We traded for a two bedroom Grand Master Suite at the Grand Mayan and stayed 4/11 to 4/19/08. We stayed in building 12 which was about a 10 minute walk to the pool. This didn't bother us all that much because we really only spent two days at the resort because we had a car and wanted to see as much as we could. We only had two meals at the resort and went several nights to Puerto Morelos and Playa Del Carmen for Dinner.

The rooms are very well appointed and the resort is beautiful, but I can understand the negative comments from the "stick to the resort" types who want easy access to the pool and a swimable beach. We are two active couples who wanted to see the sights, so the resort suited us nicely. The best building for us would have been building #8 which is adjacent to the parking lot. For those who want to be at the pool, request buildings 1-3. For those who want it a little quieter and have a relatively short walk, buildings 4-7 will suit you. If you plan to rent a car (which I highly recommend) buildings 8-13 will be ok, but you will have a decent walk to the main pools and restaurants. There are shuttles, but who wants to stand around and wait for a shuttle when you could have gotten where you wanted to go in the same time and get some exercise in the process. This is not a resort for the elderly or infirmed.

As for the beach, it is great for sunning, but not swimming. My friend cut up his foot on the first night just wading in. If you want to swim at the beach, find another resort. If you are a pool person, this place will be great, but with 2000 others looking for shady spots, get out early and plant your towel stake.

I found the food prices to be relatively in line with restaurant prices where I live (New York). The drink prices were actually pretty good (any where from $6.50 to 8.50 for cocktails) and if you drink between 11-1 you get two for one. The two lunches we had were decent, but nothing to write home about. We did not attend any of the special events. However, the best activity there was the cocktail mixing lessons and contest, without a doubt. It was a lot of fun, you get too drink for free and you meet a lot of people in the process. At the end, they pick several contestants to mis their own special batch and everybody judges the winner. I won with a cocktail whose name I cannot print here!

If you like to exercise, the health club Brio is great. You have an excellent choice of equipment, a beautiful space, steam rooms, saunas and massage. It is pretty inexpensive too. There is a special that you have to ask for, which is $50 for the week, but that only pays if you plan to go 5 times. Otherwise it is $10 per day. Not bad.

We stayed at the Grand Mayan with some friends in a time share. We didn't have to go through any sales pitches as our friends were already owners. But we weren't pressured for any sales pitches, either, which was nice. As others on TA may have already said, arriving at the GM is a little weird as they apparently had a fire in their main lobby, so you check inside of a giant inflated tent. But otherwise, the staff was very friendly. As I suspect you do at other time share resorts, they have a no cash policy, which means you sign for everything and a 15 per cent gratuity is built-into most bills. We signed our names to get on their system, but it never worked right, but since we were there only four days, it wasn't too much of a problem. If you were there longer, make sure they get your signature right.

The room we had was very nice. It was techinically a suite, I guess, and we shared the living area & kitchen with our friends who had the adjoining room. There was small pool on the deck, but it was cool water, but it was still a pleasant touch. The rooms were quiet and kept clean. They even did turn-down service, though oddly one night they came at about 9:30pm!

We really loved the pools, as I'm sure others have written about. Staying at the Grand Mayan you can also use the Mayan Palace pool. The GM is the newer property compared to the older MP property. The MP pool is huge, with mulitple areas and two swim up bars, etc. There is also a pool just for GM guests that is smaller but not so busy. We went to one pool or another every day.

We didn't use any of the resorts tour services, though we did use their affordable ($6 per person) shuttle to Playa Del Carmen. They also helped us take a taxi to Playa another time and get on a shuttle to Tulum for our own little tour.

Overall, the property could seem a little sterile, almost "compound" like. But some people probably like that as opposed to an overly commercialized property or an all-inclusive where you feel obligated to stay there all the time. So maybe it's the best of both worlds?

My wife and I and one other couple just returned, literally 4/20, from a very relaxing week at the Grand Mayan. We did a trade through RCI and had a Grand Master Suite.

