We stayed at Cozumel Palace for the last 2 weeks in July. We had stayed at the hotel when it was the Plaza Las Glorias (in 2003). We enjoyed our stay very much, and found the hotel much improved.

Probably the most significant improvement we noted is the food (which is good since it’s now all-inclusive). They have 4 restaurants for dinner: Mexican, Italian, Oriental, and American. Breakfast is a buffet, and lunch is a buffet or the grill by the pool. There is wide variety in the buffets, although I did get a little tired of the menus by the end of our stay. Drinks are included. The service is generally excellent – the staff really work hard to make your stay enjoyable.

The most significant update to the rooms is the addition of the jacuzzi, and the bathroom remodeling. There is new furniture, of course, also. There is a hammock on the balcony, although it was not the highest quality.

Be careful of the marble in the rooms by the bathroom, and by the pool showers. Very slippery when wet! (My feet went out from under me in both places, and I don’t tend to be clumsy that way!)

One small complaint was that on our third to last day, the hotel ran out of Grand Marnier (which I like in my margaritas). In three days, and even though the hotel is right across the street from a supermarket, they didn’t get restocked. Wouldn’t you think if you ran out of something it’s because guests are ordering it? I also found that I had to specifically ask for a higher quality tequila in my margaritas. If I didn’t specify, the bartender would use a lower-quality tequila (and, yes, I could definitely taste the difference).

If you’re a scuba diver and you’ve never dived Cozumel, you probably will enjoy it. If you’ve dived Cozumel prior to the hurricane, you will feel saddened at the damage to its beautiful reefs, even at the deeper depths. Many sections of reef were covered with sand. The reef life has definitely been impacted by the loss of the reefs. During dives, the dive masters seemed to work a lot harder to point out wildlife to see during the dive.

We dived with Aqua Safari which is on site. They don’t have the fastest boats, but we were pleased with their services. Palace resorts moved them from their primo location at the end of the hall (with its direct exit to the pier). Divers now have to get to the pier by exiting the doors near the end of the pool (just on the other side of the lobby bar). However, the Palace added lockers so you don’t have to trudge all your stuff back up to your room after every dive.

We did a night dive, but would not do it again – too many people on the same reef.

One of the things I was impressed with in 2003, was the snorkeling right off the hotel. But because of the hurricane in 2005, the quality of the snorkeling off the hotel’s shore has also been significantly impacted.

As always, be careful of the timeshare people right at the exit/entrance to the ferry. The Mayan Palace people (yellow shirts, to the left as you exit to the street) are the most aggressive. (Note, we stayed at the Mayan Palace previously, and there were quite a few very unhappy timeshare owners there as the Mayan Palace has changed the development plans it had told earlier buyers at the time of their purchase. Many timeshare owners felt their investment had been significantly devalued with the change, and felt ripped off. But Mexican law gives them no recourse.)

Palace resorts has its own form of “timeshare” investment that it will try to sell you. They call it a travel agency when they are trying to set you up for a meeting (which they do immediately upon arrival). If you’re already a member, they will try to upgrade you. For going, they gave us $100 in palace bucks, and a voucher for a massage. We went because we thought we could do some shopping in Playa del Carmen afterwards, but that didn’t really work out (it was too hot by the late afternoon!) They pay your transportation to Aventura Spa (a Palace resort south on the mainland coast a little bit). There they pitch Palace Membership - weeks that can be used at any of the Palace resorts, or can be traded via RCI (for a fee). The “palace membership” entitles you to lodging at a discounted price. We talked to several people at the Cozumel Palace who are members, and (unlike timeshare owners), generally they were satisfied with their purchase. We did not purchase for many reasons, but chiefly because we are not the kind of travelers to continually want to return to the same place. Since we are not interested in the Cancun atmosphere, that limited us to Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. Also, we are divers, so our travel destinations are more influenced by the quality of the diving. (Note that they said they are developing new resorts in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Vallarta. Also note that the Palace’s Cancun resorts have not reopened since the hurricane.)

If you’re not a Palace member (yellow bracelet), you will likely be assigned to a room far away from the elevators. It can be a long walk, but this location can be a good thing as the marble floors can echo noise significantly. We were nearly the last room on our floor, and it was pretty quiet.

We did a jeep tour around the island with Amazing Tours, which we enjoyed very much. One of your group has to drive (manual shift) – they lead the way in another jeep. Sometimes they have big groups with many jeeps, they said, but we were lucky to be the only vehicle (with one other couple.) They took us to El Cedral for shopping (much better prices than center of town, beautiful black coral!), San Gervaiso Mayan ruins, tequila museum (interesting history on tequila, and delicious tequila for sale!), snorkeling, and swimming on the eastern side of the island (be careful of that undertow!)

There seemed to be a lot more military presence on the island than I remember – even coastal patrols. We weren’t sure what that was about, but am guessing it was about the drug trade.

Overall we would definitely recommend the Cozumel Palace. Because of the impact on the reef, we will probably vacation elsewhere for the next few years. But once the reef has had a chance to regenerate, we will be back.

The Cozumel Palace is a great hotel. My husband and I just got back and we can't stop talking about the resort. The staff is awesome, when we walked in, they brought us ice cold wash cloths and a glass of champagne.

The Mexican restaurant in the hotel is the best. The Italian was OK. The rooms are very nice and clean. There is a fully stocked mini-bar (no extra charge), Biosilk shampoo/conditioner in the bathroom. We also took advantage of the spa that is in the hotel. We both got massages/pedicures/facials. The staff there were very professional.

I would highly recommend this resort to anyone staying in Cozumel.

My husband and I visited the Cozumel Palace during July and it was a fabulous vacation. The resort looks exactly like the pictures on the Palace Resorts website, but it is hard to imagine it until seen in real life. High points include the infinity pool, hammock on the balcony, robes and slippers in the room, a mini fridge stocked with soft drinks and bottled water, 24 hour room service, a hammock on the balcony, swim up bar, and snorkling right of the deck. There was also great night time shows, including fire dancers and karoke night.
We wondered if we would miss being on the beach, but we did not miss it at all (and we are definitely beach people!). It is extremely relaxing to lounge at the pool. There were always more than enough chairs. The resort does include two sandy areas on either side of the pool, but we never even went down there. The downtown shopping area is within walking distance.
The staff was extremely friendly. We would definitely stay at this resort again!

We were there with family and friends June 3 to june 10, 2006. We had a blast, the staff went out of there way to make our stay enjoyable. My daughters and husband enjoyed the water volleyball.
We all enjoyed the snorkling their at the resort. We rented two jeep and seen the island and snorkled. We stop and ate lunch at Chen Rio. (one of the waiter at the resort recommeded this place ) If you like seafood this is to place to go. We went deep sea fishing and had a great time. the chef at the resort cook the fish that we caught. The shows at night are great. Our last nite there Miguel made our nite special. He went out of his way.