November 19-26

The food was great, the staff friendly and helpful and the rooms and grounds beautiful! The night life is a bit dull, but the bellboy can have a taxi there in 3 minuites flat and it's only a 15 min. ride to town where ther is pleanty of night life.

The dive shop is outstanding in service and professionalism. Yuri the video guy is awesome.

The one thing that confuses me the most about some of the other "negative" reports that I have read is:
Some people who complain that the food at the resort dinning rooms is sub-par, yet they cannot afford to pay $15 to go to town to eat at a resturant. Myself, I found the dinning to be as good or better as some of the very expensive resturants here at home. It seems that if one could afford to have such a sophisticated palet, they shouldn't be so cheap as to complain about paying $15 taxi fare to town.

My only negative comment would be the that it seemed difficult to get cash. The on site ATM wouldn't accept my mastercard debit card, but the bank in town took care of me, so no big deal. They could make it easier to make calls from you'r room to the home, but there is a calling card machine just outside the lobby.

Overall our trip was perfect. wouldn't change a thing

I went to this property with my family for our Thanksgiving holiday. There were six adults (my parents, brother, sister-in-law, husband, and I) in our group and we were traveling with my 10-month old son.

We read countless reviews before we went, so felt we were prepared for anything! We were pleasantly surprised by nearly everything!

The resort was at full capacity for most of the time that we were there, but it never felt crowded. There were always chairs available at the pool and the beach and, except for Thanksgiving, there was never a wait to sit down or get food at the restaurants. We upgraded to Royal Club level and stayed in Building 19, which is right by the quiet pool.

OVERALL: I would certainly recommend this resort to my friends and family. If we ever go to Cozumel again, I would check into other resorts but would most likely return to this one. The service is excellent, the grounds are beautiful, and the food is good.

SETTING/LAYOUT: The resort is beautiful. The grounds are very well manicured and very clean. You don’t feel like you’re at a huge resort because the buildings are divided by patches of jungle. It is a long walk from the 2 a la carte restaurants and the dinner buffet to the pool and beach, but it was never a problem for us (you need the exercise after eating all of the food anyway!).

Do bring bug spray! It’s not bad during the day, but the mosquitoes and some sort of biting fly/gnat really came out at dusk. It’s the worst near the pool and the beach.

POOL/BEACH: There are 2 pools on the resort. One is a “quiet” pool and was usually empty. To get to the larger pool and the beach, you have to take a boardwalk over some swampiness – not a big deal at all really.

The larger pool is the activity pool, with music and an activities director who works hard trying to get people involved in various games, etc. (They have water aerobics, pool volleyball, ping-pong and horseshoes tournaments, Spanish lessons, dance lessons, snorkeling lessons…). We enjoyed listening to the music and watching/participating in the activities, but if you’re looking to relax in absolute peace and quiet, you’d be better off at the beach or other pool.

The beach is on the small side – there were only 2 rows of chaise lounges. It was a little choppy with small waves a couple days, but very calm most of the time. We did go snorkeling at the beach once, but it’s mostly sand with some sea grass so there wasn’t much to see. We walked down the beach past the Iberostar to try some snorkeling…it was better but still not the best I’ve seen in my travels (we did see 2 skates and lots of fish). Sunsets on the beach are gorgeous.

ROOMS: The rooms are nice. We were supposed to be in the Royal Club rooms, which had Jacuzzi tubs but these were under renovation while we were there. The rooms we had all had 2 double beds. Two of our rooms were on the third floor, where we could just barely see a sliver of the ocean. The other room was on the second floor, with a view of the quiet pool.

The rooms had extremely large bathrooms (a tiled shower about the size of one of my bathrooms at home); mini-fridge stocked daily with soda, water, and beer; a table; dresser with TV and DVD player; and a small balcony.

We had read to bring air fresheners. Two of the rooms were fine, but one of the third floor rooms had a very strong sewer odor in the evenings. It was really bad until we figured out to plug all of the drains in the bathroom (close the drains and put towels over the floor drains). That seemed to do the trick…

There are no elevators, so if you hate stairs you might be better off in a first floor room.

I believe a couple aspects of our rooms were due to the Royal Club upgrade (i.e. - location near the pool, DVD player).

