Just got back last night after spending 9 days at the OGC with my wife and 2 small children (ages 3 & 5). We had an excellent time and would definitely recommend this resort to anyone who wants to go to Cozumel. It wasn’t perfect, and if I could I would give this a 4.5 star rating. All in all though, you can’t go wrong here.

This was our first trip to Mexico and the first time staying at an all-inclusive. We usually travel to Maui every year and stay at top-end resorts (Kea Lani, for example). The Grand compared favorably to our previous experiences, although the service was not quite as refined. However the cost, when you include food is nearly half as much as going to Maui. We were just amazed at how cheap it is to travel to such a nice place.

When we checked in, the place was booked and we really wanted a second or third floor room so we waited around for one to be ready. Arturo at the front desk was excellent at getting us a good room right by the “quiet” pool on a second floor. We even offered him $5 for getting us a perfect room and he declined saying that that’s his job! Throughout our trip, Arturo kept asking how things were going and if he could help us in any way.

The resort is beautiful. I was very impressed with the landscaping and the wonderful architecture. Whoever took the pictures for their website should find another line of work, because they don’t do this place justice at all. Don’t be put off by the pictures on their website like I was. You will love it when you see it in person. Everything was kept incredibly clean and manicured too. If you walked around late at night or early in the morning you saw why this place is so clean and kept up; there were swarms of staff members working away sweeping, mopping, pruning, raking etc. It’s hard to keep any kind of tropical place looking clean and fresh, but they were able to do it. There was wildlife everywhere, including turtles, lizards, frogs, and birds. My kids loved playing with the hermit crabs!

The room was nice; average size and with interesting details. Definitely not your cookie-cutter hotel room. My wife had a hard time sleeping on the hard beds, but it didn’t bother any of the rest of us. Be careful of the floor when wet as they are very slippery with bare feet. My 5 year old son fell several times at the resort as they use the same slippery marble all over (even the stairs – a big no-no). I wouldn’t be surprised if they are forced to make some modifications to the flooring when they are faced with the inevitable lawsuits that will result from people falling.

The maid staff was just OK, and from what we heard from other people there were a lot of inconsistencies. They really need to standardize the service throughout the resort as we found it to be extremely inconsistent. Our maid did an excellent job making the place spotless. It’s interesting how much they respond to tips though. We didn’t see her on the first day and didn’t leave a tip. The next day and every day after I left $4-$5 for her and then we got the towel animals and the refrigerator stocked every day (supposed to be every other day). One thing made me really upset though: near the end of the trip I forgot to leave her a trip because a rain storm messed up our schedule. After 6 days of leaving her tips, on that day we didn’t get any towel animals, got an empty refrigerator AND she didn’t even stock a single towel, washcloth or anything in the room! It was as if she was retaliating or something. This ------ me off and I called the maid service and someone showed up within 2 minutes with a full set of towels. Still, this left a bad impression.

The activities staff was excellent. Lots of great games and activities by the pool. They all really loved playing with our children too, which was much appreciated. They always whistled in unison whenever my 3 year old daughter walked by and she loved the attention. The pool was good, although too warm at times (it’s unheated, so it’s not their fault). Even though the place was full, we never had a problem getting a couple of chairs together by the pool. The beach was also nice, although as others have mentioned it is a little on the small side. I thought it was certainly adequate though. And as others have mentioned, there is plenty of empty beach on either side if you want some space. I was surprised that the snorkeling right in front of the hotel was good if you were patient and willing to explore a little bit. They have submerged some concrete domes right out in the middle of the ocean swimming area that are man-made fish habitats and always filled and surrounded by hundreds of fish. The roped off swimming area is huge and if you just cruise around for a while you’ll see a lot. I saw several barracuda, puffer fish, rays, squid (really cool bigger ones!), starfish, flatfish and schools of larger fish all out in the swimming area. It actually compared well to the three hour reef tour we went on.

The Kids Club was also a fantastic service where you could leave your kids with excellent staff for free (although we tipped them very well). We used it twice for half days and our kids loved it. They played games, watched movies, learned Spanish, built sand castles and made neat crafts among other things. Our kids wanted to go back to Kids Club again!

