2017 Cancun -- Pt 2

Our trip to Mexico could easily by described as a two part trip.  The first half we spent at Le Reve Spa and Resort.  The second half of the trip was spent on the Island of  Cozumel.  What a beautiful island.  You can get to the island two ways.  Either by ferry or airplane.  Taking the ferry cost Heather and I $8.00 one way.  That is dirt cheap if you ask me.

We needed to check out of Le Reve at noon.  Yet we couldn't really check into our next hotel until 3:30 or so.  It seems like we have often shown up at these kinds of places and they don't have our room ready.  Therefore, we arranged to leave our bags at the front desk at noon and go hang out and have lunch.

We kept our swimsuits on and put a change of clothing in our beach bag so that we'd be able to change into real clothes when we were ready to really leave the resort.  It was nice that they allowed us to hang around and eat their food and drink their drinks before leaving the resort.

We caught a taxi to the ferry for $17.  It seemed like a very fair fare. :-)  On the way to the ferry, we talked to the taxi driver and he pointed out where the new Pixar oriented Disney Land was going to be built.  Man, it was a HUGE tract of land.  It was all of the land between the highway and the beach.  I guess that it is going to be a 800 million dollar project.

After talking with the taxi driver for a while, he asked how we were getting from the ferry (four days later) to the airport.  We told him that we hadn't arranged anything yet, but that we were actually going from the ferry to the Courtyard Marriott near the airport.  He made us a deal and told us that he'd wait for us if we wanted and that he would take us to the Marriott.

Maybe we could have done the trip for cheaper, but it seemed like a good deal.  It ended up costing us $60 to get from the Ferry in Playa Del Carmen to the Airport Marriott.  One of the nice things about arranging that ahead of time, is that we didn't have to worry about that transfer anymore.

Our ferry trip to Cozumel was rough!  Heather and I both started feeling a little sick to our stomachs.  And a couple of girls that were sitting ahead of us, had to go to the front desk and get some barf-bags.  I don't know if they ever used them, but they got up and got them so that they were ready.  It was a quiet and subdued group of passengers onboard that ferry.  Everyone, I'm sure was feeling a little bit of sea sickness. 

When we got to the island, we collected our baggage on dock decided to walk around a little bit because we were still a little woozy.  In fact, it took a good hour or so before I started feeling better.

The hotel that we checked into was called the Casa Del Mar and Dive Resort.  It is an older hotel right on the beach.  It has a little walk-way bridge that goes from the hotel on one side of the highway over to the beach on the other side.

Casa Del Mar Hotel and Dive Resort is a fun place to stay.  We kind of got lucky.  The room was only $60 a night.  At that price we have found that it is really important to read previous guest's reviews of the facility.  

Pool with the restaurant in the back

It seems like there are always people who complain about anything.  So, I force myself to read between the lines.  I never take reviews at face value.  Some people are really, really frustrated and say anything that they can to give a hotel a bad rep.  Others are too flowery with their praise.  Heather and I aren't too picky.  We can normally live with some minor things like a room or furniture being dated.  Heck, that is just part of the experience of staying at a cheap place in Mexico.

What is important to us, is the cleanliness of the room.  Are the sheets clean.  Does the room stink.  Does the air conditioner work.  Things like that.  What doesn't deter us loud colors or old tiles on the wall, some wear spots on the wood dresser, or WiFi not working in the rooms.  Sure it was inconvenient to not be able to use the WiFi in the room like we had planned.  But, the WiFi worked well out at the pool, in the lobby and in the restaurant.

We really liked the restaurant there at the hotel.  It was good solid Mexican fare.  We tried walking to other places and eating elsewhere, but the food was better priced there at the hotel.  So, we ended up just eating there often.

Steak Tampequeno at the onsite restaurant

Casa Del Mar is an older established hotel. It was built before many of the big expensive hotels were built.  But, because of that, it has the prime location for Scuba Diving.  Right in front of the hotel is the place where snorkeling tours drop off their guests.  Boat after boat would show up right in front of our hotel and drop off 20 or so snorkelers.  The boats would drop them off and then let the natural ocean current carry their charges northward along the shoreline.

So, that is what Heather and I did.  We swam out there to where the boats were letting their snorkelers off and floated along with them.  Out there somewhere is supposed to be a statue of Jacques Cousteau.  That TV host from the 70's who hosted a weekly dive and snorkel show on Sunday nights.  He is famous for putting Cozumel on the map, so to speak.

Heather and I tried to find the underwater statue a couple of times but never did find it.  We kind of got nervous about swimming too far out and looking. I think that had I been with a stronger swimmer, I might have tried with more diligence to find it.  But, although Heather does pretty dang well in sea water, she still gets a little nervous when the water gets deep.

The hotel also owns a beach resort Nachi Cocom http://www.cozumelnachicocom.com/, farther on down the coast.  Right at the hotel, there isn't really a beach, but farther down the coast, there are miles of deep white sand.  So, we went and spent a day at Nachi Cocom, their beach resort.  The food was fairly priced.  All told, after eating a large lunch and having several drinks over the course of the afternoon  we only spent $31.  Since we were guests at the hotel, we got 20% off the food and could go to Nachi Cocom for free.  It was really nice.  

They sell an all inclusive package to cruisers from the cruise ships for $55 a person.  That is only $110 for a couple which includes an all day excursion to a nice beach resort which seems like a pretty good deal.  But heck, as hotel guests, we got a screaming deal paying out only $31 for both of us.