We recently returned from our 2nd stay at the Royal Sands and I have to say that I think it was even better than the 1st time, and that stay was pretty perfect. We arrived in the early evening so there were no lines to check in. Our room was on a floor where there was a huge community patio area and this was nice. But nobody told us that because of this the sliding glass doors to our room would lock automatically. The first thing everyone did when we got in the room is go out to catch the view of the ocean and then we couldn't get back in. I was just about to climb the wall (we couldn't find an exit to a hallway) when we saw our neighbors.
We went to the welcome party and that's a lot of fun, free soda, beer and rum & Coke. But we didn't get there early enough and had a problem finding chairs, but in the end it didn't matter since we never sat on them anyway. We spent most of our time in the pool and at the pool bars, which were also pretty crowded everyday, but that's good because there's always friends to make. Even though all the bar staff is good, Manuel is my favorite and Jose is next, they're both AWESOME! But really all the staff at the Sands are awesome.
I've read a lot of complaints about the beach, but I never see anything wrong with it. I'm just curious if these people are maybe looking for beaches like at Daytona Beach? There's enough sand to have 2 rows of palapas and they play volleyball down there everyday so I thought it was nice. Not all beaches are the same and while Cancun's beaches might have been huge yrs ago, they just aren't now. But I've heard they are supposed to be fixing that.
As far as restaurants go, we ate out off the resort every night. But others in our group did eat here and they said the food was good. I know the food at the pool bar is really good and enough for 2 people to eat. We went to Walmart Sunday morning and got our groceries for the week and ate most of our lunches there.
Overall, both my experiences at the Royal Sands were very positive and I love this resort!