El Cid La Ceiba Beach i Cozumel

People at the front desk were so kind!! I didn't know Spanish at all, but they helped me a lot. Breakfast and dinner were very tasty. You can see one animal per day made from towels. Everyday I enjoyed them a lot.

We were here for a week about 3 years ago; then this stay for 3 nights. It was clean but there are a few annoyances. Like the safe didn't even have the lock and the ceiling fan had clicking noise. People were nice.

This is a nice hotel; the staff was super nice, and I enjoyed our ocean-view room. The restaurant is especially nice, and I *loved* the breakfast in the morning. There is a lady that made homemade quesadillas to order, and they had fresh-squeezed juices. This hotel is a little further away from the downtown area of Cozumel; we decided to take taxi cabs to get downtown, since it was about a 20 minute walk.

The hotel was a little more run down than I thought from the pictures. The room was a bit dark, the bed was a murphy fold out bed, the AC unit was old and loud, and the ceiling was quite low. Also, the room was a bit damp, and had a slight smell of mold. Moreover, the staff was overworked and therefore inattentive. They forgot to give me a towel card, the restaurant wouldn't bill my room because they forgot to take my credit card info at checkin, and the waiters would forget about my order and let me wait for 20 min before remembering it. The restaurant food was not very tasty, and a bit overpriced. I got a beer for happy hour and it was 2 beers for the price of one; the waiter gave them both to me at the same time, but being a solo traveler, my second beer was warm from the sun by the time i got to it. These kinds of things made me feel uncomfortable at a resort where it's supposed to be all about comfort. And at night, there was a wedding party until late at night, right under my window. Bad parts aside though, the room had a great big bathtub which was lovely for soaking in, a great view of the sea and the cruise ships (from the balcony), and the room itself was generally clean. The pool was beautiful, and has a jacuzzi section by the bar. Also, there's a sandy beach for the hotel with long chairs. There's no sand in the water (it's rocky and it starts off 6 foot deep, like in a port), but that's also nice for snorkeling, which you can do there.

I was very disappointed in the El Cid Hotel. Before you can even register for your room you have to hear the timeshare pitch, even after we told the person we were in no way interested. We had booked an ocean view deluxe room and it was supposed to include meals and drinks. Once we turned down the timeshare pitch we were placed in a room with no view except the back of the restaurant and suddenly we had to pay for all of our drinks, including water. We would not recommend this facility to anyone who simply wants to get away and relax. It is adjacent to the docks of the cruise ships and El Cid is one of the on shore excursions so six days a week the beach is overcrowded from breakfast until late afternoon. If you are looking for a basic place to stay with pool, beach and great atmosphere the Blue Angel Resort would be our pick.