c-leg5

If you have followed @mitsugirly blog you will see photos of many of the beaches on Cozumel which should help you decide on a location. Mitsugirly is keen on snorkeling so you will see many of the locations are ironshore, with man-made beach areas for loungers. On previous cruise ship visits she has reviews of Paradise Beach, Sanchos and Palancar although you stated you didn’t want/need water toys. We find paradise Beach/Sanchos busier and more family oriented although your daughter may enjoy. In the past both have offered PAYG options. Her review if Palancar is from some years ago and it is even longer since we visited there. It used to be one if our favorites but became much busier pre-Covid. - not sure how it is now but they do/did charge for loungers, which is unusual on Cozumel. Not sure which Taco restaurant you are looking at? I only remember her going to Tacotales and being surprised/disappointed with presentation/ what was included! I think this was probably due to her being unaware of the difference between beach clubs/ tourist restaurants and local taco restaurants. Most “local” taco restaurants are out of town. Whilst we enjoy tacos, and they are generally a tasty snack, they are not exactly “memorable”! There are many good restaurants in town I suggest you look at the trip reviews from the local Tripadvisor forum for ideas. Also study google maps - Mega is on one edge of town - it is a reasonable walk from there to the town square. Other local restaurants are further back from the main coast road, at least a block or two most even further but you won’t get to them in time unless you go by taxi. One further piece of advice, unless you actually want to shop and haggle, walk on the ocean side of the road down Melgar - I wish someone would have told me that before my first visit. There is too much to do on Cozumel to fit it all in one day. Taxis are plentiful and safe but you do need to be mindful of timing and distances.

Let us know how it how it goes and if things have improved!

I would hope so.

Whilst I agree that would be nice we have never had a problem just getting tickets from one of the concierges since being diamond. I do recall years ago sitting in one of the small theaters waiting for ticket distribution snd people beginning to congregate way before the allotted time. However, given the number of Diamond and above on the recent Adventure repositioning cruise (and on many cruises these days) I am not sure that meeting up with the host would have solved the problem in this particular port since tender facilities were limited. Also it is difficult to know where to stop with priority - ship tours, independent tours, C&A status, Key guests - you can’t give everyone priority and how many people actually NEED to be on the first tender? Generally we are quite happy with a later ticket. It might be easier these days, and reduce big groups of people congregating, if a request was completed online ( by scanning a code) a couple of days in advance, to request a time slot and tickets distributed similar to bag tag distribution.

Palancar is the furthest beach south and the most expensive taxi especially since you will probably dock in town on NCL. The good news is IF you dock in town AND want to go to the beach you will only have to get two taxis instead of a third one back to port after eating in town. Any particular reason you want to eat in town? In order to use the facilities and loungers at the beach you will be expected to purchase “some” food and/or drinks. There are several locations like Money Bar, like @JohninDC suggested with “sandy areas” with loungers where you can relax with a drink on a lounger but there are not many actual sandy beaches on Cozumel that haven’t been developed into beach clubs, or are hotel resorts (which do have day passes) but wouldn’t be economical for a couple of hours. Much of the coastline of Cozumel is ironshore. Best “sandy” beaches are on the east side but no ocean swimming due to currents and transport is more of a problem unless you hire a taxi for a few hours.

Thanks good to know. whilst i have tendered many times it will be my first visit to this area. Sounds like a combination of inadequate organization on board and limited tender facilities. I am not sure why the ship would restrict tender ticket distribution to one location. I assume ship excursions received tender tickets automatically with their excursion tickets and would probably occupy early tenders. As I have said before, this class of ship has always had tickets available in Diamond and suite lounges for collection which at least spread out the number of people congregating in one area. This ship does seem to have some organizational problems - we noticed it with some shore excursions - difficult to know if it is a problem on the ship, or outside contractors they are dependent on and working with. We will be on a different ship for our visit so at least I am aware of the port limitations.

There was another review from someone who went to Hotel Luna, which I haven’t seen mentioned for years. You might want to check that out or Hayhu if you are looking for places off the malecon.

I am sorry you didn’t get ashore if that had been your intention. I am following this thread as we have a cruise to these ports booked for next year and am looking for information. In my experience, on previous sailings with tenders there has always been a line for tickets early on - the line beginning to form well before tickets are even distributed. Unless we had an early independent excursion booked we would never bother with lining up early and would have a leisurely breakfast. Generally after the initial rush there is no line for tickets, or tickets are not even needed. It didn’t sound like @rafinmd waited too long for his ticket. This would probably be our plan too depending on how long we wanted to be ashore, if we couldn’t just pick up from a concierge. I assume those with ship excursions didn’t need to line up for tender tickets.

