Accomodations: Upper level rooms have the thatch ceiling, vaulted. Lower level room do not. We liked the tropical feeling that the thatched roofs on all buildings gave. All rooms had air conditioning and fans, hair dryers, irons and ironing boards. We had two double beds/TV/bathroom. All very clean. We would recommend earplugs, as sound does travel through the walls.The grounds were beautiful and are well on there way back from the damage hurracane willmia caused years ago. There are two good sized pools.We hung out at the beach most of the time but on occasion sat at , played water pollo or swam up to the bar for a bahama mama at the beach side pool.The other pool was the quiet pool.

Food: We found the food very good for a resort that is not 5 star. The service in the restaurants was exceptional. There is a large buffet styled restaurant open for breakfast and dinner. There is an open air Mexican restaurant and an Italian restaurant that you can make reservations for. We did not use these two, as we got into the routine of meeting with our large group in the main restaurant each morning and night and enjoyed it thourghly . Lunch is provided in the open air restaurant located poolside.

Beach: Beautiful. White sand.. Lots of activities, such as beach volleyball, beach soccer, Hobie Cat sailing, kayaking, snorkelling. All of the activities are free (including equipment). There are some resident manta rays that snorkellers found exciting. Not so many colorful fish directly off this shore, however there is excellent snorkelling a short boadride away to the Columbia Reef (we recommend the Glass Bottom Boat).This
allows people to snorkell and others to share the experience of the reef thru the glass bottom boat (but it is best appreciated as a snorkeller)

Staff: All staff were excelleng. Our room was always very well made up and our cleaning lady left fabulous 'towel art' each day on our bed.The entertainment staff were very friendly and quickly learned our names or where we were from. Waiters, bus people, and bartenders(ask Lois to make you the Mexican flag shooter ,totally crazy and really good ,get a picture) were all extremely friendly and quick to serve.We tipped the staff each day because they were so good .

Evening entertainment. We went at a time when the resort was relatively empty, so that the audience was very small. The evening shows were fun and put on by local staff on some evenings and hired entertainment on others. There was a fabulous guitarist/singer who performed each night in the lounge.

Girls/ mothers of small children: if you decide to travel around the island: most toilets outside the resort did not have toilet seats, nor could toilet paper be flushed (had to be placed in a garbage pail).But the eastside is a must see .

We would most definitely return to Allegro.

So we just returned from our 3 night stay at the Allegro, my cousin and I, and both lvoed the grounds but displeased with the food at the hotel. Here's the rundown for future travelers.....

GROUNDS:
gardens are lush. grounds are constantly cleaned and everything is absolutely gorgeous. the hotel consists of 2 story buildings with thatched roofs and everything is spread out. if you don't want to do a lot of walking, this may not be the place for you. buildings numbered in the 40's and 50's (e.g., 4522) are in the middle of the resort (between the lobby/restaurants, and beach/pool).

ROOMS:
as far as the thatched roofs are concerned, i know there has been several reports stating sewage odor. to my cousin and i's experience, there was a slight odor that permeated the lobby area and many of the buildings near it up to approximately building 45. we were in room 4522 and thankfully did not smell it there, except however, we did get a slight smell of it our last day in the bathroom. 4522 is off to the right side of the hotel ( if you are facing the pool from the lobby), and i am not quite sure if you can smell this odor on the left side. but just to be on the safe side, ask for a room that starts with 45 and above.

there is NO fridge in the room. you are going to get two fairly big bottles of water, but if you insist on drinking cold water, then you might have to do a couple trips to the bar and get some ice there. futhermore, my cousin and i smelled something odd in their tap water (its smell reminded me of old water) and so we used the bottled water to brush our teeth with, as to prevent from getting sick during our trip.

in the shower, there is a pump with a significant amount of shampoo and body gel in each container. i'm not too sure how great of a product they are, for we never used them ourselves.

SERVICE:
these people cannot be any nicer! they made our stay delightful and comfortable. they are accomodating beyond words, and do it with a smile! i would highly advise bringing a significant amount of singles and fives for tips. (i know that it is all inclusive, but they hardly earn any money and work 3x harder than we do. a little will go a long way and they show their appreciation) however, for those who i did not see tip, they were treated just as nicely as anyone who did...so their accomodating nature is not dictated by tips.

room service was great. no problems with anything. rooms were absolutely spotless and she leaves the cutest towel animals!

airconditioner works great. room was nice and cold. NO ALARM CLOCK! if this bothers you, bring one of your own...but do remember, you're on vacation!

BEACH:
amazingly beautiful and clean! comparing it with jamaica water...just as clear and has much better sand. even with water to my chin, i can still see my feet in the water! moreover, the water is the most beautiful shade of turquoise! no waves, very small if any. the best beach i have been to, thus far. (btw, because it was low season, we never needed to "save" a chair early since there was plenty. however, one morning, we decided to head to the beach very early and saw people were doing this "saving" technique by leaving towels and other garments on the chairs from the previous day.)

POOL:
we were mostly "chillaxin" by the beach and hardly frequented the pool area. however, the few times we took a dive in it, the water was nice and warm and it was very clean!

there are 2 pools: a quiet and an activity pool. the activity pool has a nice swim up bar.

FOOD:
SKIP THE MAIN BUFFET by the lobby area!!!! it is the worst food i ever had in my life. it was bland and our food was either overcooked or undercooked. breakfast here is edible, but skip dinner altogether! as far as breakfast, there were usually pancakes and french toast and eggs. if all else fails, there are fruits and cereals which we resorted to on some days. as far as lunch is concerned, it is by the pool area. there are 2 places: a buffet and a grill restaurant (they both are facing each other). never ate at the grill place, but the buffet at this restaurant was decent. food was not as bad as the main buffet place. however, because it is open air, i HIGHLY ADVISE to go early because you will be sharing your food with some wonderful flies. after learning this from our first day, we hit the buffet as soon as we smelled the food so we could again avoid becoming ill.

there are 2 a la carte restaurants: italian & mexican. they are both not open at the same night. make sure you make reservations at the business office when you arrive. the mexican was GREAT! we ordered seafood and it could not have been any fresher. was not bland...was PERFECT! never made it to the italian.

