We just got back from the Grand Mayan last night and had a good time. The resort is HUGE as many have said. If your looking for a hotel where you are able to take an elevator down to the lobby and walk out to the pool, this is not the place. The rooms are about 15 minutes away. Literally. The resort has golf cart looking shuttles which come by every 15 minutes in order to take you to the pools and restaurants. If you choose to walk it is a 20-25 minute walk to the pool. The evenings are worse when it comes to the shuttles. One night, there were 32 people, (I counted) waiting for the shuttle to pick us up. They seat about 10 people. One shuttle goes to the Grand Mayan and the other goes to the Mayan Palace. We had to wait another 15 minutes for the next shuttle. They really need to improve this and have more shuttles available. The pools are nice and there are the the little hut/cabanas you can reserve in the morning about 6:30am, in order to get one. They cost 300 pesos to reserve, which you get credited towards food purchases while at the pool that day. (make sure you check your bill at check out, because the credit was not on there, nor on our friends bill). The food was really good. I liked the Havana Moon and the Del Lago. The Tramonto was really good, very nice ambience as well. You do have to make reservations for this restaurant. The drinks at the resort were good as well. The rooms were large and very well kept. One of the nicest I've seen. We had a two bedroom. Each had its one jacuzzi tub, and balcony. We had a little pool, outside on the balcony, which was quite nice.

The kitchen was granite and stainless steel and had everything you need. There is a $45 fee upon check out, if dishes are not washed and cleaned. The walls are paper thin!! I could hear my mom next door, wash dishes and drop a spoon on the counter!! I'm not kidding. One night, a couple of girls got locked out of their room, and were knocking to get in. The entire floor heard them talking and trying to get into their room. You can hear the phone ring in the room next to you and across the hallway! You can also hear the lawnmowers going at 9:00am! We did have housekeeping everyday, and they did a great job. The beach is not nice at all at this resort. It has plenty of rocks and is full of coral. I was able to watch my son walk on water about 50 feet into the water. You absolutely need water shoes. Watching everyone with bare feet coming out of the water like they were walking on egg shells was not a pretty site. If you wanted to find a nice beach, you had to walk about 20 minutes to the left of the resort. We passed people on the beach, who said "if you want the nice beach, it's up there, about 15 minutes more". We had already been walking 10. If you go in search of the nice beach, you will enter a different resort and they'll know you don't belong there because of the color bracelet you get upon check in. If you want the crystal blue sea beaches you see on postcards, don't come here. You will truly be disappointed. The staff is nice, some, those at the front desk, ehh. The time share presentation does not take 90 minutes, but more like 3 hours. Be prepared. The resort was nice, but I would not come back. You will get much more out of this trip by either staying in Cancun or Playa del Carmen. This resort is in the middle of these two, and you need a taxi to get around. Nothing is nearby. Truly disappointing. One more thing. Make sure you get an itemized bill upon check out. They really get you with their exchange rate, When they say it's $100 US dollars for something, it really isn't. We were charged about $100US dollars more, due to the way "they" do their exchange rate. They end up charging you more than what they say.

Hear all kinds of great things about this resort and Traded our FIESTA AMERICANA points for a 2 bed room, but 2 main things are VERY disturbing: 1). the units are nice but they are in buildings that are a 20 minute walk to the beach; views are of the vegitation, jungle and are pretty much a disapointment. I really enjoy staying in the Caymans, Cabo or cancun when you are withing a 2-3 min walk or can see the beach and ocean from your room. 2). since you are 20-25 minutes away from the beach/pool and the main area of the resort they have these GOLF CARTS on steroids, that seat 10-12 people, BUT they only run about every 20 minutes or so and half the time they get to your building and they are full so you might as well start walking....ALSO the beach is pretty rocky and you can't really swim in the ocean without those rubber shoes on.....

There are good things: Restaurants are pretty good, except the one by the golf course has so may bugs that they PASS out bug spray while you are ordering your meal....lol

the staff is helpful, courteous, and the Pool is very large...ALMOST too large....it definately is the MAIN attraction if you are a pool person....

Would not go back there...THE place is just TOO big, and you don't really feel like you are getting way....

Without a doubt, Grand Mayan is one of the nicest resort we ever stayed in during our travel. The rooms are spacious and the service was excellent. We even like the food. However, we make the mistake of going to time share presentation on the first day, and we really regret it. When they found out we were not willing to shell out $150K for a time share, the sales person became really rude to me and my husband.

Our room is also really far away from the ocean/pool area so we have to walk about 15 minutes to get to them. As result we didn't use them as frequently as we would have like it.

We do have a private personal pool at our balcony that I absolutely love it. Although it is not heated, but it was really nice and I spent a lot of time in it.

you must know some things before you book here.

I, along with my mother, my sister-in-law, my two daughters (17 & 18) and their friend, recently returned from a stay at The Grand Mayan 8/3 - 8/10. The weather was perfect....no rain and just a bit on the warm side. We rented a two-bedroom suite from an owner through EBay. Transaction was great and the resort treated us like owners.

