Hotel Cozumel vs. Villa Blanca vs. ?

[ggunn]

Well, since people are recommending Blue Angel, which wasn't part of your original question...

Thread title: Hotel Cozumel vs. Villa Blanca vs. ?

 

[kelemvor]

Does anybody have feedback between these two hotels? They're very similarly priced for the dates I'm looking at.

I stayed at Hotel Cozumel in June. It was the scubaboard invasion trip. I thought it was great - for the money. Internet there was a real low point. Uploading a single photo to Facebook was questionable. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. I usually just waited until I was in town to upload stuff.

The comments others have made about the slow cattle boats with the AI package at Hotel Cozumel are accurate. They do have a fast boat option for a little more. I used both while there, and vastly preferred the small fast boats. Basically, they've got whatever kind of boat you want - you decide on price vs performance. I thought very highly of our crew and our DM in particular. In fact, I liked all the staff I encountered at Hotel Cozumel/Dive Paradise.

The food there was okay. Not great, but acceptable. We went to town for good dinners a few times. The drinks were great, I was expecting AI to be beer and wells only. However, the bartenders would make anything we wanted. They would even have a waiter bring them to us right in the pool -I loved it!

The rooms were clean, and kind of bare bones. The beds were a little stiff for my liking. However I got a clean room, clean sheets and towels, and even flowers on the beds every day.

 

[backprop]

Be VERY,VERY careful and ask a lot of questions before booking hotel-dive package with Hotel Cozumel. The House Dive Op is Dive Paradise, and while not on my list of preferred Ops, they were decent the one time I dove with them -- but that was a package deal with ScubaBoard Cozumel Invasion. I understand from other posts here, and complaints on TripAdvisor, that Dive Paradise has two levels of service, the "Cheap Service" which includes big slow boats, lots of divers (i.e., "Cattle Boat"), and it only goes to the shallow reefs at the north end of the Park - Paradise, Chankanaab, etc., with limited bottom time, and the more expensive but better dive experience for more advanced divers. If you book the Room-Dive package deal with Hotel Coz to save a few bucks, you more likely than not will be put on the cheap boats, and you'll either have to pay extra to upgrade or have a disappointing dive experience. There's a reason I always do both the meals and the Diving ala carte at Cozumel - Diving and Dining are the two biggest reasons I love Cozumel, and I don't want to be disappointed in either.

GREAT point about the differing levels of service. I had already looked into Dive Paradise and they looked OK in general but didn't think about which boat you'd be on if on a package deal. I agree about dining. I walked to town from VillaBlanca a few times (a bit of a haul but not too bad) just to mix it up, even though La Hach across the street is excellent.

 

[mstevens]

For me, Hotel Cozumel is definitely preferable to Villablanca. I've stayed each place more than once. The rooms at Hotel Cozumel are preferable to me, the pool is incomparably better, and the location works better for my needs. We now put up visiting family at Hotel Cozumel when there are more people than will fit in the house. I haven't stayed at either hotel for about 4 years.


I have never eaten or even had coffee at either hotel, so can't comment on food or beverages. I have no reason to believe either is great.


At both hotels, my wifi was different depending on where my room was.


A comment on "Wifi" is that at present internet service in general mostly sucks in that part of town. Our house is a few blocks behind Hotel Cozumel and all the neighbors complain about their service. It's quite possible that the hotels have their own connectivity, but speeds are limited by the bottleneck of the underwater cables from the mainland through which nearly everything is connected. The population has significantly outgrown capacity - everyone has a smartphone. Speeds are fine for social media, casual videoconferencing, and the like but streaming a movie can be painfully frustrating. That's if you're connected by ethernet! At my house a friend had difficulty working on online coursework and that was with my paying for 20 Mbps service, bringing my own routers from the US and configuring them properly, and calling out the tech and yelling at them on-site every couple of days. I would not predicate keeping a job on being able to connect at good speed from Cozumel right now.

