Cozumel...my absolute #1 favorite travel destination above any others, anywhere. I even investigated joining the ex-pat community and moving there at one time - until my dad begged me not to move that far away.
Cozumel is a tiny island, only 208 square miles in size. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in beauty and nowhere else have residents of a travel location treated me more like family than in Cozumel.
Cozumel (Spanish pronunciation: [kosuˈmel]; Yucatec Maya: Kùutsmil) is an island and municipality in the Caribbean Sea off the eastern coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, opposite Playa del Carmen. It is separated from the mainland by the Cozumel Channel and is close to the Yucatán Channel. The municipality is part of the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico.
The best times to visit Cozumel are February to April and March to June as it's hurricane season there virtually 365 days a year. It's suggested you avoid September and October as these months typically experience heavy rains and storms. However, this is precisely when we (I took my niece along) went - September 28th to October 5th. We spent 10 days in Cozumel and had beautiful, if not extremely hot weather until the morning we were to fly home, when a tropical storm hit the island.
If there's any "drawback" to Cozumel at all, it's that it's one of the busiest cruise ship ports, having 3 cruise ship piers.
When cruise ships are in port, things tend to get a bit crowded and crazy on Cozumel.
I didn't make our itinerary heavy with activities at all, knowing this and having checked out when cruise ships would be docking when planning our itinerary. I planned our activities around the cruise ships docking so my niece and I weren't all that affected by those unboarding for shore excursions.
FLYING INTO COZUMEL AIRPORT
Cozumel does have its own airport so it's best to fly directly in to Cozumel. It is a small airport and easy to navigate.
NAVIGATING COZUMEL AIRPORT: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
However, I will share the benefit of our experience with the airport. Five different airplanes landed when we did. There are two stops you must make - Immigration, then Customs. When we landed there was ONE airport employee working to handle 5 plane loads of people. It took another hour for a second employee to show up to help get everyone through the process of entering Mexico.
At that time Mexico was still using the FMM form, which is essentially a paper that acted like your visa so you had to carry it with you at all times. Now they've done away with the FMM and the airport agent will stamp your passport instead.
The article above advises you to pre-book your shuttle from the airport to your accommodations. I advise against doing this! I did it and the tour company never bothered to show up, saying they were too busy to pick us up, leaving us stranded. There's a stand inside the airport where you can buy a shuttle ticket.
When you've purchased your shuttle ticket, walk out the front airport doors and you'll see a row of white shuttle vans lined up. If you can't find your particular shuttle, just ask one of the drivers and they'll get you to your proper shuttle.
As stated in the article, taxis are not allowed to pick up passengers at the airport. I imagine this is because they broke up the monopoly one taxi service had at the airport...but that's conjecture on my part.
Either way, I purchased shared shuttle tickets inside the airport to get us un-stranded. Purchasing shared transportation is cheaper than private shuttle transportation to your accommodations.
Or as the article stated, walk across the street to Diego's Tacos and grab a taxi from there. We found we could get anywhere on the island via taxi that cost us between $3 and $10 USD.
A shuttle, whether shared or private will cost you significantly more money. Much easier and cost effective to simply walk across the street to Diego's and hail a taxi. Taxis are plentiful on Cozumel so you shouldn't have a problem getting one.
ACCOMMODATIONS
There are plenty of nice, high end places to stay on Cozumel but I'm going to only share where we stayed in order that you might score the kind of deal/savings I did in booking our accommodations.
Cozumel Palace is a 4 star all inclusive luxury resort right on the sea. By booking on Black Friday and taking advantage of that promotion, I got 50% off the price of a room. I also got a $1500 resort credit (same as cash) that we could use both inside the resort and at some places outside of the resort. We used this credit to upgrade to a seaside suite that included a bar stocked daily, an in room Jacuzzi, 24/7 concierge service and a seaside balcony with patio furntiure and hammock.
There are 4 restaurants each serving different cuisine you can eat at. They're included in your reservation.