The food was excellent! As our first time in an all-inclusive we weren’t sure what to expect and we were very surprised at how good everything was. My wife and I like to eat at high-end restaurants, especially on vacation, and we were not disappointed at all. The buffet place (La Posada) always had a table available and decent (but sporadic) service. The food at the buffet was plentiful with great variety and most was very well prepared. Sometimes the chicken and fish were a bit overcooked, but that was a minor complaint. I can’t believe that there are people who could complain about the food. We also ate at the reservation restaurants on 4 nights and they were nearly 5 star. We really liked La Hacienda on the beach, mostly because of the location and being able to watch the sunset. Los Olivos (Mediterranean) was also excellent with truly first class food and service. Most fancy restaurants do not have as good of service. They were always checking on you and filling your wine glass, but not in an intrusive way. Making reservations was never a problem, and unlike previous reviews, we were able to book days in advance (and we were not in the Royal Club). They may have changed that policy from earlier times.

The bars were well-stocked and the drinks were tasty, maybe even a little too strong. However, the service was very inconsistent and unpredictable (notice a theme?). For instance, let’s just take the pool area bars for example. On our first day there was no pool bar (it’s portable), but the Beach Club is just a short walk and there was bar staff walking the pools and beach coming by every 15 minutes. That was fine. Another day they would have the pool bar open but no walking staff (or very little, I never saw any). This was also no big deal as the pool bar was so close by. However there was one day (a Friday) when there was no pool bar and no walking bar staff. The only way to get a drink was to walk to the nearby Beach Club. This would have been fine except that since this was the only source, the line was very long and could take 10-15 minutes. This was the only day that we had to wait in line. There just seemed to be no rhyme-or-reason for the bar service by the beach/pool. They need to work on their consistency. The staff is mostly very friendly and tries hard, but many are very inexperienced (likely because the resort is only 2 years old) and there seemed to also be a surprising lack of management. I only saw 2 managers during our entire stay. We’re used to seeing management constantly at other hotels. I think this also contributed to the spotty service. I’m not trying to frighten anyone off from going here, as they were always friendly and did their best.

My only other complaint was the near total lack of night time entertainment. We still had fun watching the kids dance and talking to friends but a place like this needs more entertainment since it’s so remote. Also we had rain for a couple of days and there is pretty much nothing to do when it rains. Everyone just piles into the restaurants which just about burst at the seems. This place doesn’t do well in the rain both due to the lack of activities and because it is so spread out that you have to walk around a lot outside and get drenched (they do have umbrellas in the rooms).

Oh yeah, and as someone else mentioned, the on-site car rental agency is a joke. They only have one decent car, the only one with air conditioning. It of course is always booked. The only other options are Geo Tracker jeeps and Geo Metro-like subcompacts. The Trackers are run-down death traps, usually with no seat belts. The car guy tried to talk me into a Tracker for my family. We got out there and the thing was rusted, had no flooring, ripped up upholstery and both seat belts in the back seat were broken. And I told him I had young children! As if I would put my kids in the back seat of an open vehicle with no seat belts (and of course they didn’t have car seats either)! We took the Metro instead which was OK, despite not having power steering (or power anything), no air conditioning and many things that didn’t work. It drove OK, but for $80 a day you would expect much more. The taxis are not much better, maybe even worse as they all seem corrupt and drive like maniacs. We got ripped off twice by corrupt taxi drivers, even when I negotiated before getting in. One guy took us into town (the opposite direction) even after I specifically asked him if we were going directly to the OGC. This added an extra 30 minutes to our trip. Also the taxi taking us to the airport didn’t honor our travel voucher which we were told to give to the taxi. They also generally don’t allow you to split a fare with someone else but just charge double (or triple!). And there’s nothing you can do (I didn’t want to get in any kind of altercation with my kids there). If Cozumel wants to become a real tourist destination, they need to purge the taxi services of corruption.

Overall however, we had a wonderful time. This is a fabulous place to stay and would recommend it to anyone! If we ever go back to Cozumel, we will definitely go back here. One other tip we found out as this was our first time to Mexico: bring plenty of cash. We are used to traveling to places where credit cards are accepted everywhere and cash machines are common. We almost ran out of money and had to conserve near the end. And if you want the best deals from shops in town, you have to pay by cash so that they can hide the proceeds from taxes. Ahh blatant corruption, don't you love it?

“Hi!” to Ken, Lisa and Abby if you’re reading this!!