Judi,
Your photo show is absolutely awesome. I loved it, and thanks so much for sharing it with us. It brought back great memories of our trip there last March.
Anne,
We were at the Coral Princess for 3 days/nights in March 2008. We rented it though Expedia as some add-on extra nights after spending Easter week at the Grand Mayan Riviera Maya on the mainland. The room in Judi's pictures look identical to the 1-bedroom unit we stayed in. Absolutely no difference in appearance between 2006 and 2008 when we were there. It is an older resort with clean and spacious rooms. We really enjoyed sitting out and reading on the covered patio and enjoying the ocean views.
After a week spent earlier at one of the Riviera Maya mega-resorts, we really enjoyed the reasonable prices and good food at the Coral Princess on-site restaurant. The staff there was very kind, hard working, and genuinely wanted you to have a nice vacation. It reminded me of timesharing 10 years ago, when things were not so fancy, but you got to know lots of other guests, and just had a simple, relaxing vacation. Plus, Cozumel is such a sleepy, quiet island compared to the Riviera Maya and Cancun. It's totally the opposite, almost like going back in time. My husband and I really enjoyed it, but our teenage daughter felt it was all a little too quiet/laid back for her taste. She preferred the excitement of the nonstop action/activities of the mega-resort and Playa del Carmen over sleepy Cozumel.
We did not rent a car while we were there, and did not miss it at all. The small grocery store is a short walk (10 mins?), and we took a taxi back for around $3 or $4, definately cheaper than renting a car. Just beyond the grocery store is downtown, so everything is walkable, if you enjoy walking. We do. So we would usually walk into town in the evening, and catch a cab back. So cheap compared to Playa, where cabs cost $20, not $4 or $5.
We really enjoyed the snorkeling right at the Coral Princess. The water was warm and really clear. At different times you might see different fish. I didn't think the current was an issue at all. The whole time we were there the water was very calm, and even young kids did just fine. One day of the little kids brought a ziplock bag full of Cheetos into the water, and started feeding them to the fish. Suddenly, we were totally surrounded by tons of fish. It was totally cool watching them suck down Cheetos. Who knew? Man, do fish love Cheetos. But we didn't have any. The next day I offered them all kinds of goodies, but no luck attracting any fish crowds. Lesson learned: bring Cheetos if you want to meet lots of fish.
We enjoyed snorkeling at the resort so much, we decided to take a cab down to Dzul-Ha, which was mentioned as a good snorkeling spot in a several reviews. It's now called "The Money Bar" which is the name of the restaurant just in front of the snorkeling spot. We went on a Sunday, and there are no cruise ships on Cozumel on Sundays so it was pretty quiet. It was an okay spot, but nothing spectacular. I don't like going too far offshore into deep water, so I might have missed some things that were further out. We just enjoyed being out in the clear, warm water spotting fish and seeing what we could see. There is another popular place where you pay to enter, and that probably would have had better snorkeling.
We just returned from our Spring Break 2009 trip to Cancun/Riviera Maya, and I missed how easy the snorkelling was on Cozumel compared to the mainland. We drove 2 hours down to Tulum/Akumal Bay but it was so blasted windy, and the water was so choppy, we just ended up leaving the snorkeling stuff in the trunk of the car. Actually, it was so windy we got tired of the wind blowing so much sand in our faces we left after only a half hour. We had a nice lunch in Tulum (Piedra Escondida) on the beach before making the 2 hour drive back. (It SHOULD only take an hour to drive between Tulum & the Grand Mayan, but with the horrible traffic and constant speed bumps, it now takes almost 2 hours EACH WAY. Yikes!)
We finally snorkeled right at the Club Med beach in Cancun (the only good snorkeling beach in Cancun). At least the waves there are very mild, and it's a nice sheltered area for snorkeling. But although the water is actually quite shallow and appears calm, the current there is really, really strong. I had a very hard time swimming back to where we had entered the water. At one point I almost accidentally bumped into a jellyfish. After just seeing the Will Smith movie "7 Pounds", I really panicked, and was trying to get as far away from him as possible. But I hardly made any progress at all trying to swim against the current. Wow! That was one strong current. When we came out of the water, the Club Med people booted us out, even though all beaches are supposed to be public in Mexico. We did not experience anything like those bad currents in Cozumel. Coz is definately the place to enjoy snorkeling. The offshore reef really makes snorkeling from any beach so much easier.
--- Rene McDaniel
