Iberostar Waves Cozumel - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

8360 reviews

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  Excellent experience at the Iberostar!

  My husband and I came here for the first time this year and can’t wait to come back. The staff were amazing - incredible service from everyone and the entertainment team was the best! The food was great and there were so many options to choose from with different themes at the buffet each night. There were large glass bottles you could fill with bottled water with filling stations close by. Everything was clean and well maintained. The grounds are stunning! I loved the parrots, flamingos, and iguanas. The Coati were also hilarious to watch. My husband went to the fitness centre and was happy with their set up. I went diving with Dressel Divers (dive shop at the resort) and had an incredible experience, especially as I am an inexperienced diver. The nightly entertainment was really enjoyable as well. Make sure you bring reef shoes if you want to snorkel or wade in the ocean as the entrance is pretty rocky. You can go down the beach a bit and have a more sandy entrance. I didn’t snorkel but heard that others really enjoyed it.

  Dec 18, 2024
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  Theft of Cash from Room Safe

  Theft - My roommate and I had over $300 stolen from the room safe. Returned to the room one afternoon with the safe door open and the missing cash. The hotel management performed an “investigation” and reported that the cleaning person had 6 years + of experience with Iberostar and thus is of high integrity. Later in the week, we noticed another room had burglarized in the building next to ours. I spoke with the occupants and the circumstances were identical - they returned to their room and the safe was open and missing cash. The management offered us a discount on another stay in the future but we declined. After doing some research on other reviews, this incident is similar to others posted. In hindsight, we should have looked at reviews before going so that

  Dec 17, 2024
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  Excellent family holiday

  Our 2 week family holiday in December 2024 at Iberostar Cozumel was excellent and I highly recommend this hotel. Hotel: The hotel landscaping and design is well thought out which was one of the main reasons we picked this hotel as it feels like you are in nature when walking around, especially with the flamingos, peacocks, parrots, coatis, racoons, iguanas and armadillos which we saw around the hotel grounds. The whole hotel had Christmas decorations around it which were very nice, and The rooms were spacious enough for the 3 of us (2 adults + baby in cot) with daily housekeeping which you can check the status of on the Iberostar app. Entertainment: There are activities going on all-day everyday (which you can keep track of on the app too) from daily rifle shooting and archery to a giant ninja worrier inflatable pool game! All the entertainment staff are very friendly, but especially Gerado who welcomed us on our first day and made sure to stop and chat everytime he saw, calling us by our names, and made sure we were having fun! Our favourite evening entertainment was the Fire Show which took place on the beach, and the magic show which was very impressive! Food: Breakfast buffet options were plentiful including cooked breakfast, toast, pancakes, local options, fruit, yogurts and doughnuts. The lunch buffet was generally OK but quite repetitive with meats, pasta, pizzas and salads at the sit-down restaurant, and chips, burgers and hot dogs at the beach snack bar, bur they wre often sat our too long under the heatlamp that the buns were too hard sadly. The buffet dinner was good with lots of options for all tastes. The theme changed daily during the week which included Mexican, American, Asian, Italian and Spanish. The dessert options were some of the best I have had at an AI hotel. The Mexican à la carte restaurant was good and we dined here twice during our stay, although we don't like spicy food so our favourite was the quesadilla dish and kids golden crispy chicken tacos! We went to the smoke house three times during our time here which served 'family style' plates especially liked the sweetcorn soup, creamed corn, empinadas and beef brisket (we tried the vegan plate one night which was good but not as nice as the meat version!). Only issue with this restaurant was the wait time as it took around 45 mins to receive our mains 2/3 times we went. Lastly is the Pagoda Asian restaurant which was our favourite. The buffet starters included fresh sushi (fish or vege), tempura vegetables, spring rolls which were all very tasty. For mains I recommend the salmon and/or satay chicken which were both delicious and one of our favourite meals here! Drinks: The main bar we used was the pool one which made great milkshakes. We don't drink much alcohol, but they had all the multiple premium branded versions of all spirits available at every bar and served strong drinks. We also liked the American style coffee with creamer at breakfast which they refill regularly! Scuba Diving: I completed my open water scuba qualification with the on-site dive centre, Dressel Divers, which was very convenient with the dive sites very close by to the hotel and had super friendly staff who accommodated the course to fit around the holiday. On my 4 x ocean dives I spotted three sea turtles, a sting ray, eagle rays, pufferfish, barracudas and loads of other colourful fish. Minor issues: On the first couple of days there were big groups around the pool who had their own speakers blasting out music which was annoying especially as there was also music playing on the hotel's speakers and nobody asked them to stop. We moved to the sunbeds around the kids pool after this and never experienced this again. Another minor issue was that we had US$5 go missing from a drawer in our room. We never reported it to the hotel as it was a small amount, but just be mindful to keep valuables and cash in the safe.

  Dec 16, 2024
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  Fantastic Resort - A Few Things to be Aware of...

  Our family of five recently stayed at Waves resort. Overall, this resort is fantastic. Here are some of the big pros. 1) The staff is FRIENDLY, HELPFUL, and PROFESSIONAL. This point cannot be overstated. Alexia and Michelle (kitchen staff) were extremely attentive to our special dietary needs. 2) The on-site snorkeling and scuba diving is convenient and again, the staff is professional and knowledgeable. The reef sites are incredible and exploring them was the highlight of our trip. 3) The pool, the beach, the rooms, and the other resort buildings are clean and tidy. Some things to be aware of: 1) We booked ocean front rooms without knowing that our rooms would be adjacent to the dive shop, which is LOUD starting in the early morning hours and going until the evening. Just tons of people milling about and tanks being moved, etc. Thankfully, we had earplugs because rest was on our "to do" list. For the extra cost of ocean-front, be aware of your room location ahead of time. 2) The rooms smelled a little mildewy - not too bad but it's definitely something they could improve upon. 3) Absolutely the WORST part of this vacation was being on the beach when some strangers appeared (from outside of the resort) with a huge SNAKE, a baby monkey, and some sort of lemur. The animals looked petrified and these folks were charging money for photos with the animals. It was disturbing, especially the baby monkey (clearly should still be with its mother). I think the hotel should absolutely prohibit this kind of thing and have more security watching out for them on the beach. Overall, I would gladly stay at Waves again!

  Dec 16, 2024
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  Fun

  Pros: - Food was delicious for Carribean. It lives up to the four star Carribean standard. If you are expecting North American four star you will be dissappointed. Mexican food was great. The American BBQ and oriental were dissappointing. - Daytime enterainment was amazing. Monzy and Jerry were great with trivia, archery, shooting and ninja maze course. - Rooms were clean and the issue we had with the safe batteries was delt with fast. - Nice snorkling right off the beach. Neutral: - The beach is all coral so you cannot walk in without water shoes. Nothing the resort can do about it as it is a protected reef. Cons: - The night time enterainment was lame. There was a spectactular fire show on the beach one night. All the other nights shows sucked. The resort needs to step up night time shows. - The artifical beach lacked sand, we occassional stubbed toes on rocks. More sand is needed.

  Dec 14, 2024