devingordon
Registered
- Messages
- 16
- Reaction score
- 22
- # of dives
- 200 - 499
Our group - Mom, Dad, college student son, diving in Cozumel for the fourth or fifth time.
Dive operator
Blue Project - One of the best dive ops we've ever used anywhere. Highly recommended. They provide great valet diving service perfect for vacation.
Blanca, the owner of Blue Project, is amazing. Communication beforehand is great. Blanca met us at the condo the day we arrived to check us in. We dove on two of their boats, both typical for Cozumel and perfectly fine. Both captains, Zimri and Maya, were great. Support staff (Gustavo and others) were also great.
The dive masters with whom we dove, including Blanca, Jorge and Joanjo, were all excellent. We only dove with our family of three (not a request; just small groups every day). The boat never had more than six divers. All the DMs were relaxed, quite personable, focused on safety in a good way, pointed out interesting critters and were keen on assuring everyone had a good time. We dove our profiles, up to 70 minutes per dive. And every dive was 65-70 minutes with no pressure to cut a dive short. We'll dive with Blue Project again, no question.
Diving
Overall the diving was pretty good, and better than we expected. But as you find most places in the Caribbean, it's not like it used to be. The reef seems to be in very good shape, and we didn't see any evidence of bleaching. But the overall volume of fish was noticeably reduced from our last dives in Cozumel seven years ago. Turtles were largely absent as well. The DMs seem to think over-fishing is a factor in addition to climate change. The water was 81 or 82 degrees on every dive. The port was closed on our last day because of wind.
We didn't realize it until the first dive since we've never been to Cozumel in the winter, but it was eagle ray season. And we saw quite a few, including three on the first dive and at least one on every dive but one.
We dove Palancar Caves, Palancar Gardens, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Yucab, San Clemente, Punta Delilah and Paso del Cedral.
In addition to roughly 10 eagle rays, the highlights of critters were:
2 Hawksbill turtles, 1 Green turtle, 1 Loggerhead turtle we saw from the boat
3-4 green morays, 2-3 spotted morays, 1 goldentail moray
6-10 yellow stingrays, 2-3 Southern stingrays, 30+ Caribbean whiptail stingrays
3-4 nurse sharks
6-10 juvenile drum fish
3-4 toadfish
2-3 Scorpion fish
All the other usual Cozumel suspects (just smaller numbers)
A few screen captures from GoPro videos are attached.
Lodging
Miramar condos - We like staying in the northern zone as it's a bit quieter and not hard to get to town if you have a rental car. We had previously stayed at Nah Ha, which is amazing. Miramar is next door and is a much older building, but it's also less expensive. It's about what we expected - solid, but not as nice as Nah Ha. Communication beforehand was great, and there were no issues with the condo. We would rent from Cozumel Seaside Retreats again.
Rental car
Emily rental car - Tried them for the first time this trip, and everything was fine. They met me across the street from the airport, they were there on time, the car was OK, I paid in cash for the agreed upon price, and when returning they met me on time. The car was a typical 10-ish year-old Mexican rental car.
Food and drinks
La Mezcalteca - This fairly new mezcal bar (opened in 2023, I think) is amazing. If you like mezcal and/or cocktails, go. One of the owners, David, was behind the bar the first night we went. He gave us an education about mezcal (I thought I knew a fair amount before talking to him), and he customized several cocktails to make sure they were suited to our tastes. They also have pulque, which we had never had. It's an ancient Aztec drink, and I really liked it (my wife not so much). It's the only bar we've found in Cozumel that I would a craft cocktail bar. We ended up going twice. Highly recommended.
Cafe Boutique Soledad Hernandez - Great spot with an excellent garden patio. We went for brunch before going to the airport to leave. Highly recommended.
K'ooben Laab - Amazing. We had no idea that a reservation is pretty much mandatory, at least over the holidays when we were there. We managed to get in at 5 pm one evening, and it was so good we made reservations for our last night and went again. Amazing pasta, all of which is homemade. Good sauces, very nice people, solid cocktails, and really good homemade limoncello.
Vegan Barrio - This place is in a little outdoor food court, sort of, with a place that serves crepes, a place with cocktails/beer and another restaurant. Pretty neat area. Food was good, cocktails were pretty good, prices were good. We would go back.
