Submission date: 2007-01-18 - Date of Stay: January 2007
Submitted by: A Travel Library User - From: United States
Type of Traveller: Young Couple - Age Group: 31 - 40
El Sewage
I wish we could give zero or negative stars...
We too were suckered by a friendly airport operative into "getting shown some property" in exchange for various tickets and a cheap car rental (these turned out to be far less than met the eye). The whole experience left us in disbelief:
- the "property tour" of the El Cid consisted of a 2+ hour (would've been longer if we hadn't insisted on cutting it short), hard sell onslaught. It started with gross breakfast where the agent ate with us & pretended to make friendly small talk for 1/2 hour before getting to the sales pitch (to get it going my wife finally had to ask what we were doing here).
- the fast-talking spiel consisted of an endless stream of jargon ("gold Crown resort", "point system", "vacation club", etc)...it wasn't a “timeshare” but something oh so much better!!! What it boiled down to is that you could pay $200-300/month (+ 500-1000 year maintenance) for a studio or 1 bedroom (more for larger rooms). To earn po...Read more
Submission date: 2005-08-12 - Date of Stay: August 2005
Submitted by: Loren Freeman - From: United States
Type of Traveller: Young Couple - Age Group: 26 - 30
Stay AWAY
Stay at El Cid at your own risk!!! I had such high hopes for this vacation. My girlfriend and I were really looking forward to it but it was a true disaster in all respects. We were led to our room by a bellhop who practically ran down the halls with our luggage. We chased after him so we could get in the elevator before the doors closed. Our room smelled of mildew and mold. We complained at the desk and they moved us into another room. The second room was better. However, it did have cockroches in one of the bathrooms and the other bathroom leaked on our heads from toilet water in the above unit. We told them about the bugs and the manager asked me why I didn't like cockroaches. I think he was joking but it was hard to tell. The staff sprayed but never cleaned up the corpses. They remained the ENTIRE vacation even after we informed the manager that they were in the bathroom. The air conditioning unit in the hotel blows directly on your face when you sleep. The TV gets ve...Read more
Submission date: 2005-05-17 - Date of Stay: October 2002
Submitted by: Mary - From: United States
Type of Traveller: Adventurer - Age Group: 31 - 40
La Ceiba...little gem by the sea
I have stayed at the La Ceiba twice now. They have a dive shop right next door to either shore dive down to the plane wreck or boat dive. VERY convenient. Get a room on the first floor facing the ocean. Just walk right out your door and into a hammock. Very nice for the price. Close to Chakanab and downtown. Very nice staff, pleasant decor, great breakfasts and nice rooms. One downside is the ship liners dock close to the hotel, but not very distracting.
My husband and I just came back from a week at El Cid La Ceiba. We found it to be very relaxing and the staff very accommodating. The suite was kept extremely clean by the maid service. The resort itself did lack activities it seemed but, our focus was to relax and enjoy the weather so it was perfect for us. We've stayed at several resorts and although this was not our favorite place as far as accommodations, activities etc, it was what we were looking for. The only disappointment was that the "beach" consisted of about 20 feet. The resort had a stone barrier which incompassed the rest of the resort. On further exploration of Cozumel, we discovered we were not alone. There's not alot of beach to be had on the west side of the island. The east side however was all beach although no facilities. Bottom line, we had a great time and would go back sometime in the future..
This is not gold crown. It is a 2 star hotel that El Cid took over. You could stay in a $25/night place and get the same thing. You're lucky if you get the room you reserved. Most everything didn't work in the room. We had to call maintenance daily. The beds are hard. To close doors, you have to slam them and the walls are thin. You won't get a good night's sleep. The service is horrible. The concierge is part of the timeshare scheme. They take a 20% service charge. You can get stuff cheaper if you go directly to the site. They mark everything up 50% then tell you that you get a 50% discount if you go to a talk. I definitely plan to go back to cozumel but I will not stay at La Ceiba again. Do yourself a favor, find a better place to stay.
