We went AI, that worked out OK. They make it a little confusing about what was included in the AI plan. Some things were included and some things were not. Most everyone was friendly but just a little slow at times. Not enough to spoil our trip. We did some diving, but did not use the in house dive shop. We had found a private dive master, "Betsy White" and had a great time!! Very easy to be picked up at the pier at the resort. The rooms and the premises were very clean. We would probably go back if for nothing else, the ease of diving.

3/19/04-3/26/04

NEVER, EVER STAY AT THE FIESTA AMERICANA RESOURT IN COZUMEL! You will
regret it as much as my friends and I do. Terrible, disrespectul staff,
horrible food, complete lack of customer service, boring resort, no
nightlife, extra service charges they don't tell you about-to name just
a few! When we first arrived, March 7, 2004, we were told to "go away"
since the restaurant was closed. It was 11:15 a.m. and the sign on the
Reef Restaurant said it closed at 11:30. We explained that we had just
checked in, would like a small bite to eat as we were hungry from our
flight and they could have cared less! That is the attitude of the
staff who work at The Reef Restaurant that is on-site: worst customer
service I have ever experienced! They will not help, they won't let you
sit at certain tables, don't clear your plates and appear to decide how
much water (bottled) you can have on any given day. We tried our best
for the whole trip to avoid having to eat at this place and deal with
the bad attitude of the wait staff. One of the worst is the waiter,
Sabado.
The same kind of attitude is present in some of the wait staff at the Tropical Forest: they don't come back to ask if you want something to drink, don't clear the plates unless you are starting to stack them on your table. You have to give your room number for everything, which to me is ridiculous since we paid for an all-inclusive trip.
My friend was yelled at for trying to pour herself a cup of coffee one
morning and the waiters told her to get out! That it was not open but
the sign says it opens at 7:00a.m. and it was now 7:10. That is one
thing with the restaurants there: they open and close when THEY FEEL
LIKE it--there is no consideration of the customer. So, if you are
actually booked to go there, better check each day, to find out when
and if you can actually eat. OTherwise, you are out of luck and they
don't care! Boring: NO nightlife, one pool table, no dance area. If you
are interested in having some fun, forget it. And what is really awful,
is that they do not have enough loungers at the beach for all of the
guests. Trying to relax on the beach is next to impossible as some
people reserve their loungers and then don't come back for hours. The
managment needs to address their beach area. The waiters on the beach
can be nice (better than the restaurants) but once they have your big
tip money, that's it for your service. I found that shocking. Beware
that they charge you for use of the safe in your room and don't tell
you about it ahead of time and charge you for the last day, even though
we left before 7 a.m. The mini-bar: enormous prices. i.e. bottle of
water, $40 american. I'd rather drink the sea water, thanks. The maid
was angry one day, I guess, because she threw the do not disturb tag
off of our door and onto the floor some feet away: we had gone to
breakfast early and left the sign on the door so that we could grab our
stuff for the beach and then she would have lots more time to clean
without us being there. We had left tip money for a few days for her,
and she never cleaned the counters, floors, etc. for the whole week. It
costs money to turn on the lights to play tennis. The one positive
thing is the diving and snorkeling. Don't pay for any charters, trips,
etc. Just go yourself. Thank goodness, otherwise we would have went
crazy trying to find things to do for the week. Will never stay there
again due to the poor customer service, and less than adequate hotel.

Who is responsible for rating a hotel and what standards do they go by?
The Fiesta Americana has a 5 star rating on every website it is posted.
That is the biggest overstatement I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. The most commonly used word spoken in english was "no".
And it was varied with tone. Sometimes they said "no" as if it were a question. Other times it was barked at you like a dog. This is the only resort that went out of their way to make my trip frustrating. I'll start with the concierge. " I booked adjoining rooms" I said. They said "no"? You "requested" adjoining rooms. I asked to borrow a pen to fill out some paperwork, she said"no", there are pencils in the rooms. I had to demand that she give me her pen. What kind of service is that? I had the next 8 days to look forward to. Morning breakfast... "May I have a tea bag"? His response... You guessed it. "no". Flat out "no". Three days later, I found out that the restaurant upstairs had tea bags and all I had to do was go up there and ask for one. Which I did. When I returned to the breakfast buffet with my tea bag and asked for hot water, what do you think he said. I'll move on to the structure of the resort. My son could do a better grouting job on the tiles in the bathroom, never mind the smell of sewage creeping up the drain pipe located in the middle of the bathroom floor. This could be very easily ignored if the staff were pleasant. The outdoor patio buffet for Breakfast and dinner were delicious and we had the pleasure of dining at tables, but for some inexplicable reason, the tables and chairs were removed for lunch. You had to eat on the floor or sit on a ledge. Not one of the restaurants opened on time so our diving schedule suffered.
Diving with a full stomache makes me sick. You cannot sit at a bar during the day and have a coctail unless you are sitting in the pool.
This is the only hotel that I've been to that charges you a daily rate for the room safe. You cannot charge anything to your room from the shops on the premesis. The only compliment that I will give the Fiesta Americana is that it had only three people that were nice and had good food. Please never waist you money on the Fiesta Americana. Mexico is too beautiful to be associated with this hotel and it's staff.

