Arrival: Booked through Sunwing Vacations for a one week stay at the Melia Cozumel. This is a smallish hotel, only 148 rooms, located on the northwest side of Cozumel. We booked the “M Experience” room. Flight with Sunwing was okay, going down we had 3 seats to ourselves so that was nice. They do serve a hot meal and give you free headsets. We flew into Cancun, went through Immigration there, then re-boarded for the 13 minute flight to Cozumel. On the way home we flew nonstop from Cozumel. On arrival in Cozumel we retrieved our luggage, for the first time we got the red light and had all of our luggage searched, not really a big deal. Went outside and located the Sunwing rep, and she directed us to a taxi that took us right to our hotel, less than 10 minutes away. Checkin was fast and easy. Found the front desk personnel to be very friendly and efficient.
Rooms: The M Experience rooms are on the 10th and 11th floors of the tower, and were beautiful. Very large, approximately 600 square feet. King-size bed, marble floors, living area with couch and table and chairs. Complimentary in-room safe and wi-fi, ironing board and iron, mini-fridge, 32 inch TV, coffee-maker, very nice. The hotel website indicates “VIP treatment” and twice-daily maid service for these rooms….the maid came in the evening once only. As for VIP treatment, not sure what that meant. They treated us fine, but no different than anyone else. We had thought we could have the concierge/front desk make our dinner reservations for us at the a la carte restaurant from some other reviews I have read, but we were told to make our own between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the main buffet restaurant. I was mentioning this to the Sunwing rep and she too thought they were supposed to make our reservations, so she spoke with them and they said they would. We gave them the days we wanted to eat at the a la carte and they said they would look after it. Of course, that didn’t happen, fortunately I was going by the restaurant the day of the first reservation and went in to check and our name wasn’t on the list. So we just made our own reservations, no big deal really. There are several sections to this hotel, the main tower, a two-storey building of gardenview rooms, and a two-storey building of oceanview rooms. All of the tower rooms are oceanview (except for the bottom couple of floors).
Restaurants and Bars: The main buffet restaurant is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Food was well-prepared, hot stuff was hot, cold stuff was cold. They had a reasonable selection for the size of the hotel, but I did get bored with the food by the end of the week. There is a grill restaurant that is open for lunch, where you can order hamburgers, wings, chicken fingers, grilled sandwiches, etc. We ate there a couple of times, it wasn’t too bad. During high season the grill restaurant is open as an a la carte in the evening. The other a la carte restaurant is Café Paraiso. We had dinner there 3 nights. Some people raved about it, but we found it just “okay”. There are two seating times available, 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Make your same-day reservation at the buffet restaurant between 10:00 a.m. and 1 p.m. For men, long pants, a collared shirt, and closed-toe shoes are required for this restaurant.
Beach/Pools/Grounds: This hotel is kept spotlessly clean. The employees were all great and service was good. The day before we left our safe malfunctioned and wouldn’t lock. I told the front desk and someone was at our door 5 minutes later. He couldn’t fix it, but went and brought back a repairman immediately to repair it. There is an adults-only pool in front of the tower, next to the beach, and another activities pool between the oceanview and gardenview rooms. I thought the beach was the nicest in that strip, the only big downfall is that the water in front of the Melia was murky brown, not very appealing. Seaweed washed up every day and was cleaned up daily. The hotel next door, El Cozumelo, built a breakfall between their beach and the Melia’s. If you stood on the breakwall and looked at the Melia side water was brown, to the left it was crystal clear with lots of fish. So if you want to go in the ocean, suggest you either walk to the left, or to the right of the hotel, where the water is clearer.
Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel: The hotel is only a $7 US cab ride from the town of San Miguel, so there are lots of dining options there if you want something different. We went into San Miguel one day to look around. High-end stores as well as the usual souvenir stores. And of course everybody tries to get you to come into their store.. At the end of the week, I had the beginnings of an eye infection, so the front desk gave me the name of a pharmacy and we went into town again to the pharmacy so I could get antibiotic drops (no prescription required in Mexico for antibiotics and a number of other drugs that require a prescription here). This time the taxi driver waited for us for about 15 minutes, and the cost round-trip was $15 US. We did the Pantera Jeep Tour, it was pretty good, a good way to see the whole island. They take you snorkeling, to see some ruins, to a Tequila manufacturer where they explain the process of making tequila, with some free samples, lunch at a restaurant on the east side of the island, and a stop at a nature reserve to see alligators, and the lighthouse. We booked this tour through the Sunwing rep, Kim, who by the way was one of the best destination reps I have ever met! Take US dollars, with US 1’s for tipping. You can pay for anything in US dollars without having to change into pesos. There is a spa at the hotel, which was pretty good. I had a great 60 minute massage. I have a MAS card, so that gave me a 10% discount on the massage as well. For kids, they have a kids club and activites. In the evening they have shows in their theatre. We only went to one show, it was pretty good, but shows start at 9 p.m. and we were still at dinner.
Other Comments: The weather wasn’t the best the week we were there. We did have some sun, but lots of overcast days with rain off and on. To summarize, this was a great hotel and if we were returning to Cozumel we would stay there again. I would recommend getting the M Experience room.