TIP: ALBERTO'S is down the street (5 min by cab, 15 min walk on the beach towards occidental grand to your left when facing the beach) and has the FRESHEST SEAFOOD ever! prices are not bad and the servers are amazingly sweet too. it's a beach bar/restaurant, so no need to get dressy. seafood is the best! it's a great alternative to the nasty bland food at the buffet, that is for certain! CASA MISION in the downtown area also had amazing food. this was recommended to us by a good handful of locals, and they did not prove us wrong!


NON RESORT DETAILS:
WEATHER: may is start of rainy season...scattered clouds most of the time we were there. rained very hard one day for a good hour...then sun came back with a vengence! BRING A LOT OF SUNSCREEN; when the sun is out, it's crazy hot!!!!

AIRPORT: clean, cool, fast. have all paperwork prep and ready before you get there and it should be fairly quick.

TAXIS: allegro is far from downtown. a lot of cab drivers will quote $20 to go downtown, but try bargaining for $15....we did and never once paid the $20 they initially asked for. they are ridiculously fast, so if you rent a scooter, be careful around them!

i know this review is ridiculously long, but i felt i owed my fellow trip adivsor readers this information if they should consider staying there.

Like many of you out there we came to this website to seek information about the Occidental Allegro. We read the few negative comments and were a little nervous but since the positive out-weighed the negative we went ahead with our vacation plans. It may make a difference to some but we booked our vacation thru RCI as we traded our points for this vacation. We arrived as scheduled at the hotel about 1 PM and check-in was at 3 PM. We were met cheerfully at the front by hotel personnel. Since we were timeshare members we were wisked away by golfcart to a special building where we were greated by a fabulous staff. Drinks were provided by the bar right there in the "First Club" and we had everything about the hotel and our stay explained to us. Since this is an all-inclusive resort we paid our fees for the week. We were then shown our room and to our surprise...a one-bedroom consisted of basically 2 units. One side was the bedroom the other side was a livingroom. We had 2 full bathrooms, 2 TV's, and more. We were getting more and more excited. Minutes later our luggage was brought to us by a cheerful employee. We had a beautiful swan made out of towels on our bed with hibiscus flowers welcoming us to our room.

We are divers so the diving features were very important. Well, the resort has a dive shop on their grounds and it was maybe 50 yards from our room. I won't go into alot of detail but this dive shop and all their employees were the BEST we have every encountered. Professional beyond words!! We dove absoultely EVERYDAY!! Cozumel is absolutely wonderful and the reefs are just fantastic. We were never bored. We only brought our mask, fins, and snorkels and rented the rest. BC and regulator only cost us $12 per day each. Weights, weight belt, and tanks were included. The dive shop offered 1 tank and 2 tank dives and shallow and/or shallow dives. I counted over 6 dive boats so there was never a chance you couldn't get on a boat. The Divemasters were the best we have ever had! Sergio, Gustavo, and Alberto were the Divemasters we always had and they were GREAT. We never felt pressured to tip but it was our pleasure to tip them for the fantastic job they did. In the same shop we were able to rent Kayaks and Hobie Cats at no charge. We were hooked on the Hobie Cats. The water there was always flat-calm.

The resort has an all-inclusive policy so all food and alcohol and non-alcohol drinks are included. To put it bluntly we loved everything. I read where some people said the food was plain or boring. We will tell you...NO WAY! Everyday was a little something different and there was always something different at every meal. The food to us was fantastic. The service at every meal was fantastic. Wine was served at every evening meal. WE LOVED IT ALL. There were 2 restaurants you could make reservations to and have a meal ordering off a menu. We NEVER made a reservation as we just loved the buffet style.

OK...now about the rooms. If you are not a timeshare owner and have the basic room it appeared to be a little small but do you plan to stay in your room? I doubt it! There were comments on this website about the "thin walls". Well, we would agree there. We anticipated this so we brought a little machine that simulated a waterfall and we slept like babies. Other than that the service in our room was the best we had ever had. We tipped our housekeeper a couple dollars everyday (again not because we had to but because we wanted to) and she had fresh bottles of water for us everyday, an immaculate room, and a new towel artwork for us on our bed each day when we came back to our room from diving. THANKS BEATRICE!!

There are tons of attractions to go on and things to do but we only did one thing and that is go to the marine park just down the road from the hotel and experienced the Dolphin Encounter. We swam and played with dolphins and it was just WONDERFUL. If you go get the "Royal" encounter. It cost us $139 each but was well worth it. Something you will never forget.

OK...I have written a book here. What my wife and I had decided before leaving is that we will come back to this resort every year for the rest of our lives. I am not sure how we could give it a better rating than to say that. If we cannot trade our timeshare points to get there than we will pay for it ourselves! This is a place we feel we will never get tired of and we feel like this is our home away from home. We wish everyone the best who goes to the Occidental Allegro Cozumel.

We stayed at the Allegro from April 28-May 2. This was our 4th time staying at the Allegro and as always we weren't disappointed. The renovations done since the hurricane are beautiful. The staff is always so friendly and make your stay a lot of fun!! They have a great selection of food at the buffet style restaurant and the Mexican restaurant was delicious. The evening shows are very entertaining and the staff are very talented. If you have kids, their
kids club is great! I wouldn't go anywhere else in Cozumel. We're planning another trip back later this year.