Was able to book the Grand Mayan through RCI as a trade. We were three women and we had a great time. The Cancun airport is completely renovated since last year and it was very easy to navigate. The hotel picked us up no charge, as prearranged. They don't have all inclusive here as in most time shares, but since we each brought half a suitcase full of food items, it was less then $4OO. each for the week. We were able to establish seperate bills and we basically just paid for dinner and some drinks. The hotel was only at 25% capacity so there was no problem reserving a palapa or getting a chair in the shade on the beach or reservations for dinner. As others have said the beach is lovely, but after 2 feet into the water the coral and rock are sharp and irregular. We brought water shoes, but it was still hard to get in the water. We ended up sitting in plastic chairs where the water laps onto the sand. this worked well to cool off. The ocean was about 80 so you could sit there all day. The pool was about 90, not refreshing at all. I wore 50 sunscreen and mostly sat in the shade and got pretty brown. My friend got a bad burn. It was blazing hot since it was August and that's probably why it was so slow. There was service on the beach and we could order drinks, lunch and buckets of ice.
The rooms were the best I've ever seen and I travel a lot. We had a two bedroom each with jacuzzi and sitting area. We shared a living room and fully functioning kitchen. The bathrooms were all marble and scrupulously clean. The kitchen had a toaster and blender and plenty of plates, glasses etc. the terrace had a small cool pool. As a free trade, this couldn't be beat. As long as you get in buildings 1-7 it's only a 5-10 minute walk to the pool/beach. After those buildings you would need a shuttle. Even though we had asked and they were pretty empty they had us set for building 13. We explained that I don't walk well and we were changed to building 5. The check in people weren't particulary nice. We were given our room number 3____, and assumed it was in building 3. We wandered around for a while before we realized the room numbers don't match the buildings. She could have told us this. We weren't harrassed to attend a time share once the time share people heard that we were traveling without our husbands. they approach you right after you check in.
We never left the resort, figuring we would rather spend the taxi/rental car money within the resort. We found the prices very reasonable.
Drinks
At happy hour if you order a $3.50 beer, they bring you two of them,so we order a bunch and they were brought in a tub of ice, which they were glad to refresh as needed. Mixed drinks like Pina Colada were about $7.00, but again from 11-1 happy hour they would bring 2 for the price of 1.
Food
Lunch was usually about $8. for a sandwich to $10 for a burger and fries or ceviche. A medium pizza enough for 2 was $12. Del Lago has the breakfast buffet for $23 pp. from 7-noon. Really a brunch. We never went as we were happy with the toasted bagels we brought. Breakfast was also served as Havana Blue for about $7 an entree (omelette,hash browns,bacon,toast etc) The del Lago buffet has a different dinner theme each night. Sat. was oriental, Sunday was Italian and Thursday was Mexican and friday was steak and shrimp. We only ate there once as it was hot (no airconditioning) and buggy. We only at dinner once at Havana Blue. Although others on this internet said how good Havana blue was, I have to disagree. Between us we tried a numbern of entrees and appetizers. In general the fish was overcooked, also the place is hot and buggy. Again no airconditioning and it is open to outside. We ended up eating a few times at Tramonte. Why anyone would eat anywhere else is beyond my understanding. Tramonte is airconditioned. No bugs, with excellent service and ambience. it felt like a NY club. The food was excellent and cooked to order. They had many of the same items as room service and Havanna Blue but much more creative, more flexible in preperation, AND THE SAME PRICE! Appetizers were about $12 and they had shrimp and salad, or eggplant etc. Dinner ranged from $10 for a pasta dish to $15 for lasagnia or $25 for fish/shrimp. The best we had were about $19 for braised short ribs or veal ossobucco. the only disappointment was the sea bass. The fish was prepared with a grapefruit/olive topping which was ill conceived. I should have asked for it with a pesto topping or just plain. All the entrees come with free side dishes such as risotto, black spaghetti, carrot mashed potatoes, etc. If we were to come back, we would just eat here every night and go down the menu.
We ordered a taxi the night before we left and it came to our buidling on schedule and charged us $30 for the return trip to the airport. We were able to check out and review our bill the night before or that morning right in our building. Indeed as others have said I had to have them credit us for the palapa or the charge would have remained. Everything else was correct as we had saved all our receipts.
I hope all this info helps.

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.