There are 3 swimming pools including a huge infinity pool with a swim up bar and dining area that serves its own fare. It's surrounded by comfy lounge chairs and we didn't sit for more than 5 minutes before one of the staff was asking us if we needed a fresh drink from the bar.
My niece giving me the thumbs up on our accommodations
For my fellow scuba divers, the Palace has its own scuba diving boat pier with diving trips leaving regularly.
Our seaside suite
Although the Cozumel Palace is an older building you wouldn't know it. The rooms and other resort areas are spotlessly clean. I imagine it's because it's older and competing with the other high end hotels, etc. that they offer the promotions like the one I took advantage of for 50% off a stay.
But what really makes Cozumel Palace stand out is the service. If the staff feel they have to do handstands and cartwheels to make your stay a pleasant one, that's what they'll do. Never before have I walked into any hotel or resort and had a cold towel immediately wrapped around my neck to cool me off, while having a cocktail handed to me at the same time. I did at Cozumel Palace. My niece and I left feeling like its staff were our own family members.
If there's any "drawback" to Cozumel Palace it's that they don't have the typical beach most of the high end places do. But honestly, I liked what they'd done better than your typical beach - they built their own.
Every morning when I awoke and walked out on our balcony, I'd see a resort groundskeeper down there HAND RAKING the sand. That beach area was always immaculately clean, unlike your typical beach.
For my fellow scuba divers, the Palace also has its own diving boat pier from which dive boats leave regularly during the day.
The Palace is family friendly.
Because I got the deal I did with Cozumel Palace, our entire trip for 2 including airfare cost less than $5000 for 10 days.
Cozumel Palace is only an 8 minute ride from the airport and is located at Rafael E. Melgar Km 1.5, 77600 Cozumel
Island Life Mexico will show you good accommodations from budget hotels to high end hotels.
ATTRACTIONS
Although Cozumel is a small island there's no end to the attractions it offers. As I said, I didn't go heavy on the attractions during our stay...but here's what our itinerary looked like:
DAY 1
Start with a free walking tour of downtown San Miguel to get the lay of the land. (Be sure to check GuruWalk for free tours by date and time as they vary.) But the link I just gave you is rated the best free walking tour on Cozumel and it's conducted by a resident of Cozumel.
San Miguel
San Miguel is a charming little town full of shops and streetside booths featuring brightly colored locally made wares, from clothing to jewelry to toys to sombreros. Yes, it's a tourist trap but it's the only sizeable city on Cozumel.
We spent nearly a full day just browsing through the shops so my niece could buy some souvenirs to take home to her son.
We returned to Cozumel Palace to rest up from our flights and grab some dinner.
We returned to San Miguel after dinner to scope out the San Miguel Square and Cozumel nightlife. There's a gorgeous dancing fountain to see and usually street music playing somewhere in the square. San Miguel has a magical quality to it at night.
Just a note: Even women alone are safe walking anywhere around Cozumel at night or any other time.
Cozumel has 3 police forces: the Federales, the tourist police and the city police. Ruthie and I were standing on a San Miguel street corner when we saw the Federales - 3 guys in a Jeep with a machine gun mounted on it!
That's not because Cozumel has a crime rate, it's to keep the drug cartels out of Cozumel.
We walked around Cozumel even at night and not a soul bothered us nor did we feel unsafe at any time.
We did have another interesting incident happen during our first day in Cozumel. A USO just like the one below
rose up out of the sea and flew toward the two of us, proceeding to hover directly in front of our balcony for about two minutes. Had we climbed out on the balcony ledge we could have reached out and touched the thing. It was that close, hovering in front of us.
I'm used to this kind of stuff but my niece still talks about seeing that USO to this day.
The it glided off toward the horizon and disappered into thin air.
DAY 2
We toured Discover Mexico. You'll have to book this tour through a tour company. It's like a museum and yet not at the same time, featuring amazing exhibitions featuring masterpieces of art of the country to the interactive ones that allow visitors to explore the traditions and cultures of Mexico. It's a good way to get an idea of what the WHOLE of Mexico is like.
When you enter, you'll find yourself in an exhibit room featuring colorful artwork from all over Mexico.
