Sugar Land, TX
My husband and I recently returned from the Iberostar Cozumel. After researching where to stay we decided on the Iberostar and we are so glad we did. From the moment we arrived, we were greeted with a drink and a very friendly staff. This was the case from the front desk employees, to the bar staff, and the Star Friends especially. The Star Friends were always friendly and attentive. We went to the Star Friends show every night and enjoyed every show. During breakfast they come to your table and eat with you. When they would see us they would always call us by our first name. Good memory since they meet new people every day.
The food was great, lots of variety.
The grounds are beautiful; and you can be walking and come across an iguana or a peacock. The room was very clean. The housekeeping was wonderful, leaving flowers, chocolates, and a towel animal on the bed daily.
This is a beautiful resort. We are very glad that we chose the Iberostar. The beach area has rocks and they explained to us that this happened during hurricane Wilma but hopefully it will recover fast. You can go to the pier and step down to beautiful water.
Beautiful property wonderful staff. We will definitely return.

I use Tripadvisor religiously and wanted to give a late 20-something, married, and easy to please persons review of Iberostar Cozumel. I am not a foodie or drink connoisseur, but I know and appreciate good (or even average) ingredients used in food and drinks, and Iberostar is not of that mentality. This trip is great for a cheap getaway, not a romantic or overly relaxing one. Go here if you like being around families and if your a diver...that simple.

Overall satisfaction....it was just ok....for the low price I paid, I thought it was just ok. Food was below average, drinks were below average. Example, there is almost no fresh ingredients used in the drinks....everything is a syrup...strawberry margs...syrup...only saw small amount of bananas and mint leaves...but I'd say 85% of drink ingredients are food coloring and syrup. No scotchs available except dewars, top shelf vodka was smirnoff.

Hotel was clean but at ~75% occupancy, the place caters to "herding" people and not to individuals.

We booked through funjet vacations and got one of the insanely low prices for a three night trip, airfare, and transfers from Houston. General observations...prior to trip, i had informed my travel agent, had a spanish speaking friend call the hotel directly, and had emailed Iberostar directly informing them of my anniversary, requesting Building 83 by the pool, or any building by the pool....at arrival, was told room wasn't ready, but I had received a king sized bed in building 83. Front desk even circled the building location and told we had it....After waiting the requested time to check in, found my room was actually building 88. So in essence was lied to...fought and fought and fought for the building 83...to no avail. Not going to let the location of the room dull my trip. Also, never had towels in animal shapes or flowers in the room...no mention or indication of acknlowedgement of anniversary. Again, didn't impact my trip, just to note for future travelers/romantics.
Buildings are separated by large distances from each other, from lobby, from beach...its a distance to each location. Its almost too far...unless you like meandering pointlessly, it adds no ambiance to the place.

We had the shower temperature fluctuations as well...it would change every 20 secs or so. And beds are really hard...the room temp was really cold though, so that was a nice change.

Honest opinion regarding food....even with expecations of all inclusive, the food is below average at best. You eat it because its there ...like the pizza with cut up hotdogs on it....thats not cute or taste even remotely good...its made as a child would make food. Seriously, eat the food just because you need to eat, not because its enjoyable. All inclusive bar....between four of us, I'm convinced the liqueor bottles are half filled with water and the beer is "near beer". In 3 days of trying between 4 people, just gave up on finding decent drinks...we'd request half margaritas with half a cup of tequila just to prove how watered down the liquor was...and the beer (only dos equis and sol) tasted watered down and had no carboniation....honestly, there must be some sort of code against this.

Went next door to Albertos for a dinner one night...not overly expensive if you stick with the freshly caught mahi mahi or red snapper....ceviche was really good there.

We visited the Iberostar July 7- 10, 2009 and this was our 4th trip to Cozumel and our first at Iberostar. And we were very impressed and let just say this is our resort now at Cozumel. I had called a week ahead of time to put in my request. Since there was 5 of us we had 2 rooms. I had requested adjoining rooms and as close to the beach as possible. We ended up two huts away from the beach and in a one story and our rooms were adjoining we were also directly across from the pool. Perfect.

