We stayed from Feb 5th-12th. I went with my husband 3 sons and my 85 year old father in law. We had a really lovely week with only one minor frustration. I get that out of the way then on to all the good ;) We requested connecting rooms since there was 6 of us. We did not get this at all. We were in building 1600. One room was on the main floor and the other room on the second floor. Not to big of a deal. BUT, there were no stairs or elevator in the 1600 building. So we had to walk all the way to the end of the 1700 building up/down the stairs and all the way back to get to the 1600 building. This was very frustrating for us. I had to seperate my kids and be seperated from my father in law who is older and could have used a bit more help from us. After a couple days we adjusted to it but i was frustrated with this and they didnt even try to accomodate us in any better rooms. Now putting this aside the rest of our stay was OUTSTANDING!
The resort in appearance is stunning! The beach is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. It was clean, gorgeous, plenty of chairs at any time of day. The snorkelling was great! We would take a little box of cereal from the breakfast buffet and feed it to the fish and they would just swarm us. We all thought this was pretty cool! If you want to go in the water tho you will need water shoes for sure. We brought all our own snorkel gear and used it every day! We saw stingrays, many types of fish, corals, eels, sea urchins and so much more. Really amazing stuff! The grounds were all well kept and clean. People always cleaning everywhere in either the pool, the floors, etc.The roooms are huge! Which was really great with the kids. The bathrooms were huge also. We used the jacuzzi a couple times and therewas lots of hot water!
Service was wonderful (except the front desk issue at the beginning) Our maids were great, room was super tidy everyday, and our kids made a mess,sand everywhere across the room every day LOL and it was spotless everyday. We left $5 a day and always had enough beer, water and pop in the mini bar. The people that work here at the pool with the games, the kids club, the waiters etc all were just amazing! Friendly and helpful! Drink service at the pool was great! Diego at the swim up bar made the best drinks!
The food for me was OK. There was alot of stuff I had never heard of. Im not to adventurous so alot of it didnt appeal to me. I didnt starve tho by any means they had alot of regular stuff but I found everyday I sort of had to stay to the same thing....potatoes, chicken, roast, gravy, rice, fries, nachos stuff like that. Dessert bar looked great if you like that sort of thing! My husband and FIL thought the food was fantastic! We did the Italian and Brazilian a la carte. Italian was very disappointing. Skip that. The older boys all went to the the Brazilian a la carte and said it was the best meal they ever had! So thats a plus for sure! I think the breakfasts were my favorite. Always so much to choose from! Drinks were plenty and yummy! They have pretty much anything you can imagine. I loved all the frozen drinks and my kids loved the daquiris!
We did the Tulum/Xel-ha excursion. For the 6 of us it cost almost $700. Was it worth it? I dunno. Im on the fence on this. I wish we would have just done all day at Xel-ha. Tulum was too hot for the kids and being a guided tour they were bored and complained alot. If you have little kids I wouldnt reccomend doing this with them. Too hot! The beach there tho is incredible! That alone made Tulum worth it for me. Xel-ha was really nice. Like I said I wish we had been there for the whole day.
It is atleast an hour from the airport and luckily we only had to stop at one other resort on the way and none on the way back. Again my boys were a bit impatient with this but we dealt with it. (Something else to think about if you have little kids) Worth the drive tho for sure! I would certainly go back to this resort! The beach alone did it for me and the heat!!! I think I covered everything but if you have any questions let me know :)

We stayed at the GS in Jan. This is our 5th all exclusive so we did have something to compare this resort to. I will split things into the good and not so good

Good
Ala carts - we tried the Japanese,steakhouse,Italian,Mediterranean
,Cajun
Pools -nod to the lazy river and quiet pools
Staff in restaurants,pools and transport
Rooms - large and well maintained. Although the first night while doing the bed bug check(there weren't any) A cockroach ran across the top of the bed. Some what freaked out but it is a tropical country and have seen plenty more in Hawaii! Note bath and shower area is open to room but toilet has its own enclosed room.


Not Good
Buffet -the worst we have had. Lots of recycling,no seafood other than small shrimp in one salad all week
Disco -bathrooms were dirty and staff unbelievably rude and arrogant- held a "drinking contest one night so they could all "win" and tie one on
Animal issues - lots of raccoons that are very aggressive due to the design of the hotel. Guests leave room service trays out in the open air corridors and the raccoons know this and come through every night making a huge mess
Beach- not the best we have experienced on the Mayan. Quite rocky and windy.

Am writing this whilst sitting sipping one of their fab cocktails. Was wary about comin here following all the negative comments onhere, but this hotel is fantastic the setting is breathtaking, the rooms are lovely, food is great...need I go on. Swam with turtles this morning right off the beach. Big thanks to the amazing staff who can, t do enough for you. Loved the whole hols. The only negative is the appalling bad manners of some of the other holiday makers but the hotel can.t help that.

We had a mix of good and bad, this is no 5 star resort and we will not be going back.

The good, the pools and beach were awesome, beautiful and well kept. If you are going to try the snorkeling bring your own gear, the mask and snorkel they gave me were not cleaned from the previous user.

The food was alright, breakfast buffet had alot to offer but after 4 days it was bland, nothing special.

Lunch was great, dinners were ok, my steak at the steak restaurant was a joke 1/4 inch thick yup thats 5 star dining lol. The Brazilian was at best ok and we could not get into the Japanese restaurant.

We had a very special night planned, we were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary on Valentine's so we met with the concierge and arranged for a baby sitter for our 2 kids. One of the concierges promised us that she personaly would be there at 7:45, she never showed up so at 8:00 we called the front desk. They could not find her and sent someone else. The concierge will also try to get you to go on some sort of time share selling scheme it went something like you get a $100 of a fourth restaurant I think the french if you sit through it, after we said no they called our room the next day and tried again.
The day before we left my wife went to the front desk and went over our departure times. At 5:30 am I awoke to the bell boy banging on our door waking up our two kids, he had the wrong time, it was supposed to be 11:30. Well the front desk must not have believed him so they called at 6:00 and woke the kids up again. Honestly, they have our flight schedule.

Well thats it, loved the beach and pools, food was ok, service for food and drinks was great. Service from the concierge and front desk was the worst we have encountered.