Where: Fiesta Americana, Cozumel

When: 21 Oct 06 – 28 Oct 06. I’ve decided that I will always come to Cozumel during this time frame from now on. The F.A. was at MAYBE 30% occupancy. Other than the hordes of cruise-shippers, the crowds in town were minimal. We never had to wait to get into local restaurants, and on several evenings, had the entire restaurant to ourselves. There were one or two small rain showers every day, and several days were overcast, but the temperatures stayed between 80 and 90 F.

Who: I spend probably 25% of my time on the road for business. I typically stay at Hiltons and Marriotts, with the occasional Sofitel or Star Hotels thrown in for good measure. This is just to give you some idea of my frame of reference.

What: We booked, and received a tropical casita. We paid approximately $1400 for the entire week for two people, all-inclusive. I include this because it’s what my level of happiness / satisfaction is based on. The more I’d have spent, obviously, the less satisfied I would have been with what we’d gotten.

ARRIVAL. We arrived at the Cozumel airport around 1:00pm. Upon exiting customs, we were greeted by a uniformed person from something like the “tourist information service”, or “tourist assistance”. It turns out that this organization is more interested in helping you spend your money on their tours + excursions, than in providing information. Part of the package (booked on AAvacations.com) was a free round-trip transfer from the airport. This was subbed to Olympia tours, which again, wants your money! After a 15 minute wait, we were herded into a van with 10 other people from different hotels, and whisked away. In order to claim the return portion of your ‘free’ transfer, you’re expected to sit thru their sales pitch at some point. We chose to pay the $15 to take the taxi when returning to the airport.

CHECK-IN. Despite calling ahead, there seemed to be some confusion as to which room was ours, and if it was clean or not. My Spanish is rusty, but they wanted to ‘upgrade’ us to a better room IN the main building, and were a little flustered that we chose to stay with our original, detached Casita. They gave us keys to one casita that wasn’t ready yet, and asked us to check back in 20 minutes. After several times of ‘checking back in 20 minutes’ over the following hour, a different counter person was confused, saying that we were in the system for a different casita, which WAS clean. She switched our keys, and off we went. Several nights into our stay, we noticed that all of the lit (occupied) rooms were consolidated in one small portion of the much larger main building. My guess is that this would be easier to maintain on a reduced off-season staff, and might account for them not wanting us to be in the casitas. The point here is, know what you want and what you can live with or live without…and stick to it.

THE ROOM.

We were very happy with the tropical casita. Each one is actually a four-plex, with two guest-rooms on the bottom, two on top, across the service road from the main building. We were in one of the units closest to the hotel, and it was still a several minute walk to the main facilities. The privacy is worth it, in my opinion, but different people have different priorities. We found ourselves walking back and forth probably 5 or 6 times a day.

The room was very clean and seemed to have been recently renovated. The bed was firm, but comfortable. Everything worked as it was supposed to, the air conditioner doubly so. The A/C unit was located in a step-down sitting area, and steadily leaked a small puddle of water….which wasn’t a big deal, as long as we knew to keep things out of that general area.

FYI, the electricity and plug type in Mexico are the same as the U.S.

The tile shower area was great, with decent water pressure and plenty of hot water.

There is a small programmable mini-safe to store valuables, which was nice. They don’t tell you that there is a $1 a day fee to use it which is automatically added to your bill, tho I’m not sure how they actually know. I’m sure you could argue and get it removed if the principal bugs you.

SERVICE:

Room – Our Housekeeping lady came every day, mostly in the afternoon. She did a great job. We always got fresh towels, a well made bed, and a clean floor. Sometimes it took an hour to clean the room, sometimes it was several.

Food – More on Restaurants later, but the service while dining was extraordinary. While there were only two restaurants open, the staff remembered our room number, drink preferences, etc. They were always willing to provide a bottled water during the ‘off hours’, and always had a friendly smile and greeting. While dining, our drinks were always full, our empty plates and silverware were always taken away, and they took special requests in stride.

Front desk / admin – Everyone was always very friendly and helpful, but seemed to give the impression that they had just come on duty, and were trying to ‘catch up’….no matter what time it was, or how many people were there.

LAYOUT: The F.A. is a 10 minute ($6) taxi ride from the downtown area, and is arranged around the main resort and pool area. The casitas are located behind the main area, across the rear entrance and service road. The beach, dive shop, and a future (maybe peak season?) restaurant, are located across the main road. Despite some earlier reviews, the traffic on the main road is not bad, constant, or in the least bit dangerous. There are several severe speed bumps along the front of the hotel, which make it impossible for vehicles to pass at anything faster than a crawl. If you want to walk out the door and be on the beach, this is not the place for you. Having to cross the road, however, is not a problem.