Thanks for your reply. I didn’t realize you had been to Turquoise twice. I agree that is a ridiculous price for the cabana. We have only visited Turquoise independently many years ago, before the cabanas were built. We enjoy quiet beach days but on a budget! In Cozumel it sounds like you may mean Cabana Beach, attached to Chankanaab? If so this is still available independently.

Have you tried the search engine. - i recall a review from someone this year that had a good day.

Was NCL still using tenders in Roatan when you were there? If do that should no longer be the case since the pier extension. I don’t recall the ride to Turquoise Bay being bad in itself. Do you mean the particular resort isn’t offered through the ship anymore, or was this an independent tour? I am not aware of any cabanas on Cozumel closing - do you remember which resort?

We had to tender in Grand Cayman from Adventure and found the procedure well organized but I guess that was because we were the only ship in port and Grand Cayman has proper tenders. How full is the sailing this week? Weren’t you able to get tender tickets from Diamond/suite concierge - that has always been the procedure in the past?

Sorry to hear that. Was the production show Covid related? Did you get tender tickets from concierge? We had to tender in Grand Cayman but it was very efficiently arranged. Perhaps smaller tenders are used in Maine? Are they near full capacity?

Thanks for your report. 5 ships is quite normal as I am sure you know for Cozumel . I wonder what else is happening here - I am not aware of any major beach club closures. I have always considered Paradise busy but if the are operating at 50% capacity I wouldn’t have thought it should have been a madhouse! I wonder if sargassum on the mainland is creating more land or day visitors. Another thought- I wonder if the storms last year reduced the beach area like at Occidental? I haven’t seen any reviews of that - just a thought.

I was actually surprised to hear it was supposedly mended on last sailing as we were told on repositioning that it probably needed replaced. Since it means you will be able to get free coffee from Promenade now I would have thought you would have been pleased? We have sailed 30-40 days on the ship this year and apart from coffee machine and MTD issues, which seem universal even on some of the newer ships we didn’t have any other problems - well, shore excursions but that’s another matter entirely! What other problems have you had?

You first posted it on Wednesday.

Yes

I am surprised to hear that and wonder if it is a stock answer, a push towards AI, or perhaps short of staff. Are you traveling soon? The port schedule sites are never 100% and I would guess are presently even less accurate than usual so you would need to check several to get an idea of number of ships. I usually use sea scanner because it gives me ships and passenger load (also not currently accurate!). Just google Cozumel port schedules for other options. Do you need the water toys? Otherwise lots of other options if you arrive and find they do happen to be full.

Are you saying the same waiters were serving TD and MTD? We have never experienced that even pre-covid. We did notice that MTD had become increasingly popular and that a greater number of tables had been dedicated to it but even on a mixed floor it seemed to have separate section of the floor allocated on ships we were on. What we have noticed happening more often these days is that although the waiters have a certain number of tables in an effort to keep you with a certain waiter you will be sat in an adjacent area if there is an empty table. This means the wait staff have a larger area to watch and service which doesn’t seem very efficient. Also you end up with the wrong name of the waiter in your table and it would almost be better not to bother with the names.

According to whom? How would you know?

You would need to check your date for Maya Chan as they are closing until some date in October. I have only been to Maya Chan of the two but I understand Jaimie’s has a pool on the roof top.

No problem but it does help with what beach clubs were available. It wouldn’t be Jaimie’s because it isn’t that old. Unfortunately I can’t really help as I mainly sail Royal Caribbean from Galveston and For some reason they took a break from Costa Maya around that time - I visited much earlier (around the time the hurricane wiped out Costa Maya) and more recently (last 5 years). Hopefully someone else visited in that timeframe and can offer some assistance. I vaguely recall a raised platform for massages on the beach side of the road and then a spiral staircase up above the restaurant to a massage area at El Faro, across the road from the beach but I am not sure they had swings. Maybe Pez Quadro at 40 Canones? @crewsweepermay have more local knowledge.

How long ago did you visit? It would help narrow down suggestions.

They have an upstairs massage area?

OK, we didn’t have any problems pre-covid and sailed the week before shutdown.