My wife and I returned from a 5 night stay at the Melia Cozumel the other day. The trip served it’s purpose, which was to get away and relax.

We arrived in Coz at 11:30am Friday July 4th with little to no problems with the airports or airlines, which is unusual nowadays. We made it through immigration and customs in about a half an hour and then snaked our way past the time share hawkers and onto a van. We were at the Melia by 12:30.

Check in was relatively painless. The staff took care of our needs, but not much else. They gave us a ocean view room in the far northern portion of the grounds, which was good. The room was a typical hotel room, clean and well appointed. It was freezing in the room. The thermostat was turned all the way to 10 degrees (c). We set it at 25, put on our suits and made our way to the beach. Before we made it to the beach, we stopped at the buffet and had a bite to eat. I say bite, because that is about all we could get down. It was pretty bad. The beach was nice, with beautiful white sand and plenty of palapas for shade. I dove into my first beer, and had good service from the bar that was attended by Eddier. He was the friendliest bartender that we had all week. Once we were done on the beach, we went back to the room to clean up for dinner. The room was warming up, but everything was wet. I nearly busted my butt on the wet tile, so we turned the thermostat back down to 10, hoping it would dry things out. It didn’t. We battled that AC the whole trip, it was either meat locker or swimming pool. We chose meat locker.

We had dinner at the buffet, and again it was pretty bad. I was starving at this point, so I ate what I could find. We were pretty tired from a day of traveling, so we were in the meat locker and asleep by 9:00pm.

We woke up the next day, got ready and went to the buffet for breakfast, and this time is was actually pretty good. So we were able to eat.

We hung out on the beach all day and went snorkeling at the El Coz a couple of times. We tried lunch at the grill, and decided we would have to eat big breakfasts and then eat an early dinner in town the rest of the week. We tried the buffet again that night and never went back, except for breakfast.

Sunday we went into town around 11:00am and milled around a bit. We knew that nothing would be happening until later, so we decided to take the ferry over to PDC. One of the time share guys stopped us and told us he would pay for our ferry ride and give us $110 USD if we went to a presentation at Sandos. We said OK, since we really had nothing else to do. It was fun going over there and then going to Sandos on the Riveria Maya. Very nice place. They tried their hardest to get us to bite, but we didn’t and took our $110 and left. We shopped in PDC and had dinner with that money. It was worth it. We really liked 5th avenue in PDC. It was lively and had a lot of unique little places. We caught the ferry back at 6:00 but we were exhausted so we decided to head back to the hotel. We were under the covers pretty early that night.

Monday we rented a car and toured the island. This was the highlight of our trip. We stopped at all of the beach clubs once we passed the hotels in the southern zone. Our first stop was at Playancar Beach Club, which was real nice. It was still early, so there wasn’t a lot of activity. We had a drink and left. Our next stop was the Eco park and lighthouse. It cost $10 each to get in, but it was money well spent. I liked the crocodile section. We saw several. Next was the Reggae Café. We had a drink, got pounded by the surf, and made our way down the road. We stopped at all of the beach clubs, but I don’t remember their names. All were fun. We stopped and had dinner at Coconuts. It was FABULOUS!!!! What a fun place. We spent quite a bit of time there and had fun with the wait and bar staff. I think our next stop were the ruins. This was very interesting for me, and it was fun hiking around in the jungle. We were going to go into town to do some shopping, but we were too tired and went back to the hotel. We cleaned up and sat at the Beach Bar the rest of the night. We made our way back to the meat locker and snuggled under the warm covers.

Tuesday was a beach and snorkeling day. I drank most of the day, which was fun. Didn’t eat at the buffet except for breakfast. We went into town for an early dinner at Casa Denis. It was WONDERFUL. I had the Conch in Garlic and Pepper Sauce and my wife had the shrimp fajitas. Both were fabulous. We really enjoyed Casa Denis. We walked around San Miguel for a couple of hours shopping, drinking and taking pictures. We really enjoyed the town. It was very clean and laid back while all of the locals were very friendly. We went back to the hotel and sat at the beach bar the rest of the night. Went back to the meat locker for the last time.

Our flight left on Wednesday, and I was ready to head home. We had breakfast in the buffet, then braved the snack bar again. I found that the hot dogs were edible and ate a couple of those so I had something in my stomach for the day of traveling.

All-in-all the trip served it’s purpose. Cozumel is a very nice island and someplace we may return to, but not the Melia. We went the frugal route for this trip, and got what we paid for. I wouldn’t say the Melia was bad, but it is a low-cost AI in a popular tourist destination. If you are aware of that when you book, you will not be disappointed, mostly.