ALL-INCLUSIVE: As opposed to the ‘Sandals’ model, the A.I. option here does not include water activities. Given the distance from the downtown area, the convenience of having something to eat and drink whenever desired was a great advantage. We ended up eating in town most evenings, but were still happy to have the A.I. benefits. I think we probably got our money’s worth in bottled water and margaritas alone. The biggest downside of the A.I. option, is the stupid, neon-green, plastic bracelet they want to put on your wrist as you check in. Once they snap it on, it’s on for good. You can:
1) cut it, and use the safety pin in the complimentary sewing kit to put it on whenever you need it
2) carefully and evenly stretch it until it will slip on and off
3) just carry it around in your pocket. After a few days, they’ll remember you and you’ll barely need it anyway.

FOOD: Overall, the food was very good. If you expect something a level above an Old Country Buffet / Shoney’s / Friendly’s / Ponderosa / Golden Corral / corporate cafeteria, then you probably won’t be disappointed. As this was obviously low-season, there was only one restaurant open at a time. While the quality of the food was excellent, it was all obviously very ‘Mexicanized’, and variety was pretty limited. This might be a good time to address the common fear of ‘Montezuma’s revenge’. I admittedly have a cast-iron digestive system, but I drank the tap water at the F.A. with no ill effects. My system did realize that it was getting something unusual with the food, but it never translated into anything uncomfortable or explosive.

Breakfast – (Tropical Forest) Very standard breakfast buffet fare, but with a definite Mexican slant. There’s a limited variety of fruits, cold cuts, breads, hot dishes, cereals, juices, and a decent omelet grill. The restaurant is open, so flies were an inconvenience, but nothing an occasional swat couldn’t take care of.

Lunch – (Tropical Forest) Standard offering of soup + salad bar, some sandwiches, and a few meat / fish entrees.

Dinner – (Reef) Very nice atmosphere, excellent service. Tiny salad bar and a soup du jour. There were 5 or six different entrees. All were very good, and portions were decent, but the amount of side dishes were a little lacking.

Downtown restaurants: The Lobster House – Expensive, amazing lobster, wonderful (tho a little on the dark side) atmosphere, $10 cab ride. La Mission (downtown location) – Cheap, even more amazing lobster, confusing-but-fun-tequila-shot ceremony. Pepe’s Grill – Expensive, great view, great steak and seafood, tremendous service, a little on the hoity-toity side. Carlos n’ Charlies – Like a loud TGI Fridays…you can do better.

DRINKS: “Margaritas always taste better in Mexico”. (For the second half of that statement, see the movie “The Matador” for a good laugh). They know how to make ‘em here, and they don’t skimp on the tequila! There were no premium brands, but the ones they had were very good. The bartenders were always willing to experiment for you, or to follow your directions to the tee.

TIPPING: While it’s not necessary to tip at the F.A., it did seem to result in a LITTLE better level of service.

POOLS: The pools were reasonably warm, and extremely clean and well kept. We never had trouble finding an open chair, or getting a fresh towel. The main pool area was not very heavily used. The small pool across the street (near the beach) was even more sparsely occupied. Very very nice.

BEACH:

Condition – The beach was always kept extremely clean, and there was always an open chair or two.

Size – Pretty small, and the entries into the ocean were a bit rough, but not dangerously so.

Current – If you’ve never been to Cozumel, make a few ‘test runs’ at different times of day, by entering north of the pier, and letting the current carry you down to where you want to be. If the current is faster than you anticipate at some point, don’t fight it. Continue to comfortably swim towards the shore, exit wherever you can, and walk back along the rocky beach. If diving / snorkeling for the first time, it might be a good idea to be in something more than a bathing suit.

ACTIVITIES: There seemed to be activities to take advantage of, which we didn’t. When asked if we wanted to participate, a simple ‘no thanks’ was always enough.

WATER SPORTS: Diving and snorkeling are handled thru the separately run dive shop. They were well-stocked, and seemed to have whatever was needed for rent. The organization of the dives left a little bit to be desired. I understand the economics of consolidating as many dives and divers as possible, but there needs to be some consideration given to different comfort and experience levels. As it stands, the boat is well underway before the decision is made of where to go. This is unfair to the experienced divers who might want something more challenging, and to the lesser experienced divers who might want to be comfortable in slowly building their experience. On the plus side, all the dives we did had no more than 6 people. This was NOT the norm, however, and only happened because I didn’t rely on the shop to tell me who was scheduled for what. There were several times we showed up to find a cattle-boat gearing up, and canceling until the next trip.

We did stop at other resorts to pick people up, and there were other dive ops that stopped at the F.A. In the future, I’m going to do a little more homework in finding a more personalized operation. While I was not unhappy with the knowledge, experience, or professionalism of the F.A. dive shop, I like something a little more tailored.

GIFT SHOP: A little larger and more well-stocked than expected. The prices were reasonable for a hotel.

SUMMARY: For what we paid, and what we were expecting, we had a wonderful vacation. There are a few tiny hiccups, but that’s ALWAYS the case when traveling. I would happily and excitedly go back to the Fiesta Americana Cozumel without hesitation. I hope my review has given you a helpful, realistic picture of what to expect.