We stayed at the hotel Iberostar in Cozumel July 15th through the 22nd for our honeymoon and we just loved it! We will be coming back for years to come! The were many things that we liked and very few things that we disliked. I read dozens of great reviews of the hotel on this site before we left, and it was everything the reviews said it was. I will begin with the good stuff.
The Hotel:
The hotel lobby and the dinner buffet restaurant are open air style thatched roof buildings directly adjacent to the lush courtyard that is full of flamingos, peacocks, iguanas, and a parrot. Very beautiful scenery to admire while you have a meal. The peacocks will walk to your table for handouts if they can sneak past the waiters. The iguanas have their own silver plate on the right side of the courtyard are are fed veggies in the morning for photo ops. The lunch buffet was also an open air style restaurant that doubled as the nightly steak house. The rooms are cozy and the A/C was cold. The fridge was stocked with a few drinks and a few beers every day and their is a hammock on every porch. Our room was 2213 and had one of the best views in the place. We told them we were honeymooners, and they put a bottle of wine, a fruit basket, and two Iberostar t-shirts in our room before check in. For a small tip, the maid will leave you some towel art every day. The many free activities included: Free sample scuba lesson in the pool, snorkeling, archery, rifle range, dance lessons, a different theme show every night, tennis, table tennis, water volleyball, water basketball, water polo, water aerobics, a gym, kids lay room, catamarans, wind surfers, kayaks, a disco, a pool table, and my favorite, the swim up bar. Have Abraham make you one of the local favorites....a michelada. My favorite was the Double Miami Vice ! More than enough things to do and see. Their was a spa area next to the pool, but I didn't try it. Snorkeling next to the boat dock was very nice with hundreds of fish to see. A few Cudas hang out there too, so keep an eye out. We went diving for three days, and the best reefs are right out in front of the hotel. ...Palancar being the most packed with marine life. The photo shop in the lobby let us use a portable DVD player to watch the video of our third day diving! Sweet! We did not use Dressel Divers located at the hotel due to the numerous bad reviews we read about them. They are a contract outfit and not part of Iberostar.
The Food:
Absolutely fantastic! Many choices, a different variety of dishes every day, and quite tasty! Nothing made us sick! Lots of familiar stuff and lots of mystery dishes that were great! Plus pizza, burgers, and hot dogs for the kids. The Steak House was also great! I had tenderloin almost every night! Reserve a table every day for the first available night because tables are limited. A few friendly cats will come to your table for a handout here at night.
If you like lobster or other seafood, walk North East up the beach at 6pm to Albertos beach restaurant and have dinner. We already read about what to order, the Langosta Grande. They brought out two lobsters that four can easily share and barely finish. Nicely grilled with garlic butter to dip it in! Fantastic! You can also bring your own catch and Alberto will cook it for you! Then enjoy a beautiful sunset while you eat, drink, and relax to music. They have a live band on Thursday and Friday with a sandy dance floor to shake your booty on!
The Staff:
Very friendly! They will take care of your every need if you ask with a smile and a small tip! One guest had problems with the A/C in his room and it was fixed the same day! The pool side waiters are always circling, and will ask you for you drink order BEFORE your drink is gone!
The Reefs:
After researching dozens of dive shops and reading reviews from people who used them, we decided on Dive With Martin for our outfitter. They were great! They had nice Sherwood equipment that was included in the already low price, with weighted BC's that were already hooked up to tanks and ready to go every morning. 3000 psi in the tank every day and ascending at 700. You can dive your computer with them, and it's not the "everybody out at 700" rule like most outfits. They picked us up at the dock of the hotel at 8am every day and it was a 2 minute boat ride to the reef! We dove the entire Palancar Strip....Columbia Pinnacles, Columbia Gardens, Palancar Deep, Palancar Caves, Palancar Gardens, La Francesa Reef, Punta Dahlia, and The Bricks. We saw several Hawksbill Turtles, several Green Morays, Souther Stingray, Yellow Stingray, Blacktip Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks, Barracuda, Crab, Lobster, Eel Fish, Parrot Fish, Triggers, Angels the size of dinner plates, huge schools of Grunt, Bristle Worm, and many other species. Our DM was David, and he was amazing. Bubble rings galore, and he can dive with no mask and his eyes open! Ouch! A nice fruit lunch topside and great stories from David were also enjoyable.
Now The Bad Stuff:
Only two electrical outlets in the rooms, and the coffee maker takes the one in the bedroom area. The other is in the bath. So bring some power strips! The beach is nice and sandy until you enter the water, then it's rocks, rocks, rocks. Dont even try to walk in, go to the dock and use the steps. Your ankles will thank you. The Mexican Restaurant was not up to par with the rest of the food, don't bother even trying it. You will be disappointed.
The grackle birds will attack your food plate in the open air buffets if you leave it alone...so don't. The pool has broken tiles and will cut your feet, so wear water socks for all pool sports. The hotel lobby gift shop is a rip off, pay the $20 and go to town to shop if you want a lot of souveneirs. One t-shirt in the lobby is $17 and you can get 8 for $20 in town. One necklace is $10 in the lobby, and they are $1 in town. Sand fleas, sand chiggers, and mosquitos are plentyful, so wear Deet on your feet and legs for beach walking, and all over at night for skeeters. Take vitamin B-12 evey day to help with mosquitos, they hate it. There are some foul odors, but it is an Island, and there is no waste water plant for the hotel folks, it's a septic tank. If you go during peak season be ready for it. It is behind the theater. The coffee is way too strong, and the OJ tastes like Orange Tang. Try the pineapple instead, it's a lot better. The pool bar opens at 11 and closes at 6ish. Too early for me. I would be happier with a midnight closing time! As you can see these are pretty trivial things that are easy to remedy. If your room is close to the theater and stinky, then change rooms. If you drink tap water, you will get the runs. If you hate heat and humidity, then stay home. This is not the place for you. No A/C in lobby, or two of three restaurants.
Overall:
For the price, this hotel has a lot to offer. It is much nicer than ANY all inclusive resort that we have stayed at for this price. For diving, it is hard to beat the location. I was prepared for everything but the lack of power outlets. I will return to this beatiful tropical hotel resort many times and I give it a two thumbs up! Take a look at our vacation pictures!

