I really love this hotel-but-found a lot of reviews to be wrong information. We had the very best rooms 8203 and 8204. they conncet with a locking door and are 10 steps to the pool, 10 steps to sand volley ball, 100 to beach, 50 to pool grill, 100 to scuba shop and pier. One level yellow, thatch hut with a real ceiling (none are thatch inside anymore-they said) and balconies on the pool separated by beautiful flowering bushes and beautiful views of the entire beach/pool/marriage.volleyball and everything else. We saw humming birds, iguanas, the flamingos, every morning the peacocks (and black birds-they stewel sugar)ate breakfast with us in the main restaurant-we named one crucibal the dominate peacock with a v shaped feather on his backside. This place is great, but the employees are not really friendly-except for the pool bartenders. Yes, they all say hello-but this was the first time my sisters had been out of the country to an all-inclusive and I told them about games, the water aerobics(?), drinking pool volleyball, and how the "friends" always try to get everyone to particpate-Not happening! Besides that, we made our own fun, trips to the beach at 4-5AM, do you know if you go to sleep at the pool or the beach a security guard has to stay there all night long. we drove the island and went to all but 3 beach clubs on the drive to have drinks and views. The people traffic was slow great! It seemed as if it rained when we drove and was sunny when ever we wanted to stop. We never did make it to the evening festivities at the hotel (too exhausted from the day) but-taking walks in the middle of the night we saw many people coming back. Lets talk snorkeling off the pier-my sisters and I are chickens and my husband was often diving while my sisters and I were left to occupy ourselves, so we go to snorkel off the pier, it's a little murky beacuse it was raining for a short time-we see- no fish-none. An 8 year old on the pier says to me go under the pier thats where the fish are! hiding, the water you understand is like 4 feet deep, so I walk snorkel skulk to the edge of the pier afraid the pier might trap me underneath-4 inches my head was under thepier when-------NO JOKE------ 300 fish were 1 inch from my masked face, I backed out like I had a turbo engine. The we decided to swim really fast under the thinner part of the pier from one side to the other and we made it alive. There are at least 10,000 fish under that peir to include a family of 15-20 bottle/needle nose fish and a 3 1/2 foot barracuda, a 5 family black and silver striped angel fish, and once you get the nerve-if you stay under the pier-you will see a family of tiny red fish that live under one roack and a group of tiny yellow under another at the shallow end of the pier where the bottle nose fish live. The next 4 days the ocean was clear as drinking water.. so then we venture under therope into the boating area and really we should have tied on a dive bobber to show where we were to the boats but we didnt (and there is a lot of boats coming and going) We found 2 star fish, one bright orange red and anohter that was brown and marbled. We picked up the red one in 8 foot of water and took it back to the 4 foot area, where we had a national geographic hour watching it turn over under water and start walking back to the deeper water, so we took it back out so it would be safe. The only place you need snorkel is under the pier. The food was good we always found something to wet our appetites, but they do have the entiere salad area set up for european visitors-you know they eat lunch meat for breakfast and lots of nutella on toast. The grill by the pool has a superb coconut ice cream and coconut cookies to eat with-MMMMMMMMM. At night the grill becomes the Steak House-which is also good-we misssed one reservation because they didnt tell us only fish was available over the weekends. One more hint for those who like Bob Marley-his bar is not the place to get...its too expensive.....the place to shop is to go and park at the Langosta mall, shop there then go outside pass Carlos & Charlies and Senor Frogs to the corner there is a hot dog stand 3 doors down-start asking-you must buy hot dogs to buy bob. Always negotiate your prices, I never paid what they asked
in an example for a souvy they said 250.00 american, I said no way...I'll give you 40.00, if they responded 225.00, I would repsond 30.00, then they would say OK, Ok I'll take 40.00. Use your good American sense-if you know you can get something for 50.00 in the USA, why would you pay more in Mexico. Since many things are made in Mexico-it should be much cheaper there. But be nice and have fun, do not use insulting tones and condesending mannerisms. I dont attach to anything until I pay for it at my price or I go away laughing-theyll chase you ----everytime. Now you should rent a car, you can get one at the hotel or at an online rental place (much cheaper) parking was plentiful at the hotel. There is never lobster at the sea food restaurant or grill, the best path from pool to beach is the middle road, start from the pool grill and follow that main path all the way through the grounds to the restaurant. Call for any other info.