 

[Queen Triggerfish]

I've stayed at Villa Blanca once and Hotel Cozumel three or so times. I do prefer Hotel Cozumel for proximity to town, size of rooms, and the pool. Wifi worked fine, but I haven't stayed there in a couple years. I used Dive Paradise and have no complaints. They aren't a boutique operation by any means, but for the price, I thought the service and convenience (and options of afternoon diving!) were good.

I will add Casa Mexicana to the conversation if you are looking for good wifi. We stayed on an upper room there a year ago, and the wifi was excellent. Breakfast is included and is excellent and substantial. When I price things out, it is more expensive than the others mentioned, but not excessively so. The one downside is the pool - it's like a wading pool in an odd spot pretty much in the lobby.

 

[backprop]

I've stayed at Villa Blanca once and Hotel Cozumel three or so times. I do prefer Hotel Cozumel for proximity to town, size of rooms, and the pool. Wifi worked fine, but I haven't stayed there in a couple years. I used Dive Paradise and have no complaints. They aren't a boutique operation by any means, but for the price, I thought the service and convenience (and options of afternoon diving!) were good. I will add Casa Mexicana to the conversation if you are looking for good wifi. We stayed on an upper room there a year ago, and the wifi was excellent. Breakfast is included and is excellent and substantial. When I price things out, it is more expensive than the others mentioned, but not excessively so. The one downside is the pool - it's like a wading pool in an odd spot pretty much in the lobby.

Thanks for the suggestion. Which dive op did you use? I haven't stayed actually in town before - do they pick up and drive you to where the boat is docked or do you walk or..??

 

[Queen Triggerfish]

Thanks for the suggestion. Which dive op did you use? I haven't stayed actually in town before - do they pick up and drive you to where the boat is docked?

I've used both Aldora and Blue XTSea when staying in town. Both pick up on the dock right in town, so it's super convenient. You'd have be organized if you use Aldora, because I think their pick-up is at 7:30 and breakfast is served at 7:00. It's doable though. The owner, Dave, is on here often so could clarify if I'm incorrect. (Is their pick-up even earlier?)

When booking through Expedia I got an oceanview balcony room for a better rate than the standard room, and have seen that other times too.

Staying in town might be really nice for a group. You could all go to dinner together, but if some people want to return to the hotel before others, it would be extra easy.

 

[DjDiverDan]

I've also stayed at Casa Mexicana, and I really like it, with the exception of the Kiddy Pool. I won't stay there in the summer - May through September - because when it is hot and humid out, I really need a full sized swimming pool. But for an October to March trip, Casa Mexicana works great. Very nice comfortable rooms, good WiFi, nice Breakfast Buffet in the morning, very convenient for diving with Aldora (the Op that I used - I love the HP Steel 120 tanks, great buoyancy characteristics and lots of bottom time even when I am sucking air; just the thought of all that extra air relaxes me) or any of several other Dive Ops that will either pick you up at a downtown pier or provide a ride to the Caleta. And the location is right Downtown, easy walking distance to and from a lot of restaurants. You'll still likely use a taxi to go to the places way back in town, like El Moro or Casa Mission (two places definitely on my favorites list), but from Casa Mexicana the fare is very reasonable.

 

[backprop]

Thanks for that. Looks like we can get city view at Casa Mexicana for $430, tax included for 5 nights, with their 40% off promotion, and Blue XT Sea sounds like a great op as well. (I know Aldora is top notch too). Yea, I said I'm not overthinking this, but now I have a spreadsheet going with all the permutations and combinations that the ops are quoting me

 

[Queen Triggerfish]

Thanks for that. Looks like we can get city view at Casa Mexicana for $430, tax included for 5 nights, with their 40% off promotion, and Blue XT Sea sounds like a great op as well. (I know Aldora is top notch too). Yea, I said I'm not overthinking this, but now I have a spreadsheet going with all the permutations and combinations that the ops are quoting me

I have the same thing going for a December trip! (Although it's a chart that I'm doing by hand instead of a spreadsheet.) I've done this so many times, I don't know why I don't just save the notes from each previous year.

Where are you finding their 40% promotion?