We arrived at the Royal Mayan via exchange on September 15, 2007 and departed on the 22d. The first thing that hits you is the cleanliness of the streets and resort. Some people have a negative view of sanitation and cleanliness when it comes to Mexico or third world countries as a whole. Cancun rivals any American city when it comes to sanitation. We had a one bedroom suite which also comes with a full kitchen, living room, and bath. Most all rooms and suites overlook the Caribbean Sea. The water is pure Azure color, and very warm. I would venture to say it's warmer than the resort pools. The beach is immaculate with no junk littering the beach. I think most rooms can also hear the surf at night which is very soothing. Food at the small poolside resturant was so so. Typical of this sort of establishment. However, the Royal Mayan also has a five star resturant called the Le Conquistidor which serves dinner by reservation only. I found their food to be above average and service average. Everywhere you go you will see 'tip' boxes. Keep in mind that most of these people only make a few dollars a day and depend on tips to carry them over. Most have families living in the interior and they send money home to them. Tip only for service. If you receive bad service, don't tip. I was amazed at the number of people that wanted to shop at Wal Mart or Sam's Club. There's one in town, plus a Costco. We visited neither. We did go to a large outdoor market where deals are to be had. They expect you to haggle prices and you should. I also recommend you use public transportation. We used the Mexican buses that pass by the resorts every few seconds, going into downtown Cancun. The cost is only 6 pesos, about 40 cents. Hang on. Taxi cabs are also abundant and will cost about $10 to downtown. You can find something to do every day you are there. Royal Resorts have three resorts next to each other and you can utilize each with your key card which also serves as your credit card. No cash is used in the resorts. You are billed at the end of your stay, like crusing. Service at the resort was nothing but outstanding. I have one peeve about Mexican resorts. All of the floors are made of ceramic tile, and therefore transmit sounds like a drum through the ceiling and walls. I requested a top floor room and received one two floors below. Needless to say, but the people above were very noisy - walking across the floor with hard soled shoes, dragging chairs across the floor, and dropping things constantly. Calling the front desk was useless. I rate this resort Five Stars for it's cleanliness and service. You WILL enjoy your stay at any of the Royal Resorts. We will definately visit again.

Just returned on Sept 1 from a great stay at the Royal Mayan and can't say enough about the place. We were considering canceling because of Dean but after reading the ongoing blogs here (thanks guys!!) we decided to go. Sure glad we stayed with our plans. The place was about half full so there was plenty of room around the pool and in the restaurants. We had a 7th floor suite with a view of the beach and pool and the balcony was the perfect place to watch the frigate birds cruise by. We've never seen a resort that was so clean. Both the our unit and the grounds in general were immaculate (I've never been at another resort where the staff were cleaning the iron railings at 6:30 in the morning! And there are a LOT of them).

Eats: Food at the La Palapa was average but dinner at the El Conquistador was excellent. The food was prepared perfectly and the wait staff were attentive and knew what they were doing. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the Laguna Grill across and up the street. Despite a good number of favorable reviews on the Fodor site and a sign hanging prominently on the front of the place boasting that they were a Fodor pick 3 years running, the dinner was mediocre and the staff acted like they were in training.

The onsite store is pretty well stocked with diary, eggs, fruit and some cereals but if you're planning to do any serious cooking a trip to central Cancun is just a bus trip away. For 65 pesos each way you can take the R1 which goes up through the hotel zone and makes a right turn onto Tulum Ave. Right at that turn and across the street is a huge store which includes a meat department and a great bakery. They even have an American section!

Transportation: we booked a ThomasMoore shuttle to and from the airport and it was great. All of the shuttles park outside the main entrance. You can contact them through the Royal website and book online. Unfortunately you have to get through the gauntlet of resort hawkers posing as reps from your resort. The rest of the time we just took the buses which run about every 15 minutes and, for the most part, are cleaner than most of the ones in the U.S.

We just returned this weekend from the Royal Mayan. We went knowing full well that hurricane Dean was bearing down on the south of Mexico/Belize area. We knew the Royal Resorts had weathered Wilma and Emily very well and were quite sure they would be fine during Dean. We were right.

First off, we had a gorgeous penthouse villa with direct views of the beach and pools. It was fabulous. Very clean, upgraded furnishings and beautiful wood trim.

On Monday at the hurricane briefing the staff was very reassuring and gave us some interesting statistics and information about their experience with Wilma. There had been no damage during those storms but people had evacuated to their shelters and without power afterwards. The Royals are a level 3 hurricane shelter themselves and they were awaiting word from the governor that they would not have to evacuate. The word came that we would not evacuate - although the Royals already had 5 shelters ready downtown for their guests outfitted with cots and food. The windows were boarded, coconuts removed, patio furniture placed inside each villa, windows taped and the place battened down. Penthouses and beachfronts guests were relocated to more inside and lower floor villas for the night. The curfew was put into effect at 9 pm and the elevators shut down. We did not loose power nor tv all night. Most of our group slept through the storm which was no worse than many bad storms in the upper midwest.

We awoke in the morning to find that there was a message on the answering machine from the staff stating that because the storm was not that serious the store at the Caribbean opened at 7 am for people's needs and the Tradewinds restaurant at the Caribbean opened at 8 am! The Palapa restaurant at the Mayan opened up at 3 pm!

The only visible damage to the resort was one palm tree in the pool area broke in half. Otherwise there was sand to sweep back onto the beach from the beachfront villas and a few palm fronds here and there to remove. By Thursday the patios had furniture, the windows were all untaped and washed, boards removed and everything back to normal. The beach did loose part of it's palapas and rocks are once more exposed. The beach reopened on Thursday afternoon.

All in all, the Royals were at 50% occupancy (the Royal Sands at 70%) during the storm. The staff was very comforting and the arrangements comprehensive and excellent.

Sorry this isn't a review as much about the resort - which we love and is gorgeous - but more about how they handled the storm but their efforts during this period tells you what type of staff they have ---- excellent.

Cheryl

I purchased a resale and 8/06 was my first stay there after years staying at Royal's Vacation Club International. Since I loved VCI, I was apprehensive about the change but loved the Mayan! The restaurants are great--the concierge was only so-so but then I have been going for so many years that may not be fair--bar is great--I'm leaving to return for 2 weeks 8/25 (if Hurricane Dean cooperates) and cannot wait--VCI is wonderful, the Sands is beautiful but a little too busy for oldsters like myself and the Mayan is fabulous--I don't think anyone would be disappointed.