Our rooms were perfect size I thought because we had a king size bed in our room. It was roomy to me but I don't pay to sit in my room. The bathroom was a great size and I loved the shower. They have shampoo and soap in dispenser in the shower and actually it was nice smelling soaps. Also you will not need to bring a blow dryer they had one there and it was a full size powerful hair dryer so one less thing to pack is good right.
There is no dressers but the closest was room and has shelves for clothes and there is also a safe in the closet that you enter your own pin number while you are there.

The beach is very nice and big lots of chairs. The dive shop is also located right next to the pier on the beach. There alwasy seemed to be plenty of beach chairs available. Yes it is alittle rocky into the water because the Iberostar is on a reef. just bring some simple water shoes or go off the pier and you are fine. We snorekled by the pier and it was alittle cloudy for us but later afternoon you can swim up under the dock and we saw some great colorful fish, the barracuda, and a lobster.

The buffets were great and this was the best tasting AI food we have every eaten. We even have picky teenagers and they always found something to eat. We were able to just get one reservation to the steak restaurant it we all loved it and thought it was great. Next time we plan to try the mexican restaurant.

It was very warm and humid while there so walking to the restuarants was a jog and got alittle sweaty but it was still a very tropical paradise. Lots of plants and flowers everywhere. Very clean resort they are always cleaning.

The pool is very nice and very clean. The teenagers loved the pool and the swim up bar is nice for the adults and kids you can get your alcohol drinks or just a soda for the kids. There was always plenty of pool chairs available while we were there.

Over all have no doubts this is a wonderful place and will meet all your needs. If you have a problem with something just ask and it will be fixed and handled for you.
We can not wait to go back.

I encourage anyone to book your excursions and diving experience with Dresslers at the resort. My group did the intro dive with them and Mati was their instructor it was perfect everyone is ready to go back to get certified. Great group of individuals running this shop.
We also the the whale shark excursions is was wonderful and a trip of a life time but keep in mind that you have a very strong chance of becoming sea sick of the 11 on the boat that went to this 6 got sea sick...including myself and the teenagers. And we have been boaters on lakes for years. But overall the Whale shark excursions was worth seeing these huge creatures.

Travelled 10 and half hours on flight to get to resort. On arrival were met by pleasant staff.Room very small for what we were expecting from a 4 star hotel also found room to be very damp and had a persistent smell relating to dampness. There was mould on our bathroom ceiling and found shower to fluctuate between extremely hot or freezing cold.On travelling to a Caribbean resort it was our intention to use the beach.We were aware that there were rocks on shore from the reef but no one informed us regarding insects that we could get serious bites from.On days we were returning to our room with up to twenty bites from insects.Our First Choice rep did not inform us of any areas of the hotel to avoid with regards to insect bites although information from hotel did inform us that they would be fumigating the gardens not sure what for.Wild life at hotel was excellent as were bar staff.Star friends were fabulous they did an excellent job and the shows they put on were very entertaining Would highly recommend the snorkel and sunset sail well worth the 45dollars. Hotel lacking in speciality restaurants. Buffet plentiful but repetitive very small in size and as for snacks available from 11pm this was left overs from buffet dinner service and very poor quantity. Hotel overall good. Excellent diving facilities and water based sports.Grounds and wildlife wonderful. If you are looking for a holiday based around diving I would highly recommend this hotel but lacks facilities that you would associate with a four star hotel. Best thing about hotel would definitely be the star friends staff.We would have enjoyed this holiday more had it not been for the insect bites we received which we did take precautions for ie insect sprays and bite/sting relief. This review asks if we would recommend this hotel well maybe if things inproved, not value for money in our opinion regarding what we paid in respect of what we received.