I went on a family trip with my parents, my baby boy of 17 months and my husband and stayed at the Grand Mayan, which is part of the Mayan Palace located in the Riviera Maya. We had a great time there. Like most people said it is a huge place, very spread out. If you are out of shape it might be hard to move around there without a shuttle. It is duable but when the weather is hot and humid it's really hard to walk around from your room to the pool area if your room is far away. They do have shuttle buses that come to pick you up. They seem to be pretty on time for the most part. If you are planning on staying at the Grand Mayan try requesting rooms in building 1-8. Buildings 10-13 are pretty far away and a good exercise to walk to the pool and restaurants.

Let's see... the service was excellent. Staff members were very friendly and they tried their best to communicate with you in English. I know some people complained that they didn't speak enough English but come on now... this isn't the USA and they really try. Service rating I would give a 5 out of 5.

There are plenty of restaurants to choose from. I tried the Belche Pool Restaurant and the Havanna Moon and I wasn't all that impressed. The food was okay. Room service prices are reasonable but they do take about 40 minutes to an hour to deliever. Overall I would give food rating a 3 out of 5.

The pool area is really nice and if you stay in the Grand Mayan they have their own facility as well. Smaller compared to the Mayan Palace pool but very exclusive and cozy. The pool bar was fun to grab a drink and I really like the no money system.

You can get to Playa del Carmen by bus across the street for about $2.50 or catch a cab for about $20.00 on way. The staff members are really good about giving you directions to different sights and catching a taxi from and to the hotel is not a problem at any time of the day. Just remember to ask how much the price is before getting in. I've notice this is how the fares went.... Xcaret one way was about 30.00, Puerto Morelos was about 15.00 one way and Playa del Carmen was about 20.00 one way.

The beach at the resort is a bit choppy and not as calm so if you want to go hang out at the beach and swim in there go to Puerto Morelos (absolutely peaceful with less people) or Playa del Carmen (over crowded though).

The only thing negative if I must point one this about this place is that you can hear your next door neighbor from the living room if they talk loud or if their alarm goes off. That was a bit annoying. The doors are connected by the living rooms I believe so if people are loud in the living room area you can hear noise.

Overall, I had a great time at the Grand Mayan and would go there again to stay. It's a central location to Puerto Morelos, Playa del Carmen, going to Xcaret, Tulum, Xel-Ha, etc.

OK here it goes, this is a great place if you don’t go for crowds of drunken rude people and bunches of rowdy 20 somethingers. I have been to the Grand Mayan two times and am going back in Nov for a 3rd stay. My husband and I love the place the cleanness.
As well as the friendly staff they have always made our stay as nice as can be.
Yes it is isolated but if you want to you can always rent a car. I make my arrangements pre trip and on line and always get a great deal 7 days with insurance for about 250.00 or less. It is nice to have your own car so you can go on day trips to other beaches down the coast, Akumal, Paamul or Tulum or to restraunts in Playa or Puerto Moroles just up the road. Have never had any problems driving. Just remember the speed limit is the speed limit!!! Yellow lights mean stop (not hurry through) and don’t drink and drive. (By the way the green traffic lights blink before they turn yellow giving you lots of time to stop.)
If you are not brave enough to drive there is always the colectivos theses are small multipassenger vans that travel up and down the highway all day and most of the night till 10:00pm I think. The trip from Playa on one of these is less than $4.00 a person they let you off at the front entrance and you have to walk in. Yes it’s a long walk but after a great dinner I don’t know about you but I need the exercise. You can also take the colectivos to Playa or even Tulum. Haven’t tried it yet but we will this year.
All in all it is a great play to stay and use as a base as you explore the eastern side of the Yucatan.
All in all it is a great place to stay and can't wait to go back.

We were set to arrive at the resort on Sunday, June 8th. However, our United flight did not have enough fuel to get to our connection, so we were delayed until late afternoon Monday. (won't go into the horrible details!!) We had an 18 year old friend of my son's that was flying in on Sunday on a different airline and was to meet us at customs since our flights were to arrive at the same time. He was at the Cancun ariport for 3 hours without a cell phone while I attempted to call anyone and everyone I could to have him directed to the Grand Mayan. I was finally able to contact him and have him shuttled to the Grand Mayan with the help of the Concierge. The resort allowed him to check in without us and I could not have resolved this without the incredible and wonderful Concierge staff. Do request via email the shuttle from the airport to the resort and print the copy of reservation and bring with you. Also, if delayed a day, as we were call them or email them to rearrange, or you won't be allowed on.

