Melia Cozumel All Inclusive Golf & Beach Resort, Centro

Most of these Yahoo posts are old. It has been several years now since the hurricane. All is pretty much cleaned up, especially the beach. The post about peeping staff in the shower vents must be the ocean view lower units with the hottubs. I did see luvered doors between the rooms on the first floor ov rooms. But I saw nothing like that nor heard any such complaints. I would just say "check it out or ask at the front desk for a room that doesn't have that". We started with a garden view room because they had no ov rooms. The garden view complex is 4 floors and an elevator, if you end up on the 4th floor you may see the ocean. The ov rooms look the same, but are 3 floors and only stairs. We got a second floor room looking into the palm trees. Iguanas here to look at. A/C works great in all rooms. Neither of these room types have a clock or coffee maker, but they all have a safe. Coffee in morning with mini pastries is $5 plus tip. The first time we called for coffee the young man tried to get us to pay $10, which I refushed! When you change rooms the front desk has staff move your bags because of all the stairs, but just tip him a couple $1. The buffet is so so food. They do make omlets with your choice of ingrediants. The Iguana snack bar has good food, and at nite don't bother with the 1/4" Tbone or the flank steak. But the shrimp and chicken were good. The Parisian restrauant was good, but remember the dress code. Sign up for these two places at 10 am each day. The staff is always friendly. Brings lots of $1 as the staff works hard for you. The hotel next door the El Cozumelia has posts of lots of people getting food poisening, none of that happened at the Melia. The beach is the best on the hotel zone north end. Melia is the only one with sand all the way to the waters edge and easy to get into the water, but bring water shoes as there are rocks in some places. All the other hotels on this end DO NOT have a beach with waters edge, but a cement retaining wall or large bolders you must climb over. The El Cozumelia next door has a crappy beach, but nice shells. The water is blue/green, clear and beautiful. Easy to snorkel right here. We ended up in a junior suite 9th floor. A little larger room/wonderful view. Upgrade price negotiable. Still no coffee maker or clock. Only the M experience suites on the 10 - 12th floors of the tower unit have a coffee maker. Time share people hog the tower rooms Sat - Sat, so a Friday check in might get you an updagrade tower room. The two pools are OK, but people come here for the beach. There are tons of nice beach lounge chairs at the beach, some under palapas or palm trees. The hotel next door has crappy beach loungers. This is an older hotel and not handicap friendly. There are 16 - 20 steps to get from the lobby to the buffet or main pool. Even to get into the lobby and out to the adult pool and beach have stairs and no handrails. They do have one ramp behind the buffet that gets you back to the lobby area. There are mosquitoes at sunset, but the little convenience store has repellent, sunscreen etc. Most people bring an insulated mug for their drinks to keep them cold. It takes 3 hours to drive around the island. The windward side doesn't has two or three places to eat or get to the beach, but red flags are always up because it is the windward side. Don't shop on Sunday as the stores are mostly closed. We went on the pirate ship lobster dinner cruise which was wonderful. While you are cruising along the coast line you will see that the Melia is the only hotel with a nice beachfront. Cab rides: From the airport $8 pp. To town $7 total. Back $8 total. To airport $7 per person. If I came back to the Melia it would be in the M experience top tower rooms.

We just returned from another weeks stay with a group of 20 of us for our daughters wedding. We have stayed at the Melia many times due to the fantastic service of the staff and the quite layed back atmosphere of this resort. This trip was a little different as so many of the poeple that traveled with us hand never been there before and we wanted to see what they thought of our favorite place. Over all the only complaint we heard some some of the younger folks was at dinner not everyone found something they liked at the main buffet. Everyone thought the rooms, staff, beach,bars ect were great and many are already planning a return trip for next year. We still think the Melia is the best value on the island but we also know that there is no place for everyone but it's perfect for us.

