Combo Trip

[JTB]

Thank you to the forum for the wealth of information I've gotten here.
Here is the deal:
For the past several years my brother and I (divers) and our wives (non-divers) have spent a week at different 5 stars South of Cancun, Playa Del Carmon. We dive and we all love the "All Inclusives". Recently my bother and I took a dive trip to Cozumel and loved it. (You probably know where this is going). This year we're considering the family vacation to Cozumel. I've done a lot of searching here and it looks like the Occidental Grand would be the best for us. I'm just a little nervous that our wives my not enjoy the trip as much as what they have experienced on the other side. Can anyone compare the Grand to others in the Rivier Maya area? They like the pools, food / drinks, sun, snorkel and water activities. Are there places to snorkel within walking distance of the Grand? Any other activities we can entice them with?
Anyone who has been in this position can understand that if this goes well it would be great but if not.........
Thankx for all the information to date and anything you might be able to offer on this one. John

 

[Texas Diver]

The Grand is a very nice resort and will not dissapoint you. My wife and I like to stay there. It has all the activities you mentioned in your post. The food is okay too. But it is far from town. A round trip cab ride costs about $35. One other thing you should know is that you need to wear long pants, shoes and a shirt with a collar to eat in the specialty restaurnats. But you can eat all your meals in the buffet restaurant in shorts a tee shirt and flip flops - I think it is the same food anyway but I am not certain because we never ate in the specilaity places. If you run a search on this Board you will get a load of information about the place. Hope this helps.

 

[Dan Kom]

Here is a good website to check on what other people that have stayed there have to say about it.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Re..._Grand_Cozumel-Cozumel_Yucatan_Peninsula.html

 

[Canucklehead]

The Grand is a very nice resort and will not dissapoint you.

I can concur on this one. My wife, son and I stayed there for 12 days this year in June and really enjoyed it.

It has all the activities you mentioned in your post.

Except for the snorkeling. You can certainly snorkel there, but there is no coral within the snorkel area, though there is some sea life among the plants. You might consider a snorkeling trip. These are set up by Dive Palancar, the on-site operator.

The food is okay too.

More on this below...

But it is far from town. A round trip cab ride costs about $35.

Ditto. Cab fare each way was was about $17 for three. Might be higher for four.

One other thing you should know is that you need to wear long pants, shoes and a shirt with a collar to eat in the specialty restaurnats. But you can eat all your meals in the buffet restaurant in shorts a tee shirt and flip flops - I think it is the same food anyway but I am not certain because we never ate in the specilaity places.

We did eat at the specialty restaurants and the food is different. We certainly enjoyed the food at the main buffet restaurant and the beachside grill for lunch. Other than the pizza place, the specialty restaurants are a little better. Certainly the atmosphere is nicer. I didn't care for the pizza, but my son liked it. They make them from frozen dough, wood oven style. One restaurant alternates between steak and mexican food (real mexican, not tex-mex) and the beachside restaurant goes reservation-only for dinner. This was our favorite, lots of good seafood. It's especially nice if you can get a seat on the west side, to watch the sunset (when we were the in June, the sun set around 7:30).

 

[sharky60]

Hey been there with the diver/no diver situation, my wife didn't dive for the first 11 years of our marrage and now is certified for the past 4 years...thank the good lord for that!
We just got back from Coz on the 11th and stayed part of our week at the Grand, very nice resort! they have done a wonderful job with the design of the place. the food was very good at both the buffets and the restaraunts. you do need to have long pants for the restaraunts, i took comfortable dress kakis and nice aloha and cubalubra (cuban) shirts and was dress perfectly.
there isn't much snorkeling off the swim beach except if you follow the swimline around at the the concrete tie-downs you'll find some sealife, don't hold onto the swimline as it hase fire coral growing on it in spots. i found a peacock flounder, some baby lobsters and "spider" crabs as well as the usual sgt. majors and some juv. angels, but there's not much else to see just a lot sea-grass growing on shallow reef shelf. setting up a snorkel trip with dive palancar would be the best bet, as altough outside the swim area there looked like there might be better snorkeling, with the boat traffic, it probably wouldn't be a good idea. there may be some snorkeling up the beach one way or the other, but i didn't have time to venture up there.
the hotel is pretty far south so going to town by cab is expensive, we rented a truck for a couple of days because we just couldn't go down with out driving around the island and going to Coconuts on the Caribbean side for lunch at least one day. you can get a GEO Trakker for $60-65 per day plus insurance $11 liab. $22 full, from Fiesta car rental at the hotel, they were very nice and gave us a truck in good condition for Mexico, if you've rented a jeep or truck down there before you know what i mean.
anyway for 2 days including insurance i think my total was $135.
other water activities at the hotel other than the 2 pools are, kayaks and small cat. sailboats. other than that at the pool they have ping pong & volley ball, they have a pretty nice small workout gym, a disco at night, comfortable bar off the lobby with internet access. other than that, it's a pretty relaxing atmosphere.
the rooms are very nice with a safe, seperate tub and glass shower. really good a/c, a small balcony but it's big enough to dry off the 'ol equipment.
the cool part about diving from there is you are so far south the the boat rides to the dive sites are short, but if you want to go to Paradise reef or some of the reefs up north the boat most likley won't go back that direction too far. but it really didn't matter to us we hit some of the best dive sites out there.
check out my trip report, "trip report, woo hoo" , think it has moved to page 2 of the cozumel posts.
best wishes,
THE SHARK