I stayed at the Iberostar between Nov 17-24th with my gf. She is certified, I was not. We are in our 20s and weren't just looking for a place to lay on the beach and eat since we would both get bored. great place for divers or snorkellers. Not a party place for singles(goto cancun if you want that)

The Hotel
Rooms - the rooms were kinda on the smaller side but were plenty adequate for the both of us. The hotel is set up into a bunch of small 4 and 2 bedroom houses basically. Everyone has their own entrance. I know we had neighbors but I never actually saw or heard any of them so there is plenty of privacy. They have a bed, free safe, tv and a bathroom. The housekeeping service was awesome. Always had the room in great shape. You cannot drink the tap water there but they always had a gallon of bottled water for you to brush your teeth etc. Our mini bar was always fully stocked as well, with water, beer, coke etc. The first thing I did when i got there was clog the toilet so we called front desk and they sent someone right away. They came super quick. Mexican toilets dont take much to clog so make sure you flush often ;)
Actually my only real complaint about this place is the bed. it is hard and it did hurt my back by the end of the week which took a couple nights on a proper bed at home to get back to normal. Also their pillows are very thin. But im not really the type to complain about small things like a welcome drink(who cares, get it yourself)

Food - The food was above average. Not amazing but better than most places ive been. The buffet was where we ate most of the time since you only get 2 a la cartes which we only went once because they were full (you can reserve more than a day in advance) We werent too upset since the buffet was so good. They do have different things at the buffet each day so it doesnt get as boring as some places. One thing I didnt like was that it was hard to get food around 4-630 since the main buffet is closed and the other food place by the pool doesnt have much selection at that time. But if you can find something to take you to 630 youre fine.

Beach - the beach is nice. lots of lounge chairs and plenty of thatched roof shade things. Not like some places where you never can get an umbrella. Its not a beach for people who want to play in the waves since there are none cuz youre not facing the open ocean. It was amazing for snorkelling tho. Go out by the pier and look around. Huge schools of fish under the dock. We also saw eels, lobsters, baracuda, some flat flounder type fish, crabs and even an octopus just from snorkelling from the dock down to the south part of that beach. There was a huge(1000s) of small grey fish school near the south part that was really fun to swim through since looking around fish were literally all you could see. Since that is what we like in a beach it was awesome. It is rocky to enter straight from the sand so either get in by the pier or get water shoes.

Pool - looked good, nice pool bar. We used it once to play basketball and a bunch of times for my pool certification dives. Otherwise didnt use it.

Grounds - awesome, very well kept. Lots of wild life. We saw lots of big iguanas, a land crab, frogs, flamingos, tortoises. Cool trees and plant life as well.

Dressel Divers (on site dive company)
As i said before, my gf is certified and i was not. I had been scuba diving once before in cuba just a little shallow reef and loved it. So i hadnt planned on doing a full certification when we arrived but once we got there it really only made sense to do the full PADI open water certification. So i did. The whole crew there are native english speakers and super nice so it was easy. You get a book to read (super easy read) You do 5 pool dives which take no more than 2 hours total depending on how many other people are in the class that day. You also do 4 open water dives which take 2 afternoons total. There you basically repeat the skills in the pool dives and dont take much time at all, so you basically do a couple skills then do a nice 40 min dive through the reef which is awesome.
There are some amazing things to see on the reef, just a few ill mention, eagle rays, sea turtles, free swimming moray eels, grouper, parrot fish, lobsters and a ton of other smaller fish i for which i dont know their names. All in all, if you are even considering getting certified, do it at Dressel. I cant imagine a better place to do it (warm water, awesome scenery) since my other option would be do to it in the St. Lawrence river. The pricing is very good as well as ive seen it for much more.
Staying at the iberostar is also better for divers since it is close to the best reefs. Its only about a 10-20min boat ride.