Pizzeria La Bota - Very small place with a very small menu. Only water and sodas. The pizzas are a pretty good effort at Neopolitan pizza. Very small staff and a small oven, so they have a hard time keeping up if there are more than a few pizzas to be made, so be prepared to wait after you order.
Buccanos - We tried to get a reservation to dine, but it was full every night because of the holidays. We went to the bar for happy hour, which was nice. Two for one drinks but only for two of the same drink at the same time. Still a good deal, and the prices for most cocktails were $200-220 pesos. The bar is indoors without much of a view, but it's nice. On the day the port was closed we went to the beach club. Very nice, not crowded, no cruise ship groups, a good choice for a relaxed beach club.
Hemingway's - We only had cocktails there but went twice. It's a nice location, particularly if you can snag a seat by the water. Many of the cocktails are solid, and the prices aren't bad. Some of the specialty tropical cocktails on the list are sweeter and more resort-type drinks, so be aware unless that's your thing. Staples like a mezcal margarita are good.
Crazy King Burrito - Not bad. They serve a sort of California grilled burrito. The food is pretty good, very nice people, and the prices are fair.
Cocomama Tiki Room - I was skeptical about the rave Google reviews of the cocktails given the location across from the ferry dock. Sure enough, the drinks were sugary and lousy. Service wasn't good.
Rolandi's (now called Portasol) - Nice location on the water, nice people, excellent service, mediocre food at best, and fairly high prices.
La Cocay - I made New Year's Eve reservations weeks beforehand. In the multiple emails, no one mentioned that there would be a special, limited menu. We're vegetarian, the menu didn't work for us, and they were unwilling to let us order off the main menu. Very disappointing. If they had mentioned the special menu when I was making reservations, we would have gone on a different night.
Guido's - After leaving La Cocay, we went to Guido's. They normally don't take reservations but were for New Year's Eve. They managed to get us a table after a wait of 30-40 minutes, for which we were grateful since they were packed. People were great, service was really good. The food was just OK. We've eaten at Guido's many times over the years, and it's just not as good as it once was.
Mezcalitos - This place hasn't changed a great deal in 20 years or so, which is a good thing to us. Service was good, prices were good, and in the afternoon it wasn't very busy.
Rasta Bar - Meh. We'd driven by this place but had never stopped on previous trips. Service was OK, drinks were OK, prices were a little higher than Mezcalitos.
Dive operator
Blue Project - One of the best dive ops we've ever used anywhere. Highly recommended. They provide great valet diving service perfect for vacation.
Blanca, the owner of Blue Project, is amazing. Communication beforehand is great. Blanca met us at the condo the day we arrived to check us in. We dove on two of their boats, both typical for Cozumel and perfectly fine. Both captains, Zimri and Maya, were great. Support staff (Gustavo and others) were also great.
The dive masters with whom we dove, including Blanca, Jorge and Joanjo, were all excellent. We only dove with our family of three (not a request; just small groups every day). The boat never had more than six divers. All the DMs were relaxed, quite personable, focused on safety in a good way, pointed out interesting critters and were keen on assuring everyone had a good time. We dove our profiles, up to 70 minutes per dive. And every dive was 65-70 minutes with no pressure to cut a dive short. We'll dive with Blue Project again, no question.
Diving
Overall the diving was pretty good, and better than we expected. But as you find most places in the Caribbean, it's not like it used to be. The reef seems to be in very good shape, and we didn't see any evidence of bleaching. But the overall volume of fish was noticeably reduced from our last dives in Cozumel seven years ago. Turtles were largely absent as well. The DMs seem to think over-fishing is a factor in addition to climate change. The water was 81 or 82 degrees on every dive. The port was closed on our last day because of wind.
We didn't realize it until the first dive since we've never been to Cozumel in the winter, but it was eagle ray season. And we saw quite a few, including three on the first dive and at least one on every dive but one.
We dove Palancar Caves, Palancar Gardens, Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Yucab, San Clemente, Punta Delilah and Paso del Cedral.
In addition to roughly 10 eagle rays, the highlights of critters were:
2 Hawksbill turtles, 1 Green turtle, 1 Loggerhead turtle we saw from the boat
3-4 green morays, 2-3 spotted morays, 1 goldentail moray
6-10 yellow stingrays, 2-3 Southern stingrays, 30+ Caribbean whiptail stingrays
3-4 nurse sharks
6-10 juvenile drum fish
3-4 toadfish
2-3 Scorpion fish
All the other usual Cozumel suspects (just smaller numbers)
A few screen captures from GoPro videos are attached.
