Before booking my trip to Cozumel for August 6-9, I spent several hours reading the reveiws on the trip advisor website. I booked with El Cozumeleno because the good reviews outweighed the bad - I am glad I did. We arrived around noon and were informed our rooms wouldn't be ready until 3:00. We were immediately given a bracelet with access to all the food, drinks, and activities we wanted. This definitely made the wait go by faster. We stayed in the new tower and were very pleased with our rooms. Found the beds to be very hard as was stated on the website but found the view, the balcony, the clean spacious room, and the big towels well made up for it.

We watched the Carribean theme show that night but was not impressed by the show or the food. The food was setup outside and they sprayed pest insecticide all around the open food. We ordered room service and the food was great.
Breakfast the next day was much better - the french toast and made to order omelets were fabulous!!! We stayed away from the beef stew for breakfast. We did have some menudo around 4:00 am and found we were less tired after a night in town. They had hamburgers, hot dogs, and nachos every afternoon that were not bad. Breakfast was the best meal for our entire stay. We brought packable snacks (pringles, trail mix, candy) to get our American snack fixes in between food. Also - bring mosquito spray - our ankles always got bitten at the outdoor evening meals.

We found the staff to be extremely accomodating and friendly. We didn't tip everytime and were still given excellent service and smiles.

We took the Fury catalina boat ride out for the day from the El Cozumeleno dock - very convenient. The crew was great but we were disappointed in Palancar reef - saw very few fish. We are snorklers but not divers but we had been to this reef before and had seen tons of fish. We went to Senor Frogs for dancing that night. Caters to the very young crowd and to drinkers - the three 20 year olds we were with loved it. The best part of the trip was renting a jeep and exploring the island - definitely go to Coconuts - the best and highest view from the island. Great drinks and food and look at the photo albums at the bar if you want to see some interesting looking parts of the human body. Went swimming with the dophins at Chankanaab park. The dolphins were beautiful and it was an awesome experience - well worth the price. We booked in advanced at dolphindiscovery.com and found we saved $25 per person in advance. Even if you don't swim with the dophins I would highly recommend going to the park. It is absolutely beautiful and there's plenty of space to relax and to rent snorkel and boogie boards.

Best advice for going to Cozumel - remember you are not in America. It is much slower pace and a different culture. You should just sit back and enjoy the beauty of the country and ocean, appreciate the differences, and count your blessings you live in a country with so much wealth. Don't go to Cozumel for good food or for the clubs because you won't find it there.

Arrived Aug. 2-6
Clean resort except for flies swarming buffet and lots of mosquitos. After about 10:00PM, nothing to do except sit in smoke filled karaoke bar unless you leave the resort. Had four children with us and total of four adults, kids hungry at night and nothing to eat at the resort after dinner. Have stayed at many other resorts throughout caribbean and this was a disappointment. AC not working in one room.... Staff not very friendly in general and did nothing quickly...Scuba class was great and a great dive for family, Chaakanab Park well worth the visit (go on your own by taxi).

My wife and I stayed at the El Cozumeleno for our honeymoon July 12 through July 16. Before booking our trip and up until the day before our wedding we did our research and read as many reviews as we could find. We paid close attention to the bad ones and left Texas not expecting the best. I must say that the bad reviews that we read were misleading and when you are at the resort and observe the way some Americans treat the staff you realize exactly the type of people who wrote them. This hotel is beautiful. The beach is supreme to any we saw at any other resort on the island. The food was more than we expected, not the worst I have eaten but not the best either, but to be fair I don't figure we paid an outstanding amount for it. The staff is wonderful. If you tip, which should be common courtesy knowing what the staff is making per day, they will treat you like kings. We never waited more than 30 minutes for room service and ordered it 6 times. The drinks are great if you tip and get to know the bar staff. I am not saying you should drop hundreds tipping but we went through about $50 in ones and they were the nicest people ever, especially considering the long hours they work. Overall we had the time of our lives and are planning to go back very soon.

We just recently went to Cancun and Cozumel for our honeymoon for two weeks - 1 week in Cancun and then 1 week in Cozumel. We stayed at the El Coz and were so disgusted we almost changed hotels.

They were completely overbooked and put us up in a private room about 1/4 mile down the beach from the hotel. (The only decent part of the trip).

After numerous tears I decided to buck up and check out the rest of the hotel....to my horror it only got worse. The buffet was set up with flies completely covering the food - it was so disgusting we decided to go downtown and eat...we ended up doing this all week and wasted money what we had hoped would be a decent all-inclusive resort.

The staff - completely disrespectful and rude....they acted as if they were completely put off by doing their job...it was very frustrating.

The pool - nothing like it looks online....so incredibly deceiving we had to laugh!!!

The only decent thing was Antonio the guy in the dive shop...he made coming over to the resort worthwhile!!

We are planning to go back to Cozumel next year, but there is not freaking way we are going to come close to the El Cozumelano!!!