Cozumel Travel Deals and Vacation Packages

This diving paradise promises to captivate us with the beauty of the undersea.  Travelers should look up some great travel deals and vacation packages that offer some great opportunities of discovering the natural beauty and wealth of the island of Cozumel.

The island of Cozumel is only 12 miles off the Mexican Yucatan Peneinsula’s east coast and 44 miles south of Cancun.  In some distant past, Cozumel was just a quiet sleepy island that didn’t earn a place in the tourist map until Jacques Cousteau did a documentary on it revealing to the world a great scuba diving haven.  Since 1961, Cozumel has been known as one of the best diving sites in the world.  Though majority of tourist preferred Cancun, Cozumel became a regular cruise ship port and today it is one of the busiest with two separate port terminals.

Because of the increased traffic of tourist in transit as a result of the cruise ship boom, the area has seen major development of retail business along the main water front road of Avenida Rafael Melgar in the island’s only toen of San Miguel de Cozumel.  A wide array of jewelry and t-shirt shops greet arriving tourist with staff standing in the entrances enticing visitors to enter their stores.  Silver and liquor can be bought at unbelievably bargain prices.  There are also some nice Mexican crafts shops.  For those who are looking for some wild fun, there are some bars such as Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s.  The town’s main outdoor square, Plaza del Sol, is just opposite the main ferry deck to the mainland.  The Plaza comes alive during the evenings with lots of vendors and artists, and local entertainment.  Here you will be amazed with the artists’ adept hands at spray painting and their works of art are sold at reasonable prices.  San Miguel’s main tourist area can be a very busy street during the days when the cruise ship arrive and their passengers are in town.  This bustling center of tourism are usually turned into a quiet community during the evenings as most ships depart at dinnertime.  Of course, the nights can still be very busy as we still see tourist, scuba divers that is.

The hotels and resorts are usually located the south end of San Miguel and are not within walking distance.  However, moving around would not be a problem are there are a lot of white taxi cabs plying the routes.  In fact the larger, more opulent and luxurious hotels and resort are even found further south along the southwestern shores.  The reason for this is that the more astounding diving sites are found southwest of the island.  Great travel deals and vacation packages for Cozumel would always recommend a visit of the southeastern part of the island. This is where you can find the most spectacular beaches.  Even better is that there is very little traffic here so the beaches are pretty quiet. Sometimes people can park their scooters and enjoy a beach all for themselves. There are a few stops with refreshments and more souvenirs at prices even better than in San Miguel.

Cozumel is a nice port of call for cruise ships as there are many shopping opportunities immediately upon arrival.  Passengers who intend to do some scuba diving and snorkeling are advised to book directly with the many diving shops in San Miguel to get a better rate than going through their cruise ships.  With all this activities, a visit to Cozumel would indeed be one great experience, scuba diver or not.