We spent the week of Oct. 11-18th at the Grand on Cozumel. The place is beautiful and kept immaculate. The choice of (5) restaurants is very nice, and we ate in all of them and the food was very palatable. Service in the restaurants was exceptional. In fact, all the staff were very pleasant and accommodating. I read various reviews before taking the trip, and some mentioned a musty smell in the rooms. I would suggest requesting a room off the ground floor; we did, and moved up to the 3rd floor and were very satisfied. All the rooms have central a.c. and a large overhead fan. Also, the hotel has purified water, and is not a problem, but plenty of bottled water is provided. We had no complaints about the hotel. However, transportation on the island is another matter. The taxi cabs have a monopoly and are very expensive. Also, the optional excursions offered from the hotel (not necessarily by the hotel) are very expensive, and do not meet expectations. The exception to this is Dive Palancar which is on the hotel beach. Their snorkeling trips are great at $29 for 3 hrs. We took a jeep (tracker) trip to a remote part of the island, which was fun, but not worth the price. Also, if you swim with the dolphins at Chankanaab Park, be careful, as they do bite. I was bitten by Titan on the back of my ankle. The Occidental Grand is definitely a hotel that we would go back to again.

My husband and I just returned from Cozumel and stayed at the Occidental Grand from 10/21 - 10/25. We had rented a car and so did not get the welcome champagne (although I heard it tasted bad anyway!) or much info at first. Luckily I knew a lot because of all the reviews I had already read. But, we checked in quickly - and, like SO many others, were told there would not be a king bed available until the following day. They did NOT even bring up that we could upgrade to the Royal Club and I was happy about that. We stayed in the villa 18 and that was nice as it was right next to the leisure pool, which no one is EVER at. A bellboy drove us to our room. We had to wait a few minutes for him to come but, once we got going and saw where the villa building was, i am glad we waited. There are brick walkways and I think our suitcase wheels might have come right off! We ended up deciding we were happy with our room and location so we never asked to switch rooms for a king size bed. Besides, the extra bed gave us more room to put our suitcases. The rooms are large and the bathrooms are great! It is hard to hang your scuba gear up but there is a heavy duty hook next to the tub and that was fine. I am glad I read to bring Febreze and the room freshener. It is very damp all the time and musty - they also spray for bugs around the area so you have that smell to deal with as well. So bring some air freshener.

We rented a car and I recommend that. Taxis are about $30 roundtrip into San Miguel so it gets costly. We never had a problem finding a place to park in town.

The pools were never crowded and I think, because we went in October, it is less filled. I feel bad for all of you that ever had to wait in line to make those dinner reservations at the nicer restaurants. I never had to wait in line to make a reservation and we got to eat wherever we wanted. We chose Sonora Grill and Los Olivos and we liked the latter better. They were funny with us in there. You get a choice of soup or pasta so I chose the fettucine alfredo and it was really good - Very creamy! My husband got the veal and I got the beef tenderloin and I think mine was better. At the end of the meal (after drinking a ton of wine!) they come around with a tray with after dinner drinks - I had Zambuca and my husband had Grand Marnier. Nice end to our meal. The Sonora was good as well, but not as good as Los Olivos. I am a very picky eater and was fine at both. I agree about the lunch buffet - not always the greatest but you can have them grill your own fish of the day, or chicken or beef (my husband would NOT reccmmend the hamburger - it was not good) and they had some delicious taquitos one day. The breakfast buffet was VERY good. They have everything you can imagine for breakfast. And, even though the food was not always the greatest at lunch, you got to eat it on the beach with a rum punch or whatever so to me, that was minor!

As others have said, the staff was VERY friendly and I have to say that everywhere we went people were friendly. It is such a change from other islands where you are always being hounded for something. We tipped here and there but I felt like I never needed to, they always gave you what you needed with a smile. There was never a line of more than 2 people to get drinks. I fell in love with Tequila Sunrises and their Rum punch. VERY good. They only serve Corona at the beach bar and canned Modela at the Lobby bar so we chose never to drink the beer. (XX Amber, however, was good when you were not at the resort). We chatted with several people here and there about their hotels and many people were not totally thrilled with where they were. We didn't hear many good things about the Iberostar.

