El Cielo reef is only accesible by boat. You can book a private boat if you don’t want to Snorkel and just want to be at Cielo. We book through Cozumel tours and Excursions, they have private little boats at reasonable prices and excellent service.

We were down there End of August 2019. Can't answer for between then and now.

It is my understanding the goverment has closed off this area to give the reefs a break until early 2020. You would need to take car or bus to Playa Del Carmen, then ferry over to Cozumel. Then taxi to a tour operator that goes there.

Despues del cielo esta. Columbia, Palancar y paraiso. Saludos.

The names are for beaches and the reef is in front of the beach. The three most popular reefs are Cielo, Palancar, and Columbia, there is a beach named the same way & that beach is in front of the reef, though it may not be easy to swim to the reef from the beach! You can take a boat trip from the ferry port for this, but it is a long boat ride. Our guide took us by car (with a cruise ship, you'd use a taxi, it's probably a 10 minute ride) to this stretch of beach in Cozumel which is lined with 'beach clubs' where you have bathrooms, restaurant/bar, nice beach with chairs, and boat trips out to the reef. We went to Palancar Beach Club and it was very nice, the Palancar Reef is in front and we took a snorkel tour with them to El Cielo and Columbia. Palancar was in front of the beach here, but we didn't swim out to it and I couldn't tell you how easy that is to do as we didn't even think about it?! But the snorkeling is definitely worth the trip!!!