Thats all about i can think of to say. We both loved our stay and would go back in a heart beat. Im sure we will be back at this hotel the next time we want to dive.

If youve got questions feel free to ask.

This was our third trip to an Iberostar in Mexico and we had a blast! The grounds, pools and lobby and beach were beautiful! The best sunsets I have ever seen. The food was so delicious. Best fish that I have ever had and that is amazing with growing up in the US Mid-Atlantic. Best chicken I've ever had and the Delaware's State bird is the Blue Hen. The staff couldn't have been any kinder or more helpful. I never expected that 6 teenagers (our kids are very athletic) from three families would participate in almost every activity (beach volleyball, water volleyball, water basketball, water polo, shooting range, etc.) and had a geat time thanks to the Star Friends especially Francisco. The kids wanted to adopt him and bring him home! He was so much fun! Thank you Frank! One of our boys celebrated his 16th Birthday and the staff sang to him at dinner and gave him cake. The Meriache (sp?)singers sang to him in the lobby in English and Spanish and one of the Star Friends danced with him as they sang. A Birthday to remember!
One of the concerns I had was the bugs but we didn't have a lot of bites and didn't have to use spray. The only negative thing that I can say is swimming off of the beach is difficult because of the rocky shoreline and bottom. We tried to walk up the beach to find a sandy bottom but it is a rough walk becasue of the large pieces of shell and coral. Water shoes are a must! They provide them at the activities counter. The snorkeling off of the pier is fun because of all of the fish looking for shelter. Great resort for relaxing and having fun!

Introduction: This a very long review and commentary of our recent trip to Cozumel. So, if you are not in the mood to read a long review, just skip this one or just go ahead and look at some of the photos. My wife and I just came back from a week long Mexican vacation (Nov. 10 to 17). We stayed at the Iberostar Cozumel Resort. This was our third trip to the East Coast of Mexico. We stayed at the Grand Bahia Resort near Tulum (between Akumal and Tulum) in 2005 and Riu Cancun at the Cancun Hotel/Resort strip in 2006. My wife and I are not party-hardy people. We like places that are serene and peaceful when we go on vacations. This south side of Cozumel fit our bill quite nicely. We chose Cozumel for the diving (Yes, I did 5 days of two tank morning dives and my wife just relaxed on the beach) and a relaxed/slow paced atmosphere.

Air Transportation / Travel Agent: This time, we booked our trip through SunWing and flew into Cancun International Airport using Zoom Airlines. We paid an extra US$50 per person/two-way to upgrade to premium class seats. It was worth the money as the premium class seats are wider and there is a tad bit more legroom than the economy seating. The flight from Vancouver, BC Canada to Cancun International is around 6 to 7 hours. We were on a chartered flight so we flew straight. Yes, we did the Cancun – Cozumel Shuffle.

Ground Transportation: Here is a tip if you are landing at Cancun International Airport. After you pick up your luggage, just make your way out of the terminal until you reach the transportation area outside the terminal. There is a section after the baggage claim area where a lot of time-share people lie in wait to snag an unsuspecting tourist. Ignore them or say “No” (in a nice and friendly way) and keep moving. Don’t let them catch you or else the will just waste your time unless you are interested in buying a time-share property.

SunWing Vacations’ rep at Mexico is Best Day Travel. When we reached the transportation area outside, we immediately saw the Best Day Travel Rep holding up a Sunwing Vacation sign. They led us to an air-conditioned van and took us to the Playa Del Carmen Dock. From there, we took a ferry over to San Miguel, Cozumel. My wife did not like the ferry ride and it made her seasick.
At San Miguel, another Best Day Travel rep met us outside of the ferry dock and gave us vouchers for a cab ride to Iberostar. It took us a total of 4 hours from the time we landed in Cancun to get to the Iberostar Cozumel.