Just as everyone has already posted, this resort is huge. Because we travelled with a senior citizen who recently underwent heart surgery, we thankfully were put in Building 3. I honestly cannot imagine staying in any building greater than 7. Bldg 1 was the closest to the pools. The higher the building number, the further away it was. I walked from the temporary lobby one afternoon and it took me 25 minutes to get to the main pool. A tip: if you have to walk from a far away building, walk THROUGH the buildings on your way to the pool. The bottom floors are all open (no doors), and with the maids cleaning the rooms, the airconditioning spilled out into the walkways and kept it pretty cool. Even the 5-10 minute walk we had from 3, we still cut through building 1 & 2 to get relief from the sun.

The decor and up keep of this property is amazing. Everything seems new even though it is the oldest of the Grupo properties (what we were told anyway). The beds are very firm and by the end of the week, my back was killing me. My neck also hurt from the hard pillows. I would seriously consider packing your own pillow if you are used to something soft!!! By the last few nights, I slept on the sofa bed which was a bit softer!

We did not rent a car although we had planned to a couple of the days. After seeing how the locals drove, we decided against it. Since we didn't have a car, I felt very isolated in the Riviera Maya area. We took the shuttle to Playa, took a Collectivo to Cancun, and even caught a ride to Cancun from a guy in a van who stopped to pick us up on the highway. Even so, it is not the same as having your own wheels and going where you want and when you want. Taking the Collectivo to Cancun was a breeze, just take a shuttle to the main gate, walk a few feet to the highway and wait for it to come by. Be prepared to have the locals honk and flash their headlights at you! Be aware though that the Collectivo takes you DOWNTOWN and then you have to catch a bus to the Hotel Zone. This was an experience in itself trying to communicate with the non-english speaking bus driver. He eventually dropped us off at an information booth who told us to take bus R-1 to the Hotel Zone. I think the Collectivo ride to downtown was $2.50 and the bus to HZ was .60 USD. I would recommend this and save your money for the more expensive taxi ride home. One time a taxi charged us $100 to take 6 back and another time they charged us $45. THe more expensive one was at 1 am whereas the $45 ride was at about 4:30 pm.

We enjoyed Play del Carmen and it cost $3.50 to take the hotel shuttle there. The shuttle drops you off at the Walmart or at 5th Avenue and then returns to get you. The only thing is, the latest shuttle leaving Play was 8 pm, so we ended up taking a taxi back. We loaded up on groceries and supplies at the Mega since some of the posts said the Walmart was awful. We didn't think so and preferred the Walmart since the shuttle takes you there and picks you up. The Mega is 3-4 blocks further, you have to walk from Walmart there and then we took a taxi home so we didn't have to lug everything back to our shuttle at Walmart.

We had planned to go to Cozumel, but decided against it....again because we didn't know what we'd do once we got there....we'd have to taxi around...and with 6, it gets to be a pain. We did do the snorkeling tour offered at the GM which was the best value of our trip! $46 pp got you 2 hours of snorkeling and over an hour at a beautiful beach. A boat takes about 25 people out to a reef where you snorkel. You then move to another reef, snorkel, then head to the beach. It was well worth the money.

My two teenagers and I parasailed, again with the GM people. I believe the price was $65 pp....not so sure it was worth it....maybe I'm just not a big parasailing person.

The beach is awful because of the rocks and we never did anything there...other than parasailing and leaving on our snorkeling tour. I was very disappointed in this beacause 7 days at the pool was a little much. The pools are great, don't get me wrong. They are some of the nicest I've seen. They just get old after 7 days. Having a nice beach would have been a welcome option. Even walking on the rocks to get into the boat to go snorkeling was a huge challenge. I'm usually not a beach person, but seeing that beautiful, blue water and not being able to go into it was very disappointing.

Another disappointment was not having Wi-Fi in the rooms. In order to access email or the web, you had to go to the Cyber Cafe and pay $7/hr to use one of their PCs or your own laptop. With even the lowliest of hotels offering free Wi-Fi these days, it was a huge disappointment to not be able to have access as I pleased. It was a pain to go to the cafe, and then I was always in a hurry as the minutes went by fast!

I would recommend eating at least once at Tramonto. It was awesome! Stay away from the Havana Moon....the food was mediocre and the service was lousy....very slow considering we were in the place by ourselves. I guess that should have been a red flag right there. We didn't do any of the buffets. The pizza poolside was great as were the nachos, burgers and sandwiches. The drinks were good too...be sure to try a Picasso if you like sweet drinks. I preferred it without alcohol and it is a great option for kids!

If you asked me if I enjoyed my stay at the GM, the answer is yes. Would I go there again, most definitely not. Having stayed here, I now know that I prefer staying at smaller resorts where the lobby is close by and I can get to the restaurants, pools and beaches quickly. If I went back to the Cancun area, I would definitely stay in the Cancun Hotel Zone or in Playa del Carmen where we could quickly hop on a bus to access shopping, eating, nightlife and have a variety of other things to do. I didn't like the isolated feeling I had staying in the Riviera Mayan area.