If you want to be close to the pools, beach and restaurants you need to call ahead and request to be in buildings 1, 2, 3 or 4. These are all within a short walk of everything.

Although this resort is very large, there are things that you can do, while there and ahead of time, to make your stay very enjoyable.

Getting there: We booked our transportation through the concierge desk from the airport to the hotel and everything went off without incident, very smooth.

Check in: We arrived around 5:15 and were checked in and in our room by 6:00, drinking beers with dinner on the beach at the Habenero Grill by 6:30. You will be approached by the Time Share Sales folks in the lobby however, if you are not interested in the pitch, simply say no thank you and you will not hear another word from them, your entire stay.

Restaurants: All of them are very nice and the food is great. I highly recommend the Mexican Fiesta night, which is on Thursday's, for $60.00/person the show and dinner are well worth it.
All in all the prices are not much more than a mid-priced restaurant in the states with entrees ranging from $12 - $25.

Beach: Yes it is rocky, however, if you are looking for a swimming beach, you can walk 5 mins. south of the resort and you are on a swimmable beach that no one else uses, at least no one was using it while I was there. If you want to get in the water at the resort, you can, however you do need some form of footwear, either aqua socks or I used my Keens, which were perfect for the rocky bottom. As for shade on the beach. There is no problem find shade between the palaps and the palm trees.

Pools: There are two pools, one for that is only for Grand Mayan guests and the larger pool that is available for both Grand Mayan and Mayan Palace guests. Now, this will go against most of what is said as it relates to shade. In the entire 7 days that we were there, we had no trouble finding shade at the Mayan Palace pool. There was always a set of chairs under a palapa that were not being used. You may have to look for them, but they are generally available.
Also, I would highly recommend that if you want to feel like a king and/or queen for a day or two, you book one of the palapa beds at the pool. They are $30.00/day to rent, however, if you purchases, at least, $30.00 in food and drinks, which isn't hard to do, the fee is waived. You can book them the same day, booking starts at 7:15 every morning and you do have to be down to the pool by 11:00 or they can give it to someone else. Oh, one more thing, you can book the palapa's one day in advance as well.

In addition to the resort there are a ton of things to do while on the Mayan Riviera. I highly recommend that you book the shuttle into Playa Del Carmen. Playa has to be one of the nicest towns I have been in, anywhere. Quinta or 5th avenue, is awesome with great shops and restaurants and the beach is great. One restaurant you can't miss is Hemingway's the food is great and reasonably priced. It's right on 5th Ave and well worth a stop.
If you are looking to stock your refrigerator back at the resort with beer, water and snacks, go to Mega, which is where the shuttle drops you off. We are from the Pacific NW and Mega is as nice as any Fred Meyer I have been in and everything is clearly listed in both Spanish and English.

To get down to 5th Ave. turn left when you get off the shuttle and you will be in the heart of everything after about a 5 min. walk.

Another outing that I highly recommend is to go into Puerto Moraloes. This is a sleepy little fishing town that is a 20 minute cab ride from the resort. The cost of the cab is about $15 U.S. but it is well worth it. Eat lunch at Pelicanos, right on the beach and they have some of the freshest shrimp cocktails I have ever had. The town is very small so it won't take long to walk through. However, a stroll down the beach is very nice and you can see the local fisherman bringing in their catch while the Pelican's and other birds try and pick up some scraps.

We did do two excursions that we booked at the resort's travel desk.

Tulum is a must, only a half day and at the end of the tour of the ruins, you get to swim in the ocean on one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been on.

The other half day excursion that was great was zip lining through the Jungle. We also booked this through the travel desk and had a blast. 11 zip lines, swim in a Cenote and then have lunch before you head back, cost was $65.00/person.

All in all, we had a great time and would definitely go back. However, due to wanting to experience other places, next time we go to Mexico, we will head south to Playa Del Carmen.