There's also a video you can view that gives you a virtual journey through Mexico’s vibrant regions.
From there you'll go outdoors to view Mexico's history and historically significant buildings and landmarks in the form of intricate miniatures of those buildings and landmarks.
It was beastly hot when we were at Discover Mexico and we were getting eaten alive by mosquitos so we cut the tour of the miniatures short. BRING INSECT REPELLANT!
There are also active performances like Mayan dances, etc. You can see one of the Mayan dancers in costume with my niece in the photo gallery above.
Discover Mexico also offers artisan workshops where skilled craftsmen demonstrate traditional Mexican skills like pottery-making, weaving, and painting. You can make your own keepsake to take home with you.
They also offer a Tequila Tasting Experience.
The tour itself currently lasts about 2 hours and the cost for an adult was $23.50 and $17.00 for kids. We saved 10% by booking through Cozumel Tours. However, we spent more than 2 hours there so we could watch the live performers.
Discover Mexico is located at: Carr. Costera Sur Km 5.5-Sur, Zona Hotelera Nte., 77600 Cozumel
From Discover Mexico we headed back to San Miguel as Ruthie wanted to do some more shopping.
We stopped for lunch at Guisado's, which serves Mexican fare. Great taco place, just a road back from the main tourist area and the food is $ inexpensive. I especially loved their decor and the KEEP CALM EAT TACOS signage.
Blue corn tacos with rice and chicken stew or smoked pork chop were great and the owner and staff are very friendly. Memo, the owner is from Mexico City originally.
Nothing fancy but it's a charming little place with great eats.
Av Juarez #254 entre 10av y 15av colonia centro, San Miguel
After our lunch we walked back to the resort to enjoy some pool time and just relax.
Ruthie chillen' poolside
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
DAY 3
We went to snorkel with rays and sharks. What a fantastic experience!
I'm a scuba diver so I've dove with sharks before. Besides, these were harmless nurse sharks. It was the stingrays I was fascinated with. They'll even let you hold them (Their barbs have been snipped so you can't get stung) and it's said kissing one will bring you good luck. Sure, why not? I've kissed worse. However, I think the good luck thing is largely myth. Still, how many people can say they've kissed a stingray?
In this experience, you'll first get instruction from one of the guides, then meet the rays in a 30 minute encounter in waist deep water. The rays will flock around you brushing your legs, expecting to be fed. Feeding them is a bit like having a vacuum cleaner sucking on your hand. They feel silky, much like a dolphin does, which surprised me. It's also amazing how large these stingrays actually are!
Then in full snorkel gear (provided) you move to the deeper part of the reef where you will be able to swim and dive for 30 minutes with stingrays, baby rays (in season), a few nurse sharks and many colorful fish in an area 4 to 18 feet deep featuring a new coral reef rescue installation.
I booked through the Stingray Beach website itself. Current prices for adults (12 years and up) are $50 per person, kids 5-11 is $25 per person. This allows you access to their private beach club as well, where you can have lunch after your snorkeling excursion. It also offers showers and dressing rooms, trampolines in the water, an area to interact with some of the local wildlife including one big honkin' iguana, a macaw, and hermit crab races.
There are some restrictions so you need to check their website for those if you're considering visiting Stingray Beach. Stingray Beach is a stingray and coral reef sanctuary.
That evening I'd scheduled us for a sunset dinner cruise on the Jean Lafitte pirate ship. WHAT A BLAST!
I would've gladly paid twice the $79 each I paid through Cozumel Tours for this one! (I saved 10% by booking through Cozumel Tours)
Parents, although kids are allowed on the tour, be aware that open bar meant open bar and the very freely flowing booze and more adult-type sexual inuendo humor might not be as suitable for the little ones although there was nothing outrightly objectionable about it as it was done very tastefully. Just a heads up.
When you board, you'll have your photo taken with the pirate crew.
After your photo with the crew, you'll find a drink in your hand and your glass won't go empty the rest of the night. The booze flows very freely on this cruise!
The music, dancing and pirate games begin and continue throughout the trip, save for the dinner hour.
