Iberostar & Dressel Divers Review

[npole]

Excuse me but whenever I won't even compare the Iberostar with anything else in Cozumel.. the AI @ Hotel Cozumel & Resort is a "real" AI, I mean you can eat and drink whatever you want. The quality of the food is nowhere comparable.. but neither the price (less than half). So if you're in the food and services, there's no question.. if you like to drink, I can say the spirit is the same everywhere.

 

[cicopo]

I don't know what you mean by "real AI" at Hotel Cozumel but they do have premium alcohol that isn't included in the AI package.

 

[ggunn]

But this is exactly my point. The non-AI crowd is not shy about telling people the cons (with out discussing pros) and so the pro threads have dried up.

Ask yourself why you even responded and what you just added to this thread about the Iberostar....

I, like you and everyone else, am free to respond to any thread I feel like. I responded to this one because you characterized the input of some contributors to this forum as "shouting down" those folks who post favorable opinions of AI's and telling them that they are "doing it wrong", which sounds nefarious. It's not. It's a free exchange of opinions. Some folks expound upon what they like about AI's, and some folks talk about what they like about staying in town. Cozumel has enough of both for everyone, and that's a good thing.

YMMV and DSFDF.

 

[npole]

I don't know what you mean by "real AI" at Hotel Cozumel but they do have premium alcohol that isn't included in the AI package.

I'm from EU, I'm not sure what's the "premium alcohol" ...but you can ask anything (with no exceptions) from the bar(s) with their AI bracelet... unless they "hide" the bottles around the corner.

 

[cicopo]

Well you think it's All Included but i'm a long time regular there & they do have things which are not included free of charge. Not many but there are some premium drinks that you get charged for.

 

[flyboy08]

I live in NYC, I love NYC, but when I go away to a tropical area, I like seclusion from asphalt, cars, and city noise.....The Occidental is just what my phycologist prescribed for me ...but I have no qualms of visiting town when DT's kick in to get my fix of Mr Taco!

 

[adamgiles]

You mentioned up to 4 dives/day. Was that 3 day dives & a night dive? If you went just to dive, and wanted to dive as much as possible, would 4 dives/day be possible most days? If so, figuring in free nitrox is a nice perk!

And the Iberostar...did they have entertainment performances in the evening, or was it mostly about lounging around beaches enjoying the ambience?

Richard.

They have boats going out at 8:30 10:30 1:30 and 3:30 everyday so you can do 4 day dives. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday they do a night dive. So potentially you can do 5 dives a day on the night dive days. For us we did 4 dives one day and another day we did 2 day dives and a night dive. Some days we just did 2 when we booked excursions of the resort. You can mix and match and do it however you want.

They did have entertainment every night. It was different variety shows. At dinner the performers walked around in costume and encouraged people to come see the show. I wish I could comment on the quality of the shows but we did not attend any of them

 

[adamgiles]

Nice report. Curious as to if you booked a dive package ahead of time with Dressel to get the 20% off, or if not, did you get a discount because you stayed at the resort?

Had a day pass for the Iberostar on the day I dove with Dressel and I agree the food was really good!

Yes,we booked ahead of time and got the 20% off. We decided to add a couple of 2 tank boat dives and a night dive so they honored the 20% off price on those additional dives which I thought was really nice. I paid for those additional dives the day we arrived so I guess you could say I kind of pre-paid.

One thing of note, if you miss a dive they will give you a voucher good for 5 years at any of their locations around the world but they will not refund your money. So if you are up partying the night before and want to sit out a morning dive you can just reschedule later in the day or week as long as they have openings for no charge. However, if you run out of time and still have dives your only option is to get a voucher for next time.

 

[MMM]

Well, some of the reefs. If you stay down south, you will never get taken to many of the more central and northern reefs.

It is easy to dive 4-5 times a day with their op since the hotel is basically next to all the reefs.

 

[adamgiles]

We are going back in October and this time around we are going to do Tres Pelicanos/ Casa Mexicana stay and dive package I think. I just emailed Iberostar to see what the cost will be at this time as I believe it is considered off season. Just to give you guys an idea on cost comparison Tres Pelicanos/ Casa Mexicana in October is about 65% the cost of Iberostar in March. So my guess is in October the Iberostar price will be 15% less but I will know for sure tomorrow when they get back to me.

If my assumption is correct about off season pricing then the price difference will be $350 per person for 7 nights lodging, and 16 dives. So for $50 a day more per person you get all drinks and food and the nice resort experience with all the amenities mentioned above.

For me the choice to stay in town this time is not so much to save the $700 for my wife and I because we will spend half of that on dinners anyway. I just want to give the in town experience a try and see which I prefer I guess. The one thing we will miss is the beach I think. Hard to beat a private sandy beach with tons of room and the ability to walk a half mile each way up and down the beach and watch the sunset.