In order to understand how this came to be, you will need to understand the layout of the rooms in the main building of the Melia Cozumel. Each room in this section of the hotel was separated by a black shudder-like door. This door contains the plumbing components for each of the 2 rooms on either side. So, there is a room door, then this black door, then another room door and so on and so forth. These doors are not locked and are only held closed by a small latch at the top and bottom. I would have never noticed this door had the following events not unfolded. First, I decided take a quick shower. About a minute into the shower I noticed a flash of light out of the corner of my eye. It startled me and I turned to the side to find that light was pouring in from the vent on the wall of the shower. I could literally see sunlight in my bathroom. As I stood on my toes to see where the light was coming from a FACE appeared in the vent. It was a younger Hispanic man obviously an employee of the hotel. As you would expect, I screamed and hurried to get out of the shower. By the time I made it out of the room and into the hallway, all I found was the aforementioned black door swinging wide open. Once I was in the hallway I stepped into the closet space to find that NOTHING separated the vents of the showers on BOTH SIDES of the closet and that an employee could easily stand in the space and see into not just one, but TWO showers made me absolutely sick. The only reason I noticed that I was being watched is that the top latch on the door between our rooms was broken and the door swung open allowing light to shine into the closet so that I could see the employee inside. If the closet door had remained closed and no light had come in, I would have never been able to see that anyone was inside watching me. I immediately called the front desk and asked for the hotel manager. I was told he was in a meeting and to call back. I tried to remain calm and briefly explained the situation to the woman on the phone who repeated that the manager would be in a meeting for at least another 30 minutes and that I could WAIT FOR HIM IN THE LOBBY. I was so insulted and upset as I literally sat in the lobby and cried the entire time. The hotel manager finally arrived and sat down IN THE LOBBY to hear the story for himself. We were never escorted to a private room and I was forced to recount this horribly personal and invasive story feet from your reception desk. He repeatedly asked me “What do you want me to do?” and was hardly apologetic. He made it extremely clear that nothing was to be done if I couldn’t identify exactly who the person was that I saw. Obviously I only saw the person through a vent in my shower and in a complete state of panic so identifying a young Hispanic male in the middle of Mexico was nearly impossible. The manager asked what we wanted him to do several more times before telling me that he would be lining up the maintenance and cleaning staff on duty at the time in the theater for me to try to recognize the offender. I was then taken into a dark theater and made to face 3 of the hotel employees that could have been watching me in the shower less than an hour before. Later in the afternoon, a padlock was installed on the black door next to our room. The most shocking part of all of this to me was that the locks weren’t subsequently installed on EVERY door like this in the entire hotel. Whoever is responsible for this still has access to every other room in the resort…

We visited this resort and had a great time the room was a nice size and nicely decorated and the pool was only a few feet away from the pool and buffet.this resort is small which i was not sure about but it was great the lobby was close the buffet was good and big with a lot of variety and the small buffet under a big hut was great for lunch a good small selection of food or you could sit down and order with a view of the ocean! the pool was a decent size and the staff was great

We stayed here the week of November 10-16th and it was great! As soon as you walk in the Melia and get your bracelet the time-share people will start. I just told them that I had already bought and paid for my vacation and did not plan on sitting through an hour and 45 minute film, to get a rental car, that I was not going to use. ~~Just go the front entrance and ask for a cab in less than 2 minutes one will be there to take you,(and it’s only 5 dollars each way!) beside after the driving I seen in town, no thank you! I’ll leave it up to the locals! After I got a cocktail and the hubby got us checked in, the bellboy took our luggage and us to our room. He even hauled all of it up the stairs for us, super nice guy! We didn’t have any problems with lizards in the rooms. But sometimes the floors were damp/moist as were our clothes. But that had to do with being right on the water. And I’m sure that if I have turned on the a/c, it would have dried up, but we didn’t because we wanted the “tropical paradise” that we had paid for. We were on the second floor, beach view. And what a wonderful view it was! (next time I want the first floor so I can sit in the tub and look out at the ocean! or just open up my door and walk out onto the beach!)) We had A/C but slept with the balcony doors open every night. The cool breeze off the water was wonderful (as well as the sent of the ocean! No candle can do that!) We didn’t have a big bug problem. We just used two of my “hair clippys” to hold the sheer curtain closed. We were brought coffee and pastries every morning. And we enjoyed them while watching an employee rake away the seaweed that came up on the beach the previous night or watching the news on the TV. The vodka was a little weird tasting and was definitely NOT Smirnoff/ Goose/Belvedere but heck we were in Mexico and not the states. The buffet was ok. Dinner buffets had “theme nights” think Chinese, American, and Mexican. Not the best but I found the breakfast was better than lunch or supper. The fruit was always fresh. I liked the “bubbly” and wine glasses by the fruit juice bar so the adults could have a mimosa if they wanted. The pastries were very lackluster, but then again that is the way most Mexican pastries are. I mean I really can’t go to France and gripe about the quality of Tequila now can I. I would suggest making a reservation at the little restaurant. But do it before 9ish in the morning. The food is better than the buffet, but of course it would/should be. Welcome cocktail (I thought it was a Shirley Temple) choice of red or white wine, appetizer, soup, salad, main entrée, dessert and coffee (but I never ordered all that food) the little outside buffet (more brunch~ish) was ok. Even though the hotdogs in my penne kinda threw me off! haha If you want a more authentic lunch, I say head into town! We ate at the Plaza Leca and their guacamole and pico were to die for! We never made it to any of the shows but we did see people practicing and it looked fun! The pools were nice. The one in the front by the lobby had a swim up bar (more adults) and the one in the back was more for the kiddos! What ever you do DONOT lose your beach towel. Its $50 bucks for a new one (expensive souvenir huh) but if yours gets dirty or you just want a new one, you can go trade it in, no hassles. I loved walking around the grounds. The staff was always clceaning something and if you walk within a few feet they will look up, smile and say hello, super nice people. Anyway I hope this helps some. I’m sorry that others had a bad experience. I can’t wait to go back!

this place is a dump - although it has a great location, the beach is dirty, the food is beneath "acceptable" levels, the entertainment can easily be topped by my son's 6th grade performances. Don't get caught up - it seems that they have their employees write reviews to get their ratings higher - Be careful!!!

