Narrowing our choices down

[diversmith]

Hi everyone,

I previously posted a thread about my wife and I planning our first trip to Coz and got lots of great info from everyone.....thanks a million! We have narrowed down our choices for time of year, hotels and dive ops. I have a question regarding Occidental Grand....it looks like it is in the northern part of the southern hotel zone and I have heard that it could possibly limit the dive site choices...is this true? The wife really likes the property and amenities and since we won't be diving hardcore every day I want to make sure that it will "cover all the bases". We will be doing some lounging, diving, beach activities, and probably head into town 2-3 times for dinner and some shopping. We are planning on staying 11 days so we don't feel too rushed.

Do you think we will be happy with OG's location?

Will end of Feb thru mid-March be getting better for weather (no guarantees of course)

No problems with getting the smaller dive ops picking us up and having a good dive site selection?

Thanks again for all the help

 

[MMM]

If you want to do any dives up north you will definately have to go up to caleta, at least, to catch your boat. Some of the dives between caleta and your hotel may not be possible but it's not the end of the world.

 

[rossandmaureen]

My wife and stayed at The Occidental Grand Cozumel two trips ago and did enjoy the property. While not as "grand" as their Xcaret location, the hotel is nicely appointed with comfortable rooms, reasonably good food and a great staff. If there is a downside it is that it is a taxi ride to town and, as I recall, that was around $15.00 each way. That does add to your cost of dinner in town but, given that several of those restaurants are worthwhile, may not be a deterent.

While staying there I had Living Underwater pick me up each day from the hotel pier and many other dive operators were doing the same thing. This was a couple of years ago and there was no charge for them to do so but you might wish to have this verified. If so, it is likely only a couple of dollars. As Marg mentioned, there might be times when you need to transport yourself via taxi to the Caleta (again around $15.00 each way) if the dives are scheduled for the north such as Barracuda or San Juan but, at least with Living Underwater, Jeremy would phone me the night before. As I recall I only needed to transport myself to the caleta one time during the weeklong visit.

There is also an on-site dive op and, during my stay, they were used by the majority of hotel guests. Because they are so close to the dive sites they seemed to go out on one-tank dives and returned divers to the beach for the surface interval. The on site dive operator is Dive Palancar and you might wish to search this forum for reviews...I haven't used them so I can't comment.

 

[cicopo]

Your idea of where it's located is wrong. The Grand is about 1/2 mile north of the Iberostar, and the Iberostar is the southern most resort on the island. Both are very well situated relative to the majority of the dive sites you'll visit. The Grand allows pick up / drop off by other ops without any hassles, or did last Feb & I haven't heard of any change in that policy. It's a very nice property, and well liked. The beach is excellent, the rooms large, but I wasn't impressed by the food about 1/2 of our stay. If you're still shopping and she might like the Grand & the Iberostar (beach is rocky below the water line) pick the cheaper of the two because there just isn't anything that much better about one over the other to pay extra for.
Photo tours of both are here.
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