For dinner, you have a choice between either New York Steak, Chicken or Surf 'N Turf (Lobster and Steak), Caesar Salad, Pasta, Vegetables, Baked Potatoes and even Dessert! We both
had the Surf 'N Turf which was out of this world and perfectly cooked. Dinner was made even more special in that Cozumel has some of the most exquisite sunsets in the world and that evening was no exception.
The evening ended with a very full stomach and an epic 'pirate battle' you would have sworn was real. The Pirate Dinner Cruise ended up being one of our fave activities on the trip.
The tour departs from the downtown ferry pier at 6 p.m. and returns to the downtown ferry pier at 9 p.m.
You definitely want to put the Jean Lafitte Sunset Dinner Cruise on your Cozumel bucket list.
DAY 4
I had us booked to do the Amazing Cozumel Race but then got informed it had been cancelled. I wasn't told the reason it was cancelled...maybe not enough participants?
It's just as well it was as my niece had had a TAD more pirate juice the night before than she should have so wasn't exactly on top of her gam so we just decide to make it a lie by the pool day.
Hint: It's a good idea to schedule a relax and rest day here and there as the heat and humidity of Cozumel in itself will wear you out.
The Cozumel Amazing Race is a REALLY popular activity on Cozumel. If you remember the TV show Amazing Race, the Cozumel Amazing Race is a cross between that and the DaVinci Code. It's like a scavenger hunt where you gather and solve clues and win the race by being the first team to solve all of the clues and race back to the finish.
It is a physically challenging race. For example, to get to one of the clues you ride a boat out on the sea and dive to get the clue from a sunken wreck.
What attracted me to the race was not only that I love solving mysteries but the race takes you off the beaten tourist path and you have to interact with locals like shopkeepers to solve the clues.
DAY 5
We took a taxi from the resort to spend the day at Chankanaab Park. This park should be another must do on your Cozumel bucket list. It's absolutely gorgeous and there's lots to see and do - or you can just lie in the sun and soak up the rays if you like.
There's no end of things to see and do - an amazing huge tropical garden walk where you'll see plenty of iguanas, snorkeling and scuba diving reefs where there's an underwater statue of Christ, a sea lion show where Ruthie kissed the seal, a dolphin encounter, a manatee encounter, a spa, a tequila tour, snuba and seatrek tours, plenty of seaside restaurants with live music, sand beach areas where you can soak up the sun, a swimming pool (yes, a pool by the beach), ziplining, a crocodile expedition and so much more!
Spend a day at Chankanaab and you'll see why it's Cozumel's #1 tourist attraction.
The only problem with Chankanaab is that you'll face some really tough decisions... Continue to lay there soaking up the sun, sea breeze and scenery OR go for your third snorkel that day? Sometimes vacation can be really rough. We were content to do both, Ruthie even overcoming her apprehension about snorkeling once she tried it.
At noon we went to one of the in-park restaurants for lunch where live musicians played while we ate. The food was okay (we ordered off the menu) but what you'd expect to pay in what amounts to a "tourist trap".
My tips for visiting Chankanaab:
Try to schedule your visit to the park when no cruise ships are in port as the park gets very crowded at those times. If you want a quiet spot on the beach, walk down the beach to where the snorkeling gear rental place is. We found a thatched cabana and had almost the entire beach to ourselves.
Don't buy a tour package to visit. Go to the park independently on your own and you'll save some money. Admission at the park for us was $25 per adult plus the Chankanaaab website offered a $2 off admission coupon so we ended up paying $23 each and the park was well worth that admission price.
Some places offer a Chankanaab Day Pass With Lunch and Drinks. Skip it! The reviews on the food buffet offered are so-so at best and the number of drinks you're allowed is limited and very unspecific even though it's advertised at "open bar".
Take a taxi to Chankanaab. It's the same price for 4 people to ride as it is for one person. It cost us $10 each way.
DAY 6
One of the staff at the Palace invited my niece and I out to show us around Cozumel locals' hot spots but I wanted the "kids" to go have fun by themselves. Ruthie isn't certified to scuba dive so I took advantage of the fact Cozumel Palace is also a scuba diving resort that runs diving trips off its own pier to get in some diving.