RESTAURANTS: I have to say, I was very impressed with the food overall. It was not 5-star restaurant quality, so you might not be happy if you’re a connoisseur, but we always found something to eat and enjoy.

Because we were Royal Club, we were able to get reservations in the a la carte restaurants for dinner every night. Los Olivos is Mediterranean and, quite honestly, not all that great. The ambiance is nice and the service is excellent. The chicken dinners were good but the other entrees were only mediocre.

The other a la carte restaurant alternates between Mexican and steakhouse. Both of these were very good. Again, the ambiance and service were excellent.

These restaurants were a nice change after the breakfast and lunch buffet, but the dinner buffet was excellent also. (We ended up canceling our reservations for the last 2 nights so we could eat at the buffet.) The Thanksgiving dinner buffet was very busy, with a long line of Americans waiting for our turkey! The hotel staff did a superb job – they even had a display set up with a real live turkey…

The breakfast buffet always had an omelet station, French toast, pancakes, fruit, yogurt, and cereal. The other items sometimes appeared very similar to leftovers from lunch or dinner the day before, but there was enough selection that you could avoid them if that bothered you.

The lunch buffet had hot dogs, fresh grilled hamburgers, chips and an amazing chopped salsa, fruit, desserts, and several other hot items. There was also a station where the chef would cook your choice of chicken, beef, or fish (they also had this at dinner).

DRINKS: There are several bars spread out on the property…one at the lunch restaurant and one in the hotel lobby. There might have been more, but I’m not sure. I relied on the pool waitress during the day and the dinner waiter at night for most of my drinks!

SERVICE: The service everywhere was excellent – I think this was the best thing about the resort. Everyone - janitors, housekeeping, servers, groundskeepers, and managers – was extremely friendly and professional. By the end of the week, they knew my son’s name and the wait staff knew our preferred drinks. We spent some time talking with one of the general managers and she was very interested in hearing what we liked and took extraordinary steps to solve a problem that wasn’t really hers to begin with (our travel agency failed to mention that the Royal Club rooms were under renovation).

We had a concierge as part of the Royal Club package. Most of the time it was Ana, but Celeste helped a couple times as well. Both of these women were very helpful with everything we asked – making dinner reservations, loaning DVDs, making car rental reservations, etc.

ACTIVITIES: While we were there, we all got massages at the spa. These were reasonably priced ($60 for 50 minutes), but only mediocre in quality. It was raining the day we got them, so we didn’t get the luxury of having them on the beach. I’d probably skip this service the next time.

Three of us went diving. We took the introductory pool lesson (offered daily) with Dive Palancar, the onsite dive shop. Marco was the instructor. While friendly, they’re policy is to make you do a $58 beach dive before they’ll take you on a boat, for a $68 reef dive. I was hesitant, because I knew there was nothing to see diving at the beach and because it’s only about 6’ deep. We made reservations for a beginner’s dive with Dive with Martin. For $110, we did a shallow dive on the reef where we practiced using the equipment, etc. After the first tank, we surfaced and discussed any mistakes and then did another dive.

IF YOU DECIDE TO GO DIVING (this was my first time and it was amazing!), I would definitely recommend that you DO NOT USE DIVE PALANCAR. I thought their required beach dive was a complete rip off – they charge you $58 to use the left over air in tanks used on boat dives and you don’t actually see anything but sand. Dive with Martin was an excellent choice!

We rented a car for one day from Smart Car rental. It was $30/day for a VW convertible (including taxes and liability insurance). They picked us up at the hotel and brought us back afterwards for no extra charge. Unfortunately, it rained the entire day so we didn’t get to explore as much as we had hoped.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me!

