Review of El Cozumeleño Beach Resort 3*

Upon checking in to the room, the odor of mold was thick enough to chew on. Husband went to the bathroom and saw that the floor was wet, and that there was black mold all over the corners of the walls. The bed was so damp, I wouldn't sit on it. A lamp over the table was covered in mold and rust. I called front desk and was told to call back in ten minutes. I did call back ten minutes later and the gentleman I spoke to, said his "boss is busy right now. " He told me he would have a manager call me back in 10-15 minutes. A half hour went by and no call, so I called again. The same person told me to wait and then he set the phone down for roughly ten minutes, while I listened to bustling noises and finally hung up and re-dialed. By this time, I was annoyed to the point of demanding that a manager come to our room immediately. About 20 minutes later, two men came to our room. We explained to them that we wanted a new room and they moved us down the hall right away. The new room was cleaner, but still very damp. Two of the five days we stayed there, there was no hot water for showering. One day, during my shower, the water simply shut off. I had to wait a half hour with soap in my hair for the water to come back on, making us late for our excursion. Every morning, there were loud slamming noises coming from the hallway. So loud, it sounded like a gun was going off right outside our door. Great way to wake up at 7AM. Some people like to sleep in a little on vacation. At the bar, we quickly learned that the brand name labels of alcohol were filled with rail. When I asked for an "Absolut vodka and soda water", (the only vodka I drink), I saw him pour from an Absolut bottle, but the drink was awful. So bad, I could not drink it. After speaking with other guests, we learned that they saw a bartender filling an absolut bottle with liquor from a bottle with no label on it. That's an awful practice for a tropical resort to have. That's lying and deceiving paying customers. When we went into town to Fat Tuesdays, we finally got to drink a little and have some fun because they actually had real liquor. Which made us wonder why we were paying for "all-inclusive" alcohol, when all we could drink at the resort was beer? And we're not even beer-drinkers! At breakfast, I wanted an omelet. I let the cook know that I'm allergic to onions, but when I bit into my omelet, there were onions in it. Luckily I did not swallow it, but I did feel sick all day long. Food was basically re-heated leftovers that sit out on the buffet all day long. Grey looking hotdogs, burnt burgers and chips and cheese. The "fancy" restaurant was nice, but you have to go down and make reservations by 8:15AM in order to have dinner there. We paid a lot of money to stay at this resort, and we will never come back, which is very sad because that was our 2nd trip to Cozumel this year and we were hoping to have a positive all-inclusive experience at El Cozumeleno. Save time and money and stay somewhere else. We've stayed at Riu over and over and now we know why. Never stray from a good thing, just to save a couple bucks.