I had kept up with all of the reviews online and was nervous about staying at this resort. I emailed the resort early to request buildings 1-7 thanks to the reviews. Unfortunately, we were in building 8. Since our guest had checked in, and no one else was checking in on Monday, we were at the front desk for a very short time to give them our credit card. We are 2 adults and 4 teenagers. The room was beautiful. We brought a DVD player and movies, thank you to the reviews. The walk to the pool was long, but never caught a shuttle. However, the weather was not hot this week and my husband and I are both very fit. The kids rarely walked and waited for the shuttle altough most of the time the shuttles were full, since they serviced buildings 10-13 first.

The resort no longer has a shuttle into town, nor does the city bus stop in front of the resort. We counted on this transportation and were very disappointed to find it no longer existed. We searched for other transportation as 6 for a cab, 2 cabs, is expensive. We received many different/contradictary suggestions from staff. We ended up crossing the highway and catching the Playa Express for $2.50 each, although on one occasion is was $3.00. This is a mercedes van marked with Playa Express with Green and Yellow markings. You can see it coming down the road and sits higher than a regular van. Just flag it down, if it does not stop, it is full and wait for the next one. It will drop you off at 20th and 2nd, just a few blocks from 5th avenue and Walmart. You can also return to the drop off to take back to the Grand Mayan. There is also the Collectivo which will take you back to the resort and is located on fifth and ??, at a Taxi station road closer to Senior Frogs. Cost was $1.50 ea.

The resort food was expensive and did not care for the automatic 15% tip, when service was not always that good. We did eat at the Havana Moon and was wonderful. We ordered the pizza many days and it was always good. The guacamole was terrific and a good buy as well. The grocery store was expensive, but if you take into consideration the cost of getting a cab back from Walmart and transportation issues, not a bad alternative. Could not find small bottles of water anywhere though and Walmart was not pleasant.

We did rent a Palapa at $30 4 times, thanks to the reviews. And, ordered over $30 to credit back the cost of rental. However, we did have to go to the front dest to have it credited to our account as they do not credit it back automatically. One day however, after renting a Palapa at 8:00, we pulled up an additional lounge chair to our Palapa, went to the room to get our stuff and by the time we returned less than an hour later, the lounge had been placed back in its space by the pool and my shirts were gone. Never did find them, even after contacting security, complaining and filing a report. They were not sympathetic or helpful. Noticed there were always empty lounges by the pool, however this was a very rainy/stormy week to include thunder, lightning and water spouts, so a lot of people stayed away.

We all loved the pool and Palapas. Could not get music by the pool however, which we like to have. If you take a cooler to the pool, security will confiscate it. We took our drinks in a bag that did not look like a cooler and we were fine. Loved the pool, but we needed to have a swimable beach.


My only complaints for the staff was the many different answers you receive to the same questions and the conversation/flirting of staff with our 16 year old girls was inappropriate. I was nervous and did not feel safe leaving them unattended after dark at the resort because of what was said. I never found the staff to be unfriendly except for our shirt incident. Not sure why the resort can not provide you with written instruction on how to get to town. Although, my experience was they did not want you to leave the resort bacause they wanted you to spend your money on the resort. We did arrange transportation from the resort to Cancun, the Royal Sands for our 2nd week. After getting 4 different answers to our needs, we were satisfied with what was arranged and only paid $45.00 for all of us with our luggage.

Happy to say we were in Cancun for a week after our stay at the Grand Mayan and would never stay at or close to Playa again, because it is too far away from everything and way too expensive. Our second week was so much more enjoyable and cheaper too!! In Cancun the city bus takes you everywhere you need to go for 65 pesos. If we had only stayed the one week, we would have been soooooo disappointed and let down because of staying at the Grand Mayan.

One last tip, make sure if you are using American money, there are no markings on the bills as we were unable to use most of our money because of this.

I went with my boyfriend and family to the Grand Mayan the second week of June. We traded in my parents' time share for the Grand Mayan. The hotel was gorgeous and extremely well maintained. Check-in was easy for my boyfriend and I since we arrived at 5:30pm, which is when check-in begins, my parents however arrived around 11:30am and were extremely upset to learn that they had to wait until 5 until they could get into their room.