The Nightlife: Zilch. Zippo. We do not have a nightlife so we are not looking for a rowdy bar or disco. We have out-grown this craving for action…been there, done that. (I used to be a mobile disco DJ when I was in highschool/college and my wife used to be a marketing professional for a top dance club in Manila back in the late 80’s and early 90’s). If you want some fun and action, you are better off staying in a resort at Playa Del Carmen or Cancun. Or, stay in a resort close to town so you are closer to Senor Frogs and other bars. Generally, Cozumel is for divers, honeymooners, and people who just want a nice and relaxing atmosphere.

The Service: There is nothing to complain about service. So far, all the staff we encountered at the Iberostar Cozumel were courteous, polite, and enthusiastic. They are real hard workers who work really long hours. The chamber maid who cleaned up our room everyday did a fine job everytime. She even re-arranges your stuff so the room won’t look cluttered. Some people won’t like this but we do appreciate it. My wife and I like to be neat and orderly. We make it a habit to tip staff that look after us everyday. A buck a day keeps them happy. We do forget to tip them once in a while but the service is still the same. Check-in was smooth and quick.

Our Room: We were given Room #8704 which is quite close to the pool and the beach. It seems small at first but we quickly warmed up to it. We were given a room with two double beds. The front desk knew we were a married couple but I do not know why we did not get a room with a queen or king size bed. Anyway, we slept on separate beds which we actually liked for a change. You get a whole bed for yourself! The beds have hard mattresses. They are not comfy beds and we have heard people complain about them. However, this did not bother us because we are used to sleeping on hard mattresses. Besides, it is good for you back and posture! A/C worked really well during our stay except for our last night but we survived. You did not really need A/C when we were there. The weather is just perfect. Not too hot and breezy. However, you will want to use the A/C at night to muffle the outside noise (your neighbor’s TV set and chatter) and keep mosquitos and bugs out of your room (you close your front door). The bathroom is small but adequate. One thing that bothered me was the lack of hooks and hangers for dive gear. I was fortunate that our patio did not get any direct sunlight from 9 am onwards so I left my gear out there to dry and then took them in at night.

The Grounds: As with the other reviews in this forum, the grounds are very lush and well kept/groomed. They do fumigate the surroundings using non-toxic (bio-friendly chemicals). When we were there, we did not encounter any mosquitos or insects. Of course, there will be ants but they mainly stay outside of the room. Do not bring any food into your room. This is where the bug problem starts.

The Food: OK, those of you who have experienced all-inclusive resorts know that there is nothing to rave about the food. It is OK compared to the other the other resorts we know. OK meaning palatable. The main buffet place is the “Cozumel” restaurant located at the Main Lobby. They serve breakfast and dinner here. So far, the best dinner fare we encountered was the BBQ spare ribs. These are the tenderest and juiciest ribs we ever tasted in our entire life! Don’t miss it! The buffet selections always have something Mexican and North American junk food (pizza, hotdogs, cheap spaghetti, and mac/cheese) and healthy salads. Dessert selections range from varieties of fruits and pastries. The lunch buffet is over at the “El Cedral” Palapa Grille. Again, there is a good selection of Mexican and North American junk food plus some healthy salads. The desert selection is mainly the same. We did not bother to go to any of the specialty restaurants, El Sarape Mexican and the El Cedral Steak House (this is the lunch place turned steak house at night). My wife and I feel too lazy to dress up for Mexican or Steak. We are happy with the buffet. The buffet selections are mainly the same for the entire week with only a couple of new dishes introduced everyday. The secret is to vary your meal selections everytime so you don’t bet sick and tired of the food. Don’t just do pancakes and hotdogs every morning or hamburgers and fries every lunch or steak and potatoes every dinner. There is a good enough selection that allows you do mix and match so be creative. Try something different, you’re in Mexico. Leave that Mac and cheese craving behind and be gutsy enough to try the local Mexican fare. It is delicious!

