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Cozumel Trip Report
Posted by Jonny on 08/17/01

Trip Report- Paradisus and Sand Dollar Sports- Plz Post

I visited Cozumel for the first time with the family (3 kids ages 6-10) in early August 2001. Found a well priced all-inclusive package including round trip airfare for 5 for under $3,400. It’s an easy straight shot from Atlanta with about 2 hours of flying time. With the appropriate documentation, we had no trouble clearing customs either way- even when my son was so tanned that we were scared that they might think we were trying to sneak one of the local kids back into the country. The adults had passports, but we only had official birth certificates (with raised seals) for the children. If only one of the birth parents are traveling with children, it is very important to have a notarized letter from the non-traveling parent that gives permission to take the children to a specific location for the specified dates. I heard some horror stories from others that lost a day or two of their vacation when they were not allowed to board the flight to Mexico until they had obtained a notarized permission letter.

We stayed at the Paradisus with an all-inclusive package. It’s a colorful, well maintained facility that appears to have been renovated recently. The Paradisus is the Northern most hotel on the island (only about 15 minutes from the airport) and would appear to have the best all sand beach of any of the hotels I saw. The beach has very low surf, little tide movement, and the depth drop off is very gradual. A large area is roped off for swimming, snorkeling, etc.  Although the snorkeling is pretty poor, the beach is safe and perfect for kids. One sad, but interesting phenomenon is that a school of fish has been conditioned to accept food from people wading in the water off the beach. Bring a handful of food with you from breakfast and head into the ocean. Soon, this school of fish will be circling and rubbing up against you as they go into a feeding frenzy. It’s an experience that the kids will love.  
We had two adjoining rooms in the tower. All rooms in the tower appear to have fantastic ocean views great for watching the sun set over the mainland from the balcony. Found the rooms to be of ample size, clean and well furnished. Each room has a safe. Tip the maid $5 every day and your room will be the cleaned at the most convenient times, there will be pleasant touches to the room, and a shower of thanks. The only possible complaint might be that there are only 2 slow elevators servicing all 14 floors of the tower that can sometimes cause a bit of a wait. But hey- you’re on vacation and you shouldn’t be in a hurry, so who cares. There are also some low rise rooms (villas) on the northern end of the hotel compound and behind the swimming pool. I never saw the interiors of these rooms, but I suspect they were laid out the same as the rooms in the tower and most appeared to have good ocean views with balconies as well.
Check in at the hotel was fairly simple. Upon arrival, the check in staff sits you down and takes a few minutes to explain the hotel and services to you while they put the signifying wrist bands on everyone. The hotel has 2 pools: the adults only pool with a wade-up-to bar right on the beach, and the main activity pool centered in the hotel compound. There is a main buffet-style dining area and snack bar. There are also 1 or 2 other reservations only restaurants on site, however we did not use them. We found the food in the main dining area to be quite good (considering it was buffet style) and every day there was enough change in the menu and selection that we were quite satisfied. However, if we had stayed there longer than a week, we may have started to feel a need for more variety. Every night there is a new theme of the style of food (i.e. Chinese, Mexican, etc). The salad selection appeared to remain consistent. The snack bar has a very limited menu, but is quite adequate for kids: Buffalo wings, nachos, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, chicken fingers, etc. The snack bar was only open from 11 to 6 with only one guy working it. At times, it could take a while to order and get your food, but a good tip to the cook every time would ensure that he would seek out your order along the people lined up. However, it would be helpful for the hotel to add at least 1 additional cook to the snack bar. It might also be nice if the snack bar were to stay open an hour or two longer in case the kids don’t find anything they like in the dinner buffet.
There is a kids club (ages 2-12) on the premise run by a fantastic lady- Isabella. Although my kids mostly preferred to run between the beach and the pool all day, they did occasionally join in with Isabella and the other kids. Every evening (8-ish) Isabella hosted a mini-disco for the kids before the normal entertainment started. The kids loved these mini-discos where they got to play different games and put on little shows. After that, the hotel staff puts on a different theme show every night. After that, there is usually a disco set up in the auditorium. Overall, good family entertainment, but there really isn’t much of a set up for adults wanting to party it up.
In all, the Paradisus is a great facility that I would go back to for a family vacation in a heart beat. The staff is friendly and helpful and the hotel is very safe. Normally I watch my kids like a hawk at all time. After a couple of days, we felt so comfortable with the facility and the staff that we just let the kids have the run of the place while we relaxed on our own. The kids loved the sense of independence and being able to get their own food and drink when they wanted, and we felt safe that there were minimal risks for them to be in any danger and were being well watched by the hotel staff. There was a wide range of activities hosted by the hotel staff daily; from horse back riding, to intro to scuba in the pool, to volleyball, to exercise, to sea kayaking to snorkeling, and on and on. There was as much to do as you could want
If I were to return to Cozumel without the family, I may opt to try another hotel. Although we never had a reason or want to leave the hotel compound other than for scuba, the hotel is about a 15 minute cab ride from town, and I didn’t get the sense that it was set up well for singles or active couples wanting to be active and party it up Jamaica Hedonism style. However, I still can’t conceive of any way you could go wrong staying that the Paradisus.

Although I never saw any glowing reviews on the in-house dive operator at the Paradisus, Sand Dollar Sports, I found our experiences with them to be quite good. I opted to go with them because they offered the discover scuba classes at the hotel. Alex did a great job of showing patience with a sissy first timer who is now hell bent on getting certified. I signed up for 2 afternoon dives and 1 morning dive. I had heard that the afternoon dives in Mexico can sometimes get cancelled by the operators if they don’t have enough divers, but I never had that problem with Sand Dollar. Besides the fact that I usually drank too much the night before and needed the recovery time in the morning, I preferred the afternoon dives because there were fewer divers out on the reefs. On the morning dive, it looked like a stampede as you watch all the boats cruising out to the dive sites. Amazingly, once you get there, the dive operators all seem to stay out of each other’s way. Never did we encounter another dive group under water. But as you drift along, sometimes you can see streams of bubbles from another group rising from behind a hill. I used my own equipment and would advise others to do the same. Although I never saw anyone have any problems with the rental equipment, some of the BCDs looked like they were held together with threads. I found the dive masters to be very good for the groups of 4 to 6. They seemed to have a great deal of patience and a good sense for the different diver’s abilities, paying close attention to those that looked like they needed it and giving freedom to others letting others move around and enjoy themselves. In one instance, the dive master took an air-sucker up to the boat and then came back to finish the rest of the dive. But still I was a little disappointed with the short bottom times- rarely more than 35 or 40 minutes. I never finished a dive with less than half a tank. Overall, the diving may be the best I’ve found anywhere in the Caribbean yet. There is a plethora of reefs and sites all within a short boat ride. The underwater life diversity and volume is very high, but not as much as you might find in Thailand or the South Pacific. But the currents make it lazy man’s diving that’s truly enjoyable as you just float past the scenery. I found the 3MM shorty wetsuit that I brought to be too much. The water is way to warm and I found myself unzipping it on every dive. I’ll bring my skins and .5MM suit next time.

Bottom line? I’m already planning my next trip back to Coz. For the ease of travel, the quality of the diving, and the overall value for the dollar, I haven’t found a vacation site that can beat Cozumel.    

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