I don't own an underwater camera so this video will give you a good idea of what scuba diving is like in Cozumel.
By the time we both returned to the resort we were primed to spend some of our $1500 resort credit on a spa, where we got the full treatment - mani, pedi, massage.
DAY 7
We decided to take the ferry over to Playa del Carmen to explore.
There are two ferry companies that run back and forth between Cozumel and Playa del Carmen - Ultramar and Winjet. They run every hour and the trip over to Playa del Carmen takes about 45 minutes. The fare was $15 each way.
Currently their schedule between the 2 is rather confusing and Xailing and Winjet won't accept each other's tickets so what I'd recommend is purchasing a one way ticket on one of them and buy your return trip in Playa del Carmen so you're sure to catch one of the ferries. Some run a half hour later at night than others.
The Cozumel ferry terminal is located right in downtown Cozumel, at the extension of Av. Lic. Benito Juarez, across from Palmeras Restaurant. You can walk there from downtown San Miguel.
In Playa del Carmen the ferry terminal is located right in downtown Playa del Carmen, about a block and a half from the main square and Plaza Playacar, where most of the tour pickups take place.
It's fun just to take the ride over and nose around Playa del Carmen. We did take a break at Señor Frog's to catch a quick lunch and cool off before continuing to explore Playa del Carmen. We took an evening ferry back to Cozumel.
DAY 8
R&R day by the pool. We did use some of our resort credit to schedule a sunset gourmet dinner for two on the beach, prepared by a resort chef. The food was phenomenal as was the sunset.
DAY 9
It was my birthday and I'd planned a trip to Dolphinarus. I'd worked closely with dolphins in a military capacity (including telepathic communicator) but wanted to interact with them outside of a military capacity - but only if it was in a facility that rehabilitated dolphins and rekeased all back into the wild that could be,(Not all dolphins can be rereleased without dying.) So I had thoroughly investigated Dolphinarus before booking with them.
There's kind of a psychic background to this story. Before we even left for Mexico, my best friend (also extremely psychic) told me "The dolphins know you're coming and they're excited to see you. Mamas will bring their babies to you and while you're in the pool with them, they will perform energy healing on you."
Ruthie and I arrived at Dolphinarus. Usually these swims are in groups of a dozen people, are one hour long and held in very specific pools where guests are allowed. I should also mention the staff at Dolphinarus had no idea whatsoever that day was my birthday.
Our guide took us to a pool guests were not normally allowed in - the nursery pool holding the dolphins that had recently given birth and their babies! We were the only two in that pool, no one else was with us but the dolphins' caretaker. Our session lasted twice as long, 2 hours.
Everything my psychic friend had predicted happened. The dolphin I was paired with was named Electra, her baby's name was Achille. Their caregiver didn't believe dolphins were telepathic communicators until I proved it to him. I'd let him bring Electra over to me, telepathically tell Electra that Jose (caregiver) wouldn't hear. Electra would swim off and I'd tell Jose what I'd asked her to do telepathically. For example, I asked if I could meet her baby and if it was okay with her, to bring him over to meet me. Electra swam off and brought Achille over to me. The more Electra and I did this, the more in shock Jose was.
Giving Electra tummy rubs was part of the program but when I gave her tummy rubs she smiled and chattered the entire time - something Jose said she'd never done with anyone before.
I'd told my niece all of my psychic friend's predictions - with the exception of the part they'd do energy healing on us while in the pool with them. She knew nothing about that. As we were walking back to the resort, she said to me "Aunt Pat, I feel so WEIRD, so ENERGIZED, like I have this tingling all over my body!" I'd been limping all week with a bad hip and was in pain. When I got out of the pool, I was walking normally and all pain had disappeared. I remained pain free and walking normally for weeks after that.
Day 10
We flew home. That was the morning we got hit with the tropical storm. We diverted from our normal route to avoid Hurricane Karen, that had made landfall in Florida.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Viator: Top 15 Things To Do In Cozumel