One last thing that I highly recommend. Please learn some Spanish. The service staff at the resort, maids, maintenance workers, etc..don't speak English. Remember, you are in their country so you should take the time to learn some phrases that will get you by. Not to mention, they love it that you even try.

We spent one week at the Grand Mayan (Feb 9 to 16).

Our group consisted of my wife and I and our 2 sons (ages 4 and 5). I exhaustively read the reviews here before booking our trip (a timeshare exchange through RCI) and am finally getting around to returning the favor. As I scoured many reviews looking for info that would help me determine if we'd be happy here with the kids I'll try to provide some helpful info in that area.

Summary:

Yes, this place is really huge. Yes, in general I think you'd be happier in a low # building (7 or lower) than the more distant buildings 8 to 12...but unless you're physically challenged or just a bitter person you ought to be happy anywhere in this place. We were in building 11 and had a great time. We walked about half the time...took the shuttle the other half (we didn't wait, just took it if was there or passed us on the way and walked if it didn't). Our boys liked to walk past the crocodiles and flamingos anyway.

Yes, the ocean is useless here, hard to understand exactly why from reading the reviews, but trust me, you won't be going in the water (and neither will your kids). You can, however, enjoy the sand and the kids can build sandcastles at waters edge...and that covers about 90% of what we do at the beach as a family anyway. You can walk about 20 minutes up or down the beach and find a beach with accessible ocean. We did this once (going left as you face the ocean...but were told it was the same the other way too) and didn't feel the need to do it again. Or, go to Playa for a beautiful beach. The swimming pools are so awesome, this barely bothered us at all.

The place is IMMACULATE, the service is far above par and the food/drinks were good to very good and reasonable priced for a resort.

If it had a swimming beach and weren't quite so big, I'd have given it a 5 star rating...as it is, those things make it 4 star.

Accommodations:

We had one of the 2 bedroom suites (Grand Master?) and if there is one area I felt the reviews under-complimented it was the room. The room was absolutely awesome. Huge. Clean. Modern. 2 master suites with 5 piece baths...and huge. It was so nice to be able to get away from the kids (was that my outside voice?) in the suite, put them in their room with a movie and sit on the patio or take a jacuzzi bath or whatever. Nice, nice, nice. Huge couches that I could actually lay/sleep on (I'm 6'4") or the boys could lay foot to foot and fall asleep while watching a movie. Great balcony. Never used the dipping pool...but it looked cool sitting there. Beds were firm and wonderful.

Plenty useful kitchen (I've seen reviews lamenting the lack of mixing bowls and whatnot...who is plannig to bake a cake in mexico anyway? Everything you need to prepare and eat basic food is there). If you don't want to clean the dishes, leave them! I think the maid charges $10/day to clean your dishes...fair price if you just don't want to deal with it on vacation but do want to make eggs and toast for breakfast so you don't have to hassle with getting the kids out of the place and to the restaurant for breakfast. The half size refrigerator is plenty big for some milk, soda, beer, fruit, leftover pizza, and whatever other grub you might want.

Flat Screen TV's were great. We brought a portable DVD player and though we felt like that was kind of weak to do so when we left the states it proved to be an absolute lifesaver. When we came back for naps in the afternoons after a day at the pool we just threw in a DVD and the kids were asleep in 5 minutes. That hour or two in the afternoon makes or breaks the vacation for the parents. Bring a DVD player and your 20 favorite DVD's and don't feel guilty about it. TV is not great...and I can't stand another minute of 'Spongebob Squarepants' in english...I feared I might shoot myself if I had to watch it in espanol.

Maid service was excellent. We put out the 'please clean room' (or whatever) sign when we left in the mornings and left $5 for the maid each day and the place was spotless and perfect everyday when we got back.


Common areas:

For us, this pretty much meant the pool and poolside restaurant (Balche).