We spent the week of Nov 10-17, 2004 at this hotel and loved it.
The hotel/grounds: grounds were gorgeous and immaculate at all times. The room was very nice, with travertine everywhere and a huge shower with separate tub. We read other TripAdvisor reviews and brought Glade-Plug-ins and Off, and did not need either. No mosquitos (may have been due to the season we were there), and the room always smelled fresh. There is no reason to pay the upgrade for the Royal Club. We spoke to others who were in those rooms, and they found very little benefit.
Service: We never met any staff who were rude or unpleasant. Everyone was helpful and tried to make our stay as enjoyable as possible. Even the timeshare guy was not pushy. When we needed maintenance (for minor problems -- the safe didn't work twice, and a lighbulb needed replacement) someone came within 10 minutes.
Beach/water: the beach was not wide but was very soft coral sand, and you could walk in either direction as far as you wanted. Water was very clear and although some people said the snorkeling was not very good, we found it to be quite interesting. Directly in front of the resort did not have much, but we walked down to the Allegro and that was quite good. Also, we would walk in the other direction towards the Iberostar and snorkel back to the Grand and that was shallow and also good, with numerous interesting fish. This is coming from someone who has snorkeled all over the Caribbean.
Food/restaurants: We found all of the buffets to be excellent, and varied. Drinks were good and free-flowing (including Corona on tap!). We went to the pizzeria one night, and being originally from NY, the pizza was not up to par, but not bad. Request sauce if you want any. It must be Mexican-style pizza. Ate at the Sonora Grill once and did not like it. He had the ribeye and it was the worst steak he ever ate (thin and overcooked). She had the beef tenderloin in 5 spicy sauces and it was good. The restaurant was not busy, yet the meal took almost 2 hours from start to finish, which for us was too long. Los Olivos, on the other hand, was perfect. Would recommend eating there as many times as you can. Service was white glove, and the food was great.
In conclusion, if you read negative reports about this resort, you should assume that the people who wrote them are extremely picky, because our vacation couldn't have been any better, and we weren't back home one day before we were thinking about returning.
Please feel free to write with any questions, and please put "Occidental" in the subject line or we probably won't open your message.

We just returned from a 4 day, 3 night stay (11/11/04-11/14/04) at the Grand, and could not have had a more enjoyable short vacation. The diving, which we did through the on-site dive shop, Dive Palancar, was some of the best my husband and I have ever experienced. We did a morning dive at El Cedral, then a two-tank "twilight" dive, with the first tank between 4-5 pm at Palancar Gardens, and the 2nd after sunset at French Lady. The sea life was incredible, and Juan, our dive master, was expert at locating the best sights! If you are not a diver, don't worry: there is great (free also) snorkeling right off the beach, but be careful to watch out for the few jellyfish around. Back to the hotel: the first thing you notice is the cleanliness of the facility...it is beautifully maintained, and very well laid out. We upgraded from a regular room to the Royal Club, for an extra $30/per day pp. In reality, we didn't really need to do the upgrade...the main perks you acquire (dvd player in room, room service available) were not needed by us, but some of the benefits were worthwhile: the Royal Club rooms are closer to the water, so we had a lovely view, and the on-site concierge lets you book reservations for the specialty restaurants up to 5 pm (you have to book by 1 pm with a regular room). I was so grateful for the earlier posts: I intended to bring Febreze to combat the reported mustiness in the rooms and forgot to pack it. Instead, I took the suggested route of requesting a 2nd or 3rd floor room: we were on the 3rd floor (1938), and the mustiness was barely apparent. The beds were very comfortable, and our maid Patrice was very thoughtful with extra towels and lovely arrangements of flower petals and chocolates on the bed every day. The bathrooms are huge and gorgeous! The mini-bar is well stocked with bottled water, beer and sodas. It also had tequila, rum, vodka and brandy but not much in the way of mixers.
As suggested, I brought Off bug spray, and was gratefully spraying myself on the first day at the beach. (For some reason, I did not need it after the first day, though the weather and wind were uniform throughout our stay: a beautifully sunny and slightly breezy 79-82 deg. F.) You don't really go to a place like this for the fabulous food, but we were pleasantly surprised by the quality and variety of the food. The breakfast is very good -- go for the fresh made omelettes, made from a variety of ingredients you select and hand to the grill chef. For lunch, I'd suggest heading to the grill at the beach restaurant, and asking the chef to quick cook the fish or chicken in front of you. We ate at both Los Olivos (1st night), and Sonora Grill (2nd night). Don't make the mistake of ordering a bottle of wine - the list is so-so, and the house red and white which are included are more than adequate. We did not have kids with us for this trip: they had a kids club but frankly I didn't see much in the way of kid activities. If I were traveling with my 3 children, I might pick a resort with more planned programs for their age groups. Finally - tipping. A few US dollars here and there, for the bartender, the concierge, the maid, and the waiters at the specialty restaurants go a long way, and the staff is so very helpful and friendly.