merely pay lip service to the pants requirement, showing up in jeans and T-shirt that looks a lot less dressy than khaki shorts and a button down "Hawaiian" shirt. The majority of guests in these places are not divers AFAIK.

Long pants for dinner is the custom (at least for locals) in Mexico and the rest of Latin America. My first time in Quito (post Galapagos), I went out to dinner with the dive group - we had to ask the concierge to find us a restaurant that would allow shorts since I was the only one savvy enough to know to bring long pants.

---------- Post added July 26th, 2013 at 12:16 PM ----------

It can definitely be a problem for some. We don't mind dressing up a bit for dinner, since it is still relatively casual, and we'll want to shower after a long day anyway. We purposefully selected an AI that did not require reservations for the non-buffet meals, as we had read multiple times in reviews that reservations could only be made during a certain time-frame: when divers tend to be out on the reef! It seems that it is rare when you can get the hotel to bend this and allow you to make them at another time.

At the Occidental, guests are only allowed one "specialty restaurant" reservation per week. The main reason I stayed at the Royal Club, besides the higher-end booze, was to be able to eat in "specialty" restaurants every night and avoid the buffet entirely (the buffet seemed to generate a TripAdvisor consensus of being awful).

 

[robint]

Mossman, I totally understand..... but on vacation the last thing I am thinking about is getting dressed up for dinner. We have never stayed anywhere that it was required so we never ever take long pants or collared shirts for Ron, and I never take a dress. At SCC we have to tell them at breakfast what we want to eat for dinner, and that is about as far as we go. Even that seems like too much some days!

photo of SCC upstairs restaurant, used for dinner

As you can see, everyone is dressed casual. I have seen people more dressed up there, but less than half and those I am guessing were planning to go out afterwards to town.

robin