My husband and i with 2 children 6&8 just returned from Cozumel on the 22nd. For the most part, we did not experience the problems that i've read about on this sight. We rec'd a room on the 5th floor with a beautiful view without even begging. There was a sewer odor in the room but we found if you close the bathtub drain and cover the drain in the bathroom floor, it was almost non-existant. The AC worked well, we had to turn it off and open the balcony door quite frequently. This also made trips to the bathroom during the night very speedy or else you froze! There was no noise from other rooms because the walls are made of concrete. You could occasionally hear voices from outside the door in the hallway because the doors weren't sealed well. The only complain i had about the room was the hard beds (had to sleep on top of my pillows) and the fact they charged us $5 for a bottle of water we never used from the minibar. They tried to charge us for using the room safe but took off the charge after we told them we never used it. The safe isn't even attached to anything. It could be carried out of the room with no problem. The food was moderate to good. Breakfast was excellent. If you like fajitas, hamburgers and hotdogs, lunch is good.
Dinner is best in the restaurant upstairs. The filet mignon was excellent as well as the cheesecake and chocolate world. You must make reservations at least a day in advance or you have no chance of getting one (even at 7AM). The drinks were good. Ask for doubles if you want any aftereffects. Our kids loved ordering their own drinks (smoothies or Shirley Temple's) from the swim up bar. There was always plenty of food available (i proved that by gaining 7 lbs while there). The evening shows were entertaining (pretty, scantily clad girls/guys and a flute/guitar player). I do have a complaint about the kid's club. When i booked this vacation, i chose this hotel because of the location and the kid's club. My husband and i looked forward to spending a few hours a day alone. We didn't get to do this because the hotel didn't even give us any info on the kid's club. When we asked after several days, we were told they weren't doing any activities becasue there weren't enough kids. There were kids everywhere, they just didn't know about the program. The hotel website also talked about the "bubble-maker" program for kids. They were supposed to teach kids 8 yr and over how to snorkel in the pool. Well, no-one at the pool knew what i was talking about. Our kids still had an excellent time. They were so worn out from swimming and snorkeling and playing with the other kids that they fell asleep at dinner (6:30P) every night. They slept like they were in a coma (so we did get some quiet time after all without the kid's club!).
You could have set off a bomb in the room and they wouldn't have woke up! As far as taking the all-inclusive option, i'm very happy we did.
We would have spent at least $200/day between the 4 of us with mixed drinks,smoothies, and 2 meals a day. It costs $16 roundtrip for a taxi into town to eat so that in itself would be very expensive. We rented a jeep and went to the east side of the island. We paid $55 for that plus $11 in gas. It was worth every penny. It has beautiful, warm water and white sandy beaches. The kids played in the ocean for 2 hours and did fine. The signs say the current is bad, but we had no problem even though a huge rainstorm came through while we were there. By the way, there is no way to keep the inside of the jeep or your belongings dry if it rains. Speaking of rain, it did every day we were there but usually blew over withing 20-30 minutes. Be very careful walking on the floors at this hotel. I saw many people fall, luckily without serious injury. One of the biggest daily highlights for the kids was to take bread from the restaurants after our meals and feed the fish from the pier. The fish are beautiful and plentiful. They will eat from your hands. We also snorkeled quite a bit from the beach at the hotel. We saw more fish doing this than when we paid for a snorkel tour. They brought us right in front of the Fiesta Americana. We saw parrot fish that were about 3 ft wide, AMAZING!! I could go on and on but i know i was supposed to make this brief. If you have any questions, email me.