Cozumel Resort Food: Palancar Beach Club

There are a lot of people selling tours to the Mayan ruins or other beach towns like Tulum or Isla de Mujeres, but one particularly easy day trip is the island of Cozumel, which is just a 30 minute ferry ride away from the center of Playa de Carmen. Not up for a big expedition, we decided to go to the island, rent a scooter, and drive around for a day. Easy snack.

While attempting to stand in line for the ferry ticket at the official booth some guy approached us to tell us we should instead buy the ticket from him, and he could also sell us scooter rentals. I'm somewhat incredulous of a lot of the people that randomly come up to us trying to sell stuff, but for some reason we trust him and pay 500 pesos each for return ferry tickets and 700 pesos for a scooter rental. It actually all worked out great and, we thought, ended up being a pretty good deal. The company we rented from is called Golondrinas, and I would recommend them.

Waiting for the ferry was a long affair. We just missed one so we had to chill at the ferry terminal for about an hour and a half. Luckily, there was a small stand inside that sold coffee and pastries, and I got a coffee for 25 pesos.

The ride over to Cozumel was nice and getting the scooter was no problem. Sev drove and we went counter clockwise around the island, hitting the private resort areas first. Golondrinas recommended Playa Palancar Beach Club so we went there for lunch, as a lot of these resorts seemed closed off to people who were not staying there.

Surprisingly Palancar beach club wasn't extremely expensive—Sev and I each got enchiladas (beef for him, chicken for me) and a drink (Coca-Cola for him, water for me) for about $10 each. They were perfectly average but they did come with this really nice green picante sauce which was a bit too much for Sev but perfect for me.

In terms of ambiance, the main eating area was playing music too loudly to be enjoyable, and other guests had adopted a bad habit of leaving all of their stuff at the beach tables while they went to go swim. Fortunately there was another, separate, small pavillion to eat, but someone put decorative fishing nets over the side so that the view of the beach was partially obscured. For the average food and loud music, I remove a snack, but I am appreciative that the food was reasonably priced and we were allowed there at all, given the exclusiveness of other nearby resorts.

After the meal we walked around the beach a bit and it was quite pretty, nicer than the beaches at Playa del Carmen because it was not covered in seaweed and the water was very clear. We left satiated and ready to continue our ride around the island.