The hotel has many gorgeously decorated restaurants and bars - even the outdoor furniture on the deck outside of Tramanto was decorated nicely. During the day the pools (which were gorgeous - and always warm and clean) would be packed, but at night time no matter where we would go everywhere would be empty. It is definitely worth waking up early to get a palapa by the pool - although i do not think it was necessary for us to get down there by 7am. I had read ahead of time that if you were not there by 7am, you would not get a palapa. The one day we went down and stood online we were second in line and there were only 5 people behind us, so many people who showed up closer to 9am were able to get palapas also - probably just not their first choice. Also - a hint - if you want to lay in quiet (not much noise or action around you) stay on the side of the pool closest to the sales center, the other side of the pool is where the crazy games and music is played.

I thought the prices were extremely fair -drinks were cheaper than what i pay most of the time at home. My boyfriend and I had breakfast a few times at Havana Moon and thought that the prices were extremely reasonable and food was delicious (they had a delicious egg white omelette - for only $7!) The only food that seemed a little unreasonable was the dinner buffet at the Del Lago - the selection was quite minimal and a lot of the food quite bland, which tends to be the result when cooking mass quantity. The best restaurant by far was Tramanto, which although a little pricier than the other restaurants, was still not that expensive. We did attend the Mexican Fiesta since everyone told us that was the event not to be missed. It was a good show and we all enjoyed ourselves there, although we were not happy about giving up half of our day for it. The show begins at 7, but they make you arrive at 6pm. This was the only time we had a large selection of Mexican food.

The rooms were immaculate. We had a two 1 bedroom suites. In the main room there was a small half kitchen (no oven - just microwave, refrigerator and stovetop - no dishwasher also - so if you do decide to cook you will have to wash your own dishes. we never cooked - had cereal one morning, but the last thing i want to do on vacation is spend it in my room cooking and cleaning), two couches and a kitchen table. In the bedroom not only did we have a king sized bed, but another couch to lounge on. One strange thing though was the bathtub in the bedroom -we figured it was a jacuzzi tub but were surprised to find out it was just a normal soaking tub in the bedroom. The bathroom was gorgeous, huge, and very modern. We also had a large patio with a dipping pool, which we only used once since it was the water was so cold. Both of our rooms were located in building 1, which definitely seemed to be the best location. We had an extremely short walk to the pools, beach and restaurants. The one day we took an excursion from a company not affiliated with the hotel we were dropped off at the front gate and had to walk back to the hotel, so we found out why so many people were complaining - if you are in buildings 10-13 then you will be no where near anything - except the front gate. But there are trollys, but we only used them two times so we never figured out when they began running, stopped running, where they went, etc.

We did have a few complaints though. For one, the resort is very secluded from anywhere else. Although its pretty cheap to take a cab to Playa Del Carmen ($20 for 4 people), its a 25 minute ride and when the cab returned us to the hotel we found that they would only drop us off at the Mayan Palace Lobby which was a little distance from our room. Apparently there used to be a shuttle from the resort but they ended that service. The seclusion would not have been a problem if there was any action at the hotel. The daily activities were rarely announced, so unless you knew what time the activities you were interested in doing were being held at and where they would be, you would spend a lot of time looking for something to do. Also, at night all of the live music and shows ended at 10pm, which was very disapointing since we were on vacation and most of the time not eating dinner until late, so by the time we were finished, there would be nothing to do except go back to the room. Another problem that we had was we at the at the Habanero Grill one night (its a grilled buffet right on the beach) and were taking our time eating, which apparently you cannot do, we noticed they had stopped grilling and were beginning to put away the food even though it was not 10 yet (which is the time the restaurant closes), needless to say we had to rush to get whatever we could, which we were very disappointed to find out was not much at all. The beach is very rocky, but we were expecting that since last year we stayed at another resort in the Riviera Maya and found out that the resort had the same problem. We were also surprised to see how casual everything was at the resort. I'm used to going to resorts where the restaurants at night require the men where slacks and no shorts or tanktops or bathinguits. We felt extremely overdressed a lot of the time considering we had all brought clothes to follow those guidelines, but it seemed no one else did. Even at Tramando we saw men wearing shorts and muscle shirts, or women wearing beach cover-ups, so bring your casual clothes. The only other complaint we had was that there was not a very big selection of Mexican dishes at any of the restaurants - it was mostly American food, which unfortunately we did not go to Mexico for.

Alli in all it was a very relaxing vacation, and we all enjoyed ourselves. I would only recommend this resort to families with children though since it looked like there were a ton of activities geared for children.