Lodging
Miramar condos - We like staying in the northern zone as it's a bit quieter and not hard to get to town if you have a rental car. We had previously stayed at Nah Ha, which is amazing. Miramar is next door and is a much older building, but it's also less expensive. It's about what we expected - solid, but not as nice as Nah Ha. Communication beforehand was great, and there were no issues with the condo. We would rent from Cozumel Seaside Retreats again.
Rental car
Emily rental car - Tried them for the first time this trip, and everything was fine. They met me across the street from the airport, they were there on time, the car was OK, I paid in cash for the agreed upon price, and when returning they met me on time. The car was a typical 10-ish year-old Mexican rental car.
Food and drinks
La Mezcalteca - This fairly new mezcal bar (opened in 2023, I think) is amazing. If you like mezcal and/or cocktails, go. One of the owners, David, was behind the bar the first night we went. He gave us an education about mezcal (I thought I knew a fair amount before talking to him), and he customized several cocktails to make sure they were suited to our tastes. They also have pulque, which we had never had. It's an ancient Aztec drink, and I really liked it (my wife not so much). It's the only bar we've found in Cozumel that I would a craft cocktail bar. We ended up going twice. Highly recommended.
Cafe Boutique Soledad Hernandez - Great spot with an excellent garden patio. We went for brunch before going to the airport to leave. Highly recommended.
K'ooben Laab - Amazing. We had no idea that a reservation is pretty much mandatory, at least over the holidays when we were there. We managed to get in at 5 pm one evening, and it was so good we made reservations for our last night and went again. Amazing pasta, all of which is homemade. Good sauces, very nice people, solid cocktails, and really good homemade limoncello.
Vegan Barrio - This place is in a little outdoor food court, sort of, with a place that serves crepes, a place with cocktails/beer and another restaurant. Pretty neat area. Food was good, cocktails were pretty good, prices were good. We would go back.
Pizzeria La Bota - Very small place with a very small menu. Only water and sodas. The pizzas are a pretty good effort at Neopolitan pizza. Very small staff and a small oven, so they have a hard time keeping up if there are more than a few pizzas to be made, so be prepared to wait after you order.
Buccanos - We tried to get a reservation to dine, but it was full every night because of the holidays. We went to the bar for happy hour, which was nice. Two for one drinks but only for two of the same drink at the same time. Still a good deal, and the prices for most cocktails were $200-220 pesos. The bar is indoors without much of a view, but it's nice. On the day the port was closed we went to the beach club. Very nice, not crowded, no cruise ship groups, a good choice for a relaxed beach club.
Hemingway's - We only had cocktails there but went twice. It's a nice location, particularly if you can snag a seat by the water. Many of the cocktails are solid, and the prices aren't bad. Some of the specialty tropical cocktails on the list are sweeter and more resort-type drinks, so be aware unless that's your thing. Staples like a mezcal margarita are good.
Crazy King Burrito - Not bad. They serve a sort of California grilled burrito. The food is pretty good, very nice people, and the prices are fair.
Cocomama Tiki Room - I was skeptical about the rave Google reviews of the cocktails given the location across from the ferry dock. Sure enough, the drinks were sugary and lousy. Service wasn't good.
Rolandi's (now called Portasol) - Nice location on the water, nice people, excellent service, mediocre food at best, and fairly high prices.
La Cocay - I made New Year's Eve reservations weeks beforehand. In the multiple emails, no one mentioned that there would be a special, limited menu. We're vegetarian, the menu didn't work for us, and they were unwilling to let us order off the main menu. Very disappointing. If they had mentioned the special menu when I was making reservations, we would have gone on a different night.
Guido's - After leaving La Cocay, we went to Guido's. They normally don't take reservations but were for New Year's Eve. They managed to get us a table after a wait of 30-40 minutes, for which we were grateful since they were packed. People were great, service was really good. The food was just OK. We've eaten at Guido's many times over the years, and it's just not as good as it once was.
Mezcalitos - This place hasn't changed a great deal in 20 years or so, which is a good thing to us. Service was good, prices were good, and in the afternoon it wasn't very busy.
Rasta Bar - Meh. We'd driven by this place but had never stopped on previous trips. Service was OK, drinks were OK, prices were a little higher than Mezcalitos.
