Cozumel Resort Recommendations

[SouthSideScubaSteve]

I have a timeshare “week” banked and I’ve determined that Cozumel offers the best combination of availability of weeks to trade for and diving. Most of the resorts are All Inclusive, but what “All” includes appears to be different from resort to resort; some have in-house dive op’s, others don’t. My wife and middle son (16) don’t dive and my daughter does, but will not want to dive every day. In addition, my wife is somewhat of a picky eater; so I am looking for a resort that has nice facilities / amenities (restaurants, beach, pools, sauna, etc) to appease the non-diving faction. If they have an in-house dive op that’s included, all the better

Availability changes from day to day, but the resorts listed have fairly regular availability and have higher ratings / reviews by members of the exchange. I’m hoping some of you can share first hand insight / experience at one or more of these resorts:


Occidental Allegro Cozumel (AI)
Occidental Grand Cozumel (AI)
Reef Club Cozumel (AI)
RHC/Park Royal Cozumel (AI)
El Cid La Ceiba Beach (AI)
Coral Princess Club (no AI )

Thanks in advance for your help!
SSSSteve

 

[fishi]

I have a timeshare “week” banked and I’ve determined that Cozumel offers the best combination of availability of weeks to trade for and diving. Most of the resorts are All Inclusive, but what “All” includes appears to be different from resort to resort; some have in-house dive op’s, others don’t. My wife and middle son (16) don’t dive and my daughter does, but will not want to dive every day. In addition, my wife is somewhat of a picky eater; so I am looking for a resort that has nice facilities / amenities (restaurants, beach, pools, sauna, etc) to appease the non-diving faction. If they have an in-house dive op that’s included, all the better

Availability changes from day to day, but the resorts listed have fairly regular availability and have higher ratings / reviews by members of the exchange. I’m hoping some of you can share first hand insight / experience at one or more of these resorts:


Occidental Allegro Cozumel (AI)
Occidental Grand Cozumel (AI)
Reef Club Cozumel (AI)
RHC/Park Royal Cozumel (AI)
El Cid La Ceiba Beach (AI)
Coral Princess Club (no AI )

Thanks in advance for your help!
SSSSteve

I haven't stayed at any of them, but I have walked through all of them accept Park Royal. Occidental Grand is the nicest by far IMO.

 

[flofish94]

Occ. Grand has a long and nicest beach + in house dive shop Dive Palancar, I got my OW certified with them last August. They are a great shop offer 3 daily dive boats, large and small boat. They're cheap also 2 boat dives for $65.00. Luis Miguel and Gustavo are great instructor. All their DM are professional. The resort grounds are beautiful, people there are friendly. The food are nothing to write home about like all other AI. their resort are expensive compare with others.

 

[billmosel]

I stayed at Melia Cozumel through my timeshare which is a AI. Horrible. Try and stay away from AI. I have found that Cozumel has a lot to offer on its own. Lots of great restaurants and bars to choose from. At the AI's your stuck with what they offer. I like AI's when you are at a place that you don't want to leave the compound. Downtown Coz is fantastic as well as the other side of the island. Aldora divers is a great dive shop. Look them up. You won't be disappointed.

 

[cicopo]

Each has pros & cons, but the best of them is likely the Grand, followed by the Park Royal, but if a real beach becomes important the Allegro gets high marks too, but food variety may not be as good as the first 2 in my ranking. Reef Club's out, as it's now the Wyndham, and adult ONLY (age 18 & above) but I think it's finally working itself back up the rating scale as part of the changeover. Can't really rate El Cid La Ceiba except to say it's just up the street form Park Royal. Coral Princess gets decent reviews, but it's north of town & I don't think it has an on site dive op so you'll likely need to travel to the marina to catch your boat. (there is one to the north of CP but the main one is south of the Park Royal).
Photo tours of the Allegro, Grand, Park Royal, and a few photos of the Wyndham area can be found here.

Picasa Web Albums - Larry

 

[cicopo]

This is a thought based on re reading your post plus rethinking your options.
If it's a straight exchange and they are all the same cost (or points needed etc) then by all means the Grand if your family is primarily looking to spend their time at a resort, HOWEVER if heading into town is going to be a daily or even bi daily thing then the Park Royal will be a better choice UNLESS you rent a car for the entire trip. Taking a taxi to & back from town to either the Allegro or Grand will cost $35-40 per round trip.

 

[Diver Kat]

Coral Princess gets decent reviews, but it's north of town & I don't think it has an on site dive op so you'll likely need to travel to the marina to catch your boat.