It looks as though what used to be so good, became oh so bad. . . If you look before mid-2007, the lowest review this hotel received was a 3 star. It seems that since then, the hotel has received new owners that just don't care very much. I had stayed at the Melia several times in the past, although it was named something else - I believe it was the Paradisus. I hate to say that I will never be coming back. The smell of manure was so heavy in the air in the evenings, you can hardly stand it, the small insects that infest the balcony and your room at night should be paying for your room because they will get more sleep than you do. The ocean is dirtier than the beaches in NY, NJ or VA, and that's saying A LOT. It seems that the food is not up to the old standards as not only did I have trouble downing the food, but so did the 12 people I went with. I was VERY embarassed because I had recommended the Melia as a fun place to go for my church group. The shows are not made for children - so PLEASE, be careful - the women wearing thongs, bending over and shaking it may be acceptable in Cozumel, but was not acceptable to the 20+ children in the audience - you'd think they would warn the audience knowing there were so many kids (the theater probably sat about 75, but about 40 of those spaces were taken - 20 of them children). Very disappointed with the Melia. Contacted customer service - called them 15 times and left a message every single time - nobody ever picked up, nobody ever called back. Speaks volumes for how much they care about you after they have your money. . . will not return . . . .

Like - the view Dislike - DISGUSTING FOOD!!! , SO MANY BUGS, SO MANY BITES, CHEAP ALCOHOL, FOOD WAS NOT FRESH OR EDIBLE, we asked to cancel our reservation - and they refused our cancellation, when we got back to the US, they said, why didn't you ask for a cancellation, we explained we did, they told us we were lying. . . SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GO ELSEWHERE - IT'S NOT WORTH IT - THE ISLAND IS TOO BEAUTIFUL TO WASTE YOUR TIME, MONEY AND PATIENCE ON THIS DANK OVERPRICED RUNDOWN MOSQUITO FILLED HOTEL!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!

Ok, so I went to Melia Cozumel from November 16th - 23rd 2008. I read a lot of reviews on here ahead of time so I was a little concerned about how the vacation would go there. Yes, the beach is not all it could be. Due to the hurricane damage there are a lot of rocks and pits in the sand on the beach and yes it is not crystal clear. Also be sure to wear water shoes in the water so you don't cut yourself on the rocks. Now, to be fair to Melia a lot of the beaches on that side of Cozumel were ruined by the hurricane some time ago. For instance, over at the restaurants south of Melia their beach has been almost washed away completely. It will take some time to fix all of this but Melia is not the only one affected. My room there was awesome. I got a beach front room with a hot tub out on the porch. It was great. Also there was no musty smell in my room or lizards crawling around like the other reviewers said. (There are iguanas that roam around on the grass outside of the room but trust me they will not be IN the room with you. Well to the tropical environment people!) The service I got from everyone was excellent. No one was rude to me or anything like that. The hotel did have a lot of activities for families to do during the day such as bingo, bracelet making, name that tune, karaoke, flower making, as well as themed shows every night. A cab downtown will cost you $5. As for the food, it is hit or miss. Some things were very good and other were just acceptable. The food is not absolutely horrible as some reviewers have said. I'm not sure what kind of food those reviewers were expecting at a resort like this. I mean, come on, you're not getting steak and lobster every night. My only complaint about the food is that I wish there was a little more variety. That's it. All of the fruit, veggies, and food were fresh. Also, check out Cafe Paraiso by the pools. You need to make a reservation there in the morning for dinner at 7PM but it's worth it. The restaurant has a nice ambience to it, giant fish tank, piano player, well dressed wait staff, and food that is far superior to the buffet. So, if you're thinking about giving Sol Melia Cozumel a shot I'd say go for it!

the service was not good at all. The front desk receptionists were very rude and seemed inconvenienced by our requests. Bell boys were lazy and stood around as we loaded our van which was rented from their company which was also a rip off and the worst part about the stay was the sewage smell that lingered around especially at night. There were also tiny bugs in our room that were in all of our stuff. The water in front of the resort was dark and murky not good snorkeling at all. The alcohol was cheap and the food was very cafeteria style. Take my advice and stay somewhere else.