Arrived 11/3/04 and immediately had difficulty finding the Apple Rep.. We were intercepted by official looking agents who said the Apple Rep was late to provide transfer to our hotel. As it turns out, these agents were no more than Time-Share hawkers and the Apple Rep was not late, just hard to find. This kind of behavior plagued our stay at Cozumel. Be prepared for blatant misrepresentations and do not spend your time with anyone who "just wants to help."

The El Cozumeleno has a nine story new wing where most of the guest stayed. Our room was clean and had a beautiful view of the beach and pool. The beds are rock hard and were another one of the items that we had hoped to avoid based on previous reviews of most hotels in Cozumel. Typically, something got lost in translation between our travel agent and the hotel.

The all-inclusive idea is nice in theory but did not work out well in practice. We found that the food in the morning was often the same food seen in the previous evening. Not only is this not appetizing, it may have contributed to my three day bout with Montezuma's revenge! I did not eat most of the food provided the last three days we were there. If you want to eat a particular meal, make it breakfast with the omelets. The pastries weren't bad either. Fortunately, town is only a $5.00 ride away.

The beach is nice and you can find a colorful assortment of fish near the end of the pier. Trying to avoid the cruise ship crush is nearly impossible. Again, rude hawking tactics are the rule and time-share "officials" are everywhere including hotels and ferry piers. Snorkeling toward the south end of the island was nice if not spectacular.

In essence, unless you live in Texas and find trip prices too low to resist, spend your valuable vacation dollars on places like Hawaii or Florida. Less aggravation, superior amenities and no cultural conflicts.

Let me start by saying that the people at the resort were the BEST. They treated us like gold. I want to categorize each area so that you wont have to read much:

Cleanliness: VERY CLEAN (Some days the water smelled of sulfur)

Food: AVERAGE (same thing at least every other day and the food is rather bland......beware of the rare hamburgers)

Beach: AVERAGE (small and rocky)

Pools: ABOVE AVERAGE (very clean but a little on the cold side)

Hot tubs: POOR (both were broke.. one with a heater out...the other was down all together... Was promised they would be fixed but it never happened)

Staff: OFF THE CHARTS (what else can I say....they take good care of you)

Diving: VERY GOOD (I used ScubaDu and they were top notch and made sure that we were safe and had plenty of water)

After reading the reviews for several months before going to this resort I obviously had mixed feelings about staying there. But I was adamantly keeping an open mind and expectations in check.

We arranged our trip of 14 women through Apple Vacations. Six arrived on Friday 11/12, then 2 on Sunday with the rest of the six arriving on Monday. We stayed till Friday 11/19. Dealing with the Apple Representatives was great. I myself was a first timer ever out of the USA and felt the reps did a great job of getting us to the shuttle to the hotel and checking us in. They were available for setting up special priced activities.

The hotel itself was very clean and beautiful. The staff was friendly and helpful. We needed a room change three days after arrival due to plumbing problems. NO problem, we packed and they had us in a new room by 2:00pm.

The beach is totally awesome!!!! Availability of lounge chairs and the Plalaypa's were good. The beach is constantly cleaned everyday by one man. NO comment for the pool. Wasn't there to swim in a pool.

Snorkeling at they resort was good. Early mornings at the end of the yellow and white pier you can be very lucky to get to see the stingray(He's 4 ft. wide). Not alot of different fish but for the novice I was very entertained.

The FOOD!! After arriving on Friday afternoon we were starving and hit the buffet. I thought I would starve by the end of the week. I'm not a picky eater but I found very little that I liked. We made reservations to eat in the indoor restaurant every night and found the service and food very very good. Breakfast is the best meal with exception to the theme nights buffets. Drinks are good and if you find them weak just order it stronger. The best fun is trying all different kinds of drinks. Be sure to take cereal or bread to feed the fish!!

We found shopping better in Playa De Carmen than in dowtown Cozumel. They tended to barter better there.

Don't forget to checkout Carlos and Charlies and Senor Frogs. It's like Spring break every night there.

Several in our group did the dolphin experience and felt they were ripped off for the money. 10 people in a group with only one dolphin for 20 minutes. Three of us did the jungle jeep tour. It was one of the best trips I have ever done. Be warned this is a very rough ride but the scenery and the guides were soooo much fun. Money well spent!!

If you're looking to compare this hotel to a 5 star in the US--Don't. If you want to enjoy paradise and not your hotel room stay here. Remember it's all in how you make it and El Cozumeleno made this trip absolutely HEAVEN for me. I will definitely return to this resort and not soon enough!!!!

We just returned from a seven night stay (Nov 11-18) at the El Cozumeleno. Overall we were happy with our experience, but it might not be our first choice next time.

On the positive side, we liked the bright and spacious room that we had, and as a whole the hotel was comfortable and quite well maintained. We also found the staff to be helpful and friendly. The bar staff was good and the drinks were tasty. The beach is beautiful, and the pool and other common areas never seemd overcrowded.

On the not so positive side, the food was mediocre at best. After a day at the El Cozumleno, I told my wife to hit me the next time that I complained about the food on a cruise. Not that the food was inedible or anything like that, it was just like they didn't seem to care that much. The buffet appeared to have pretty much the same selection all the time-even on the different theme nights, it was hard to tell the Spanish night from the TexMex night-the food seemed to look and taste the same. The selections on the salad bar were pretty much the same every day, and you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to have bran muffins or wheat toast at breakfast. The dining room was a little better (the wine served in the dining room is of a slightly higher quality) but even so, you still didn't get the impression that much care was taken in its preparation. On a cruise ship, you can understand this to some degree due to the number of people they are serving at the same time. However at the El Cozumeleno the dining room was less than half full both times we ate there (it seems that many people would make reservations and then not show up), and we would have thought that they could cook a steak medium rare with only 40 or so other people to cook for. Apparently we were wrong. As another reviewer put it, you'll eat and you'll get full. But don't expect anything close to fine dining.

We came to Cozumel for the scuba diving. The El Cozumeleno is at the northern end of the island, a fair distance from most of the major dive sites. This means that you either have to take a cab to get to your dive boat, or you have to use the in house dive shop, Ocean Watersports. If you use them, then you can get picked up at the hotel dock and taken by boat to the dive sites, thereby saving the $10 cab fare each way. We opted to use the hotel's dive shop, and that turned out to be less than ideal. Actually, we had no complaints with Ocean Watersports-Antonio and his staff at the hotel were great to deal with, and they were competitively priced for a multiple day package.. However, they didn't actually run the dive trips-they would get you to the El Presidente hotel, where Scuba Du would take you on your trip. We didn't care for Scuba Du at all. The divemasters we had ranged from decent to downright surly. They seemed to have little interest in interacting with thier customers. Safety wise they were OK, but if you're looking for personalized service, look somewhere else. Also, if you want a fast boat, you might get one at Scuba Du, but then again maybe not-it was pretty much the luck of the draw.

So, in summary, although we enjoyed our stay at the El Cozumeleno, next time we are more likely to stay at a place that is a bit more centrally located to the major dive sites, so that we can use a smaller dive operator who can pick up at our hotel.