The Coral Princess does have an on-site dive op - Pepe Scuba. Haven't stayed there myself, but my dentist stayed there with his family and used Pepe's and had a good time. Upside is it's much closer to town, downside, your boat ride to the southern reefs will be longer!

 

[greylion]

This is a thought based on re reading your post plus rethinking your options.
If it's a straight exchange and they are all the same cost (or points needed etc) then by all means the Grand if your family is primarily looking to spend their time at a resort, HOWEVER if heading into town is going to be a daily or even bi daily thing then the Park Royal will be a better choice UNLESS you rent a car for the entire trip. Taking a taxi to & back from town to either the Allegro or Grand will cost $35-40 per round trip.

I agree with cicopo. I've stayed at the Allegro with 8 other guys and only 2 of us dived. Everyone had a good time but the rooms were kind of shabby, food was alright and the beer was plentiful, which a bunch of the guys took advantage of, so they didn't care. The grounds are nice there with a good beach and big pool but it is an expensive cab ride to town from the Allegro, Grand or Wyndham. Park Royal is only around a 6-7 dollar cab ride to town I think. The dive op at the Allegro, Dive Palancar is good and the Grand uses the same op and is a much better resort. Both those resorts are just a short ride to the reefs, which are right out front of them and you'll be back from a 2 tank morning dive by around 12/12:30, which allows you to get back to the nondiving family in time to do something else.

Wherever you stay, make sure you head into town for a dinner or two at some of Cozumel's wonderful restaurants, Guido's, The Mission on 30th, Kinta's, Prima's are just a handful of our favorites. Enjoy your stay, Cozumel is a fantastic, friendly island that everyone can have a blast at.

 

[sharky60]

of that list I'd go with first El Cid La Ceiba, located near the International Pier cruise ship pier, lots of good people watching.

We used to stay there for years before it became time share and really liked it. Great staff, nice rooms, (I think all have been renovated since the change over), good food, nice beach, not huge, but nice, very cool outdoor palapa bar/restaurant.

They used to have 2 pools, but I'm not sure if they got rid of one with the renovations.

Some fairly good shore diving, no shore diving is great on Coz, but this area is usually good for critter hunting.

It's not too far from town either, a cab ride should be about $5 one way from there. Or even a nice walk, it's only about 1 1/2 +/- miles, we used to walk it all the time.

Which brings me to my second choice, Occidental Grand, we stayed there a few years ago, the grounds are beautifully cut out of the jungle, the rooms are big with large bathrooms, the food was very good at that time, (AI's are always subjective when it comes to food), not the same thing day-in and day-out on the buffets and the Mexican "reservation only" fancy restaurant was quite good.

2 pools, one by the beach, one more on the grounds, beach restaurant/bar for lunch and dinner.
nice long sandy beach, not much to see in the water though, no real shore diving or snorkeling.

The draw back to the O.G. is that is one of the furthest south resorts there is and a one way cab ride to town will set you back about $17-20, not sure exactly.

If you just want to mostly stay on the "compound" the O.G. is great for diving because it's only a bout a 10 min. boat ride to the reef.

We dove with Dive with Martin when we stayed at both these resorts. DWM is located right next to La Ceiba at the International Pier so we could just walk to them to take care of any business or get tanks for shore diving.
They would pick us up at the La Ceiba pier in the morning for diving, and they also picked us up at the O.G. when we stayed there. The good thing about that was, it is so far south they didn't pick us up until after 8:00-8:15 when they make their first pick up (La Ceiba) at 7:30 ish...every littile bit of time in the a.m. is a help

You can use the resort's on site dive op, but it is not necessary, the majority of dive ops on Coz will pick up at the majority of sea side resorts.

I also HIGHLY recommend venturing into town for a couple meals and get some local flavor on ya'. Coz has many many many good restaurants and cheating yourself out of them would be quite a shame. Take an afternoon to go around the island also, rent a car or hire a taxi for the day and beach hop and bar/resataurant hop your way around the "wild side" of Coz.

 

[Ms. Ann Thrope]

Like Sharky, we happily did the same La Ceiba/Dive with Martin combo for years. It was always a pretty nice hotel, but we walked the grounds last year, and it's gotten much spiffier post Wilma. One of the reasons we don't stay there anymore is because we don't like the proximity to the cruise ships. The ships are very close. For some, that may be a plus--it does get pretty lively around there when the ships pull in. But I'd rather have an unobstructed view of the sunset.