We never used the Grand Mayan private pool...just walked past it on our way to the much larger/cooler Main pool (shared with the mayan palace). It's the coolest pool I've ever seen. It's huge and has swim up bars and palapas and coconut trees and all the things I needed for my soul when I left the snow and headed to mexico in February. We spent 4 entire days at the pool and it was awesome. The food and drinks seemed very reasonably priced for poolside service ($3ish for beer, $9 for a burger, etc) and the food was generally really good. I would especially recommend the guacamole...for about $5 it's a heaping monster sized pile of excellent guac. We ate it every single day (at the pool or in the room). 2 for 1 drink of the day always made me happy.

There is a kids club of some nature...a couple of 'centers' for the kids to play in at the pool. Can't say that I ever saw any of the parents putting their kids in kids club though...the pool seemed to be kids club.

Room service was excellent and quick and generally reasonable. THe pizza is worthwhile, the mixed mexican dinner sampler plate (can't remember the exact name but you'll recognize it on the room service menu) is more than worth the price and fed the whole family dinner one night.

The food at Balche was good, the poolside food comes from there and we ate dinner there 2 nights...always got a seat right away. Casual but nice, good food, reasonable prices. Definitely OK with the kids and for the kids. Couldn't stand the wait for havana moon (it was always at least 45 minutes for dinner...an absolute killer with kids), didn't want to do the fancy place (tramonto) and aren't big on buffets.

We used the on site deli/grocery for some pastries, bottled water, etc. Handy but expensive (as expected).

Otherwise, we didn't use the rest of the facilites at all (golf, spa, etc)

General Area and getting around:

We rented a car (online ahead of time...was only like $160 at booking time but the insurance, as mentioned in these reviews, adds about $25/day) and if you've got kids, I can't imagine any other way. No way in hades I'm loading the family up and going out to the main road (almost a highway) to wait roadside for a bus to go anywhere. We had some sort of Nissan sentra knock-off car. It was fine, clean, reasonably new and the A/C blew cold. THere is only one road that goes up and down the peninsula on this side...so you can't possible get lost. North takes you to cancun, south to Playa...and that's it. Driving is easy...don't worry about it. People who've commented that the drivers are crazy and the driving is hard must be old or incompetent...or both. We used the car every day but one to either go to cancun, playa or on daytrips. With the kids, being able to leave when they get tired is paramount to having fun...taking a group tour bus means waiting to leave when the schedule says...and that can be a problem if your 4 year old is ready to sleep.

We went to Chichen-Itza, which was awesome for my wife and I but boring for the kids (they toughed it out pretty well).

If I can make one recommendation to those with kids, go to Xel Ha at least one day...maybe 2. It's amazing...basically a huge (several thousand acres) natural eco water park. I think it cost something like $200 for the whole family for the day and that was the 'all inclusive' price...which meant you could eat/drink at any of the restaurants and bars on the property (there are plenty) any time you wanted. In my world, nothing quite like 45 minutes on the lazy river inner tube, followed by an umbrella drink, followed by snorkeling, followed by an umbrella drink, followed by a 20 minute snooze in an honest to god hammock between 2 palm trees. Heaven. We were there from about 10am to 5pm and had an absolute blast. Lazy river tubing (natural river, not man made), jumping off rock cliffs, snorkeling, swim with dolphins, etc. etc. Very cool and very worth it. There is another similar place called Xcaret and I talked with a few other familes at the Mayan pool who had gone there and reported loving it similarly.

Playa is a cool little town. The 5th avenue shopping/restaurant street is worth a visit or two for dinner and trinket buying.

When you want to grocery shop, definitely Mega vs. WalMart. We did WalMart 1st because it's WalMart right? Yikes, WalMart is a dump. Mega is like an american grocery store. Don't be afraid, do Mega.

Pharmacias: If your kids (or you) get sick, go to any pharmacia. They dispense antibiotics over the counter. Cheap.

One warning in general...always carry plenty of cash with you when you're going out for the day. Lots of places don't take credit cards...including many gas stations, toll booths, etc. Don't get stuck.

That's it. Have fun, you're on vacation!