We have been back from our holiday in Cozumel for three weeks and we are missing the place very much. Please disregard all of the negative reports because this place is fantastic. The resort is clean and very well looked after the ground staff are working all of the time to keep the grounds of the resort looking top class. There is always a creature of some sort to greet you when you take a stroll through the resort be it an iguana peacock or parrot to name but a few . The rooms are plenty big enough and the maid service is excellent. The staff of the resort are very hard working if there is anything they can do to make your stay even better they will do it ( special thanks to Ruben & Juan in the beech bar). The food is top class as well we never visited the specialist resturants because the food selection in the buffet was so good. Hopefully when we have done our holiday touring our first revisit will be the IBEROSTAR COZUMEL.Thanks to Donna great rep.

We stayed July 28-Aug 4 and truly had the best vacation ever. This is our 2nd stay in an all inclusive & it was better than our first. The food at Ib-Coz was plentiful, full of choices & we were never hungry. The drinks from the bar were not watered down. We enjoyed laying on the beach where it was quiet, and someone was always coming through with drinks. The rooms were just right, some said they were small, but just 2 people in a room was perfect size: they had a closet with some built ins for shoes & folded clothes. Our maid visited everyday with fresh sheets & towels & always left towel art. There is a safe in the room which you program with your own 4 digit code (no extra key to lug around!) which was nice. We ate at the Mexican Restaurant, which was good, and also the Steak Restaurant (the steak was delicious) but we really enjoyed the regular dinner buffet the most. There was something different every night (but still the staples one would expect if you didn't want to try something new). Always fresh fruits & salads, which were delcious!
We went on several excursions booked right there at the hotel which were AWESOME! And our friends went diving booked at the hotel, and they were pleased as well. Definately do the jeep tour! It takes a full day, but it was the best excursion all 4 of us did! Best snorkeling by far!
The grounds were full of beautiful landscaping. Everyone there works so hard all day & night: cleaning, cooking, gardening, and the Star Friends!
The beach is beautiful, do bring water shoes - and you can snorkel right there & see some neat fish, lobster, etc.
We would love to return to this Iberostar or one of their other resorts; we would highly recomend this resort! We had the best time & wish we could have stayed another week!

We had a family of 14 go in late July that lasted 7 nights. 11 of us are SCUBA divers with a few of us with ~200 dives so it was mainly a dive/relaxation family trip. Ages ranged from 7 to 85 with some older teens. This was somewhat off-season. We go on a family trip every year so we have been to a lot of all-inclusives. This place was the best so far :)

Atmosphere: Outstanding. Flamingo's in the ponds; wonderful landscaping; the whole property looked great. The buildings are small (8 units max in somewhat round 2 story units) and are all landscaped giving it a very warm feeling. There was a lot of comments about how nice it looked.

Rooms: Excellent. One person mentioned the rooms had a slight smell to them but not so that it mattered. I'm overly sensitive to that type of thing and it was fine. Our room was a little colder then I like however and couldn't be set any warmer.

Pool: Great - I don't think they strain the water during the day so it starts out crystal clear in the morning and gets a little cloudy by nightfall. They have a nice size bar that is pool accessible only and has a large area shaded for ppl like me who avoid sitting out in the sun which was a big plus.

Food: Outstanding - everyone loved it. You need long pants to get into one place for dinner so we didn't go there. The steakhouse (shorts ok) had great ribeye's but requires reservations (two days out for the 14 of us). The normal buffets all had great food including some harder to make Mexican dishes. There was a lot of talk about how great the food was.

Nightlife: Ok - It was pretty quiet at night. The older kids (16 - 19) did find things to do and enjoyed themselves but we've been to other all-inclusives that they liked better. Two tank dives leave the dock at 8:00 (breakfast at 7:00) so a good nightlife didn't matter to me all that much.

Resort Activities: Poor. we didn't see a lot of resort sponsored activities. And the stuff we saw was very limited. This was off-season so perhaps that's why. They do a little show at the pool at 4:00 where they dance for a song. Whenever the phrase "She's my girl" gets played they make like they are spanking her. Strange and yet rather amusing at the same time!

Diving: Excellent to Ok. The resort is on the south side where the reef is! Very short boat rides (5 to 15 minutes). South of the resort was by far my favorite dives (outstanding) with the 50+ foot pinnacles that you can swim around. They also did diving going north. There the diving was average only (lots of current and at times areas with little/nothing to see). A lot of the dives have major current...they are drift dives but its tough to take pictures in it. That's Cozumel diving however. Dive masters are excellent as well and they try and keep you with one dive master all week which is very nice. If you're looking for SCUBA diving in Cozumel this is the place to be. I would have rated diving as outstanding but Cozumel isn't my favorite place.

Staff: Excellent: There usually is somebody that treats you poorly at a resort. At this place everyone treated us great. Many of them were very friendly, chatting with us/etc and the service was always first class.

Travel Agent: Outstanding. Normally this is silly to list. I checked out 5 different places for prices and Kellie at goiberostar was cheaper by a lot. With 14 folks going we had a major savings...so much so that I was a little concerned that it might be a scam. I would recommend always to check multiple places and compare prices but check these guys out as well. Air was the same price and in some cases a little bit cheaper booking it ourselves so I had them do hotel only.