Diving: I am not a diver but my husband is. We checked with some dive shops up here before we left and he ended up going with Dive with Martin. My husband was really happy with them. David was his divemaster the first day and he said he was great - better than the next day. But, they only had 6-8 people and they did not go to where there were lots of other divers. It is cheaper and they will pick you up right on the pier of the Grand. It was perfect. They are located in a tiny shop in the back of Diamond Plaza, the International Cruise Ship Terminal if you are interested. Dive Paradise is EVERYWHERE and is like a factory. Too big.

Snorkeling: I think snorkeling off the beach was not great. I have been all over snorkeling and, although there were some pretty fish, the coral is all dead and no color. I would recommend taking a snorkeling tour and hope you get to see some more color. We ran out of time to do that with my husband doing diving and I regret that.

I forgot the bugs - this is a big negative, but only in the evening. BRING YOUR OFF - we did and I still got eaten alive at night. During the day it didn't seem that bad but at night the mosquitoes are truly relentless. We ate at La Piazza the first night and it is up on the roof, open air and that night I was miserable with bites. Other reviewers are right - NO NIGHT LIFE here! The one show we saw was very lame and had a Mexican singer who sang out of tune the entire time. It was more for our amusement that we stayed!

We took the ferry to Playa Del Carmen one day. It is pretty over there as well and if you go to shop, go down 5th Avenue. It is huge and it is pedestrian only. We ate at a restaurant called Karen's and we had a blast. We were joking with the waiter and next thing we know he is bringing us 2 drinks each for "Happy Hour" (2 for 1) even though it was too early for that yet. So we ended up with 4 drinks each. The food was really good here, too. We got nachos and we had breaded shrimp and beef tacos and all of it was really good. I would recommend it. It is on the 5th Ave.

So, all in all, we had a blast and no one got sick! Much needed vacation time. This is our 4th caribbean vacation and we loved it here. Would we come back to Cozumel? YES! Would we stay at the Grand again? Definitely. But I think time of year you are there probably makes a difference and we were there at a great time for lack of crowds. We had not a drop of rain and I heard it rained a lot the week prior.

Hope this wasn't too long - I just wanted to give you details. Have a great time and I hope you enjoy this place as much as we did.

We were at the Grand 10/11-10/15 and we thought it was excellent! We were on our honeymoon and we were greeted with champagne - how great! We too had requested king beds, but were told there were none available upon check-in, but that was not a big deal for us. The rooms really are fantastic, and we enjoyed watching the iguanas from our balcony. The rooms do smell a bit musty, so do bring some febreeze and maybe a plug-in or air freshner - it's constanlty humid there so nothing every dries completely. My husband is a pretty finicky eater, but he found something he could eat in every restaurant - and the food is excellent. Lunch could be better, but breakfast and dinner well made up for it! We had steaks in the Sonora Grill and they were awesome! Our favorite place to eat was the pizza place on top of the hotel - what a great atmosphere. I agree with everyone that the dinner reservations system totally sucks!! Our service was always excellent, and we did tip here and there, because I know how hard those people work, and how little they actually make.

We did 5 dives with Dive with Martin - they are much cheaper than Dive Palancar - and they were really great. You will see tons of wildlife - we did a night dive and actually saw an octopus and lobsters the size of small children - it was really amazing!!

The drinks were always great - one of our favorites was the Rainbow shot - you have got to try that one!

Really, you will not find a better place to stay in Cozumel and we cannot wait to go back!

Me and my husband stayed at the Occidental Grand for our honeymoon from Oct. 4 till Oct. 12. I had a positive attitude about this in reading all the good reviews. However, the only positives about this hotel are the friendly staff and the grounds itself. The room was beautiful as well as all the landscaping surrounding the hotel. The staff was very hospitable. We thought the big negative was the food and the lack of night entertainment. We weren't expecting lavish meals but yet we were not expecting to see the lack of food quality especially at lunch and dinner. There was a lack of Mexican food and an abundance of french fries, mashed potatoes, and hamburgers which we were not happy to see. We only dined at Los Olivos and between the standing in line for a reservation and the food here, we did not do it again. When you advertise such things as pesto sauce and tiramisu they should be the real thing or somewhat close to it. As a result we were content with eating pizza.
I was disappointed in the lack of entertainment at night. We are not party animals, however, the hotel only offered one show on a Sat. night. I have been to other all inclusives, and they at least provided nightly entertainment on a daily basis. The Occidental Grand's entertainment was the lobby bar and the disco which was not open every night.
I was also surprised how expensive it is in Cozumel, and its not worth buying anything there.
Overall, I will not visit this hotel again.