Beware of Olympus Tours and Cozumel Airport Taxis

[polysemous1]

Let me get this straight, you handed at least 3000 dollars of personal property over to somebody you didn't know in a foreign country, got no kind of receipt for said goods, and then complain because somebody took it? It may not be right, but it is forseeable.

 

[Sue Sue]

fathvm...First and most importantly, I am sorry that you had such an ordeal. It just is not right, plain and simple. You know, I know these things happen..I know that in todays world incidents like this happen more and more, and even though I know this, I still don't understand why some people just don't get "If it's not yours, don't take it".... With this said however, Cozumel is not full of theft and deception....!!! My family and I have traveled to Cozumel enough that I feel it fair to say that you at the least..will not have anymore problems there than you will anywhere else. In fact, DH and I feel safer in COZ than many places we have traveled to. Take precautions as you do anywhere you travel. Keep your carryons with you at all times. Keep your checked luggage with you once you pick it up at the carousel. DH and I use a porter and he remains with us enroute to the taxi van, which, includes waiting with us when we buy our tickets. Watch it being loaded and don't board until the van doors are closed and the van driver is ready to leave. If you need to stop at other drop off sites, get out of the van and watch what luggage is being unloaded. When you are at your stop, again, keep the luggage with you at all times until you are in your room. The other solution is to walk of the airport property and hail a passing cab. That is IF there is a passing cab. There have been times that we have not seen any cab action going on outside the airport. Other times, there are oodles of taxi's. It is your gamble.

I am sad for you faithVM. Your bag was stolen and what was to be an enjoyable time was not. It is NOT Right...not at all, however, I do not believe that baggage theft is out of control in Cozumel. ...SS

 

[ggunn]

BEWARE!!!! We had a carry on bag stolen after the Olympus Rep took responsibility for it and before the taxi company delivered it to our hotel. This bag was a carry on because it had all of my husbands expensive dive equipment in it. After filing police reports, paying legal fees and 6 weeks of going back and forth with Olympus tours this is the response that we got.

"We appreciate your time and patient in this matter, this has been a difficult situation as Cozumel is a taxi union monopoly that does not allow any company to manage their own transfer units and all local tours operators have to use them without any other option. We did our best to follow up with the Police, taxi union representative and airline but there were no good results, the police has no idea where was the problem because the airline said that your piece of luggage was not registered as it was a carry on and the taxi Union says that they can not take the responsibility of something that was not documented and they have doubts of this existing luggage. Unfortunately the taxi union of Cozumel does not allow us to be involved in their procedures and the result of their lack of control is to have situations like the one going on."

In other words the taxi company is calling us liars and refuses to take any responsibility for the loss. My suggestion is do not use the airport taxi service. Maybe if enough people stop using them and they lose business they will treat their customers with more respect. You can walk a couple of blocks off the airport property and catch a private cab that will take you directly to the airport. Rent a car and you will not have to deal with them at all. If you have no choice print up a form stating how many bags that you give to the rep and/or the airport taxi driver and make them sign it so that you have proof of how many bags you gave them.

We lost almost 4 days of our vacation, $3000 USD of equipment and personal items, spent $300 in legal fees and car rentals to get the required paperwork done and Olympus offered us $400 USD and the taxi company called us liars

Let me get this straight... You took the shuttle to your hotel, and when you got there and got your luggage out of the back, your carry-on was missing? If that's what happened, the most probable culprit (IMO) was one of the other shuttle passengers who got off before you did. The shuttle drivers have no idea what belongs to whom; they rely on the disembarking passengers at each stop to tell them what's theirs. Maybe it was an accident; was your carryon clearly tagged with your name and hotel?

I forgot my carryon on the shuttle once; it was my own stupid fault. All my funds, cameras, prescription dive mask, regulators, computers... It wasn't tagged (stupid, stupid, stupid). I frantically took a cab back to the airport, and the shuttle driver I had ridden with saw me (I doubt I would have recognized him) when I got out of the cab and waved me over to his shuttle, grinning at me. "Possibly, senor, you are looking for this?", he asked, and opened the shuttle door to reveal my carry-on bag sitting there. "Come on, I'll take you back to your hotel." I thanked him profusely and tipped him large.

BTW, there are no "private cabs" on Cozumel. They are all part of the same union.

 

[mstevens]

We usually end up on Cozumel twice a year. I've never had any trouble with luggage, taxis, or the police on the Other Side for that matter. I worry lots more about crime in US cities.

Would I hand my bags over to anyone, anywhere without keeping an eagle eye on them? Nope.

Sorry you had that experience, but I don't think it tells you much about Cozumel.

 

[ggunn]

I was thinking of a trip to Cozumel later this year, but I must say that I am considering it a No Go. Not just because of your loss, which is bad in its own right, but I have been hearing of to many bad experiences and just don't want to take the risk.

Do what you want, but this case and the one about police extortion on the east side are at the very worst atypical. I have been going to Cozumel since 1978 and I have neither experienced nor witnessed anything remotely like either of these two alleged incidents. Well, I did leave my carry-on on the shuttle once, but it was my own stupid fault and I got it back.

 

[St. A.]

My wife and I just got back from Cozumel a couple of weeks ago and we had no problems with Olympus until it was time for us to leave. Olympus told us "Meet us at the parking lot across from McDonald's". Well, there's 2 of them. We were at one, they were at the other. That's the only problem we had. We did, however, keep all of our equipment in our sight until we checked in at the airline.
What happened to you was terrible. Don't let it ruin your opinion of Cozumel, though. Just think of it as a really expensive learning experience. A really horrible, horribly expensive learning experience.

 

[ggunn]

We usually end up on Cozumel twice a year. I've never had any trouble with luggage, taxis, or the police on the Other Side for that matter. I worry lots more about crime in US cities.

Would I hand my bags over to anyone, anywhere without keeping an eagle eye on them? Nope.

Sorry you had that experience, but I don't think it tells you much about Cozumel.

We're just talking to each other here. As Scubawife pointed out earlier, the OP created his/her Scubaboard account just to relate this story, and apparently has done the same thing on at least three other forum boards. I hope he/she feels better now, but there's nothing here that will scare me away from either Cozumel or the airport shuttles.