We are frequent visitors to the palace resorts (members), and wanted to add the Cozumel Palace to our list of destinations. Rather than getting into specifics already covered in past reviews, I will just say that the Cozumel Palace was generally on a par with our other palace resort experiences - great food, great service, and great people. The hotel is small compared to other palace properties, but that is to our liking since we get a chance to know the staff. I also targeted this hotel since we have never gone to the area in the summer, and expecting high heat I wanted easy access to ocean swimming to cool off (but temps were not much worse than our Nov and April trips). Although the hotel lacks a sandy beach (aside from the man-made areas on north/south ends), the ability to quickly get into the relatively calm ocean to swim or snorkel was a bonus as it’s just steps from the pool.
Here are a few nit picks on the resort. The restaurants seemed somewhat drab in décor and very noisy with the sound bouncing off the walls. Although we thought the food was very good, one exception for me was the fish. Since we seem to overeat way too much on these trips, I often order the fish entree for dinner as an attempt at a lighter meal. I have to say that I did not like a single fish dish this trip, which I tried at the outside grill, the Italian, and the Mexican restaurant. This is contrary to our other palace resort trips. The other dishes were good to excellent. Finding a shaded spot by the pool was not easy if you arrived mid morning, however, the sand patches on the north and south ends always had some chairs under the straw huts available (but service was a bit lacking on the sand). Finally, being on an island the included tour options were pretty skimpy compared to the mainland, and we could not easily day trip to the other palace resorts. That’s ok as the rest of the family doesn’t like to run around as much as I do.
We had a room on the far south end of the hotel which, other than the long walk to get to it, was decent as we overlooked the sand patch and ocean, rather than the pool. Also, I don’t think we were as susceptible to hallway noise with less traffic. We did the included Chankanaab park tour, the included snorkel boat tour from the hotel, and took the included transportation to Mr. Sanchos’s Beach club to do a snorkel boat trip (nothing but taxi fare included for Mr. Sancho’s – ok beach to hang out on, & lots of other activities available to buy). We also did the customary loop drive around the island, and spent a few hours at Punta Sur on another day. Overall, our family of four thoroughly enjoyed the Cozumel Palace and the island of Cozumel in general. I plan on posting a hotel property snorkel video one of these days.