The Beach: Nice, very nice! White and wide sandy beach. The sandy beach extends far north and south to where ever your legs can take you. We walked north along the beach to the Occidental Grand Resort and south to more isolated and sandy beaches. BRING WATER SHOES! We always do. The sea shore is rocky for about 10-feet or so into the water. After that the sea floor is better for wading or snorkeling. A warning about snorkeling beyond the safe zone: The area beyond the cordoned ‘safe zone’ is very busy area with dive boats, catamarans, and all kinds of motor boats zooming up and down the coast. Though I wish I could have snorkeled outside of the protected area, I decided not to for the fear of being run over. Some people did go beyond the safe area and I think they are taking a very huge risk. If you are a die-hard snorkel fan, go on an organized snorkel trip instead. The waters off the Iberostar is very calm. This area being at the southern end of the island’s west coast does not get too much wave action because it is sheltered. It gets rougher as you go north into town or as you go round the southern tip into the east coast (the wild side!). The Iberostar has its own dock. Lots of fish around it including their resident barracuda, Barry. Saw him a couple of times. I was told by a couple of divers that the neighboring Occidental Grand Resort’s dock also has their own resident Barracuda. I think it’s Barry but who knows!

The Diving: When in Cozumel, you really should try scuba diving if you do not fear being under water. I am a certified open water diver so I already had diving in mind. I purchased a 5-day two-tank AM dive package with Dive with Martin (DWM). I did this online and paid them using PayPal. They have representatives in Texas and Oregon where you can send money using a Cashier’s Check or Money Order. My dive package included a free DVD of one of my dives. They are way less expensive than Dressel Divers, the on-site dive operation at Iberostar and they take only a max.of 8 people per boat. Dressel Divers usually take more than 8 people which feels a lot like a cattle boat. The DWM divemasters are really friendly, accommodating, and good at finding critters or any sea life that you like to see. The smaller boats and limited passengers allow them to provide you with more personalized service. There is no charge for using DWM dive gear if you purchase a dive package with them. Other dive operators charge you for the use of their gear. I brought all my dive gear with me even if I knew that I can use their gear gratis. I wanted to be sure that I enjoy my dive so I use my own gear whenever possible. DWM picks you up at the dock at 8 am and brings you back at around 11 am. This worked well for me because I arrive way before the Dressel Divers’ boats come in (no crowds). This means that I have the rinse tank all to myself. I do have to express my appreciation to Dressel Divers for allowing me to use their rinse tank to clean my dive gear. However, I do have to give way to their customers if they are rinsing their gear. This has not happened because I always get there first.

Cozumel is one of the top dive destinations in the world. Enough said! It is a dive mecca. I can write a lot about my dives and the dive sites but this is not the right place to do it. One thing I will say is that a lot of the reefs are still recovering from Hurricane Wilma so it is not as lush or colorful as it used to be and it will take time for it to return to its former glory. The sea life gets better as you go deeper and a lot of the shallow reefs are teeming with life so don’t despair.

Rental Cars: There are rental cars available at Iberostar. We rented a VW Jetta for $50 per day (our first choice, the Nissan Tsuru (or Sentra or Sunny) is not available so they gave us the VW for the price of the Nissan. The regular price of the VW is $60. A Jeep 4x4 will cost you around $70 or $75. We went to Punta Sur Lighthouse, the Crocodile Sanctuary (we met Max the alpha male) and the San Gervasio Ruins. We drove around the island and loved the east coast which we call the wild side. There are nice ‘watering holes’ or bars along this stretch of highway and all of them are on the beach. We also stopped by San Miguel to shop. Ask the car rental clerk for directions on where to park in town.

The Weather: When we were there, the daytime temperature averages at 26 to 27 degrees C. There was a good breeze most of the days and nights. It only rained for an hour on a couple of days and we had a really grey sky and some rain on one day but that was it. The rest of the week was just sun and really pleasant weather.

OK, I am stopping here. I think I have said a lot though there is still a lot to be said. I hope this was helpful. Good luck with your research!