My wife and I just returned from a weeks stay at the Royal Sands (Apr 5 -Apr12). We had a bonus week from Interval we used to book a lock-off room.

We arrived at the resort at approx 10pm Sat, at which time there was only one person checking people in even though they had 3 others behind the counter working on who knows what. After traveling all day the last thing you want to do is have to wait to check-in. There was some sort of problem with the people's reservation in line ahead of us so we had to wait around 20 minutes for our turn. Once you check in, your room key card can be used in the restaurants, market, etc. By the way, they don't accept American Express, only Mastercard or Visa.

The Royal Sands timeshare check-ins are on Sundays. A nice feature of the Royal Resorts is that they assign a personal concierge to you. Another nice feature is daily maid and towel service. On Sunday morning you'll receive an invitation to attend an orientation meeting at 9am. We left our room to have breakfast really early so we missed the invitation but stumbled up on the meeting and later found out about the personal concierge and met him. It's always a good idea to attend these orientation meetings at timeshares as they're quite helpful.

The Veranda restaurant is the main restaurant of this resort and the food there is good to very good. They have indoor and outdoor dining and we had some breakfasts, lunches and dinners there.


There are four Royal Resorts in Cancun and there are shuttle buses that travel throughout the day between them all on a regular schedule. We took it one night to the Royal Mayan resort and had dinner at the La Palapa restaurant, the food was average to good (large portions like a diner) and the cost was fairly low. They gave us someone else's dinner check which we were able to have them correct pretty fast. They don't seem to be as well organized as The Veranda restaurant.

We took the shuttle to Captains Cove which is a Royal Resorts (RR) off premise restaurant. Next door is Poncho Willey's which is also a RR property. Poncho Willey's is a Nightclub and they have a live band on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights. The other nights their DJ (Chubby) plays music videos on a large screen and people sing Karaoke. The live band, "Flashback" is awesome so you really should make it a point to see them. Speaking of Bands we had dinner one night at the Hard Rock Cafe and the band playing there was purely hard rock and while good, not as good (in my opinion) as Flashback.

To get to the Hard Rock Cafe simply take the bus which costs 70 peso which is 70 cents. The buses run every 5 to 10 minutes so there's never a long wait. The Hard Rock cafe is located in the Spring Break Party Central area, you can't miss it, even during the day. At night the area is all lite up and packed with kids.

We also ate a Bubba Gumps which is closer up the strip and there's a small mall and other nightclubs and restaurants (Outback). I think this area is called "Flamingo shopping center".

Even closer by bus (2 minutes) is La Isla outdoor (shaded) shopping mall with lots of stores and restaurants. We ate a Mr Papas (good-very good), Chili's (Good - very good) and Come"N Eat (Good - very good). There's also an small Aquarium at this mall that has a daily 6pm Dolphin show. The entrance fee is approx $11-12 and the show is around 15 minutes. They have a large Shark Tank with a huge glass wall and they feed the sharks after the Dolphin show to entertain the crowd.

Back to the Resort - There's a HUGE main pool in Phase one and that's where all the action is. There are also nice pools in Phase two but that area is more quiet. Phase one has two pool bars and phase two has one.

There's not much beach left because of the Hurricane they had in 2005 and the water was rough for the entire week we were there. Every time I went into the water the waves pounded me. The natives told me the ocean is calmer in the summer months.

We did a Thomas Moore day drip to the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza where the pig pyramid is. It cost $99 each and it goes on Weds. morning at 7pm. It took a couple of hours to get there and the tour guide spent about an hour showing us around. (No one is allowed to climb the Pyramid or other ruins any more). Afterwards they gave us around 45 minutes on our own to explore the ruins which wasn't much time as it's a large site.
When we got back to the bus it was past the usual launch hour and everyone was hungry and hot. Before feeding us they took us to a sink hole where you could swim if you felt like going down 100 steps and then you had to jump in as there was no shallow part. We and some others only watched but it looked refreshing. We were finally taken for lunch at a Mexican type cafeteria that included traditional Mexican dance show at 3pm. We ate there and left around 4pm and were back at the Royal Sands by 6pm.

I complained later to the Thomas Moore desk in the resort that we didn't have enough time at the ruins to explore on our own and that it was ridiculous to be given lunch so late in the afternoon. In addition we were told we'd be back at the resort between 7 and 7:30pm so it's obvious we were rushed out of the ruins site. If you book this tour at the resort you may encounter the same issues so be warned. By the way I wouldn't recommend you drive on your own to the ruins because at one of the tolls on the way back we had to go through a military checkpoint with armed soldiers and one manning a machine gun on top of an Humvee! The cars ahead of us were stopped where as we were waved through on the bus.

The best restaurant we at at was the Laguna where the food was excellent. The prices were somewhat higher than the other restaurants I mentioned but not too bad. You can take the city bus heading towards the direction of Poncho Willey's and it's half way on the way (5 minute ride).

There's a Wal-mart in the downtown area and you can take the bus there too. It's two blocks from the bus stop. People buying food because they had units with kitchens typically take the bus there and take a taxi back for approx $10. There's also on permanent flea market type market near Walmart called Mercardo 28 where they sell tourist items. Only thing is the vendors are annoying as they are constantly trying to get you to buy something. This area, downtown Cancun, where Walmart and the Mercardo are located looks like an economically depressed area and walking though it made me a little nervous. So be sure your concierge gives you a street map an explains to you where you should go. It's easy to get lost there.

At the resort they have wireless internet access next to the market near the lobby area. There also a very nice laundry-mat with a full time attendant on the other side of the lobby area. They even have an on-site doctor just in case. I think the biggest complaint we had was that the beds were hard. It took some getting used to but you do get used to them.

A 5 minute walk (north) will take you to very nice indoor shopping mall. In addition to stores there's also a place for bowling,shooting pool and playing slot machines. We spent time in this mall on our last day because we got sunburned and had to stay out of this sun.

Lastly, the Royal Sands concierge will try to get you to attend a sales pitch for surplus units in the Royal Sands (not that many) and units in their new resort, the Royal Haciendas which located south of Cancun in an area called the Mayan Riviera. We did have lunch with one of their sales reps., Jennifer, who is a lovely young lady and it was a pleasure to meet her and have lunch together. We weren't looking to buy another timeshare at this time. Lunch was about 60-70 minutes and then we spent another 50 minutes or so looking at the model units. So if you don't mind spending a couple of hours in the afternoon the resort will probably buy you a nice lunch even if you're not ready to buy. They also had other group sales events (parties) which we didn't attend.

BTW, every day was sunny, hot and humid.

Part of this hotel's deal is that it's a time shared property and so many of the people who stay here purchased time shares or are renting from people who own time shares there. It's a nice hotel but the features aren't all it's crack up to be. The owners house next door is sweet in comparison :-). But really the good does outway the bad here and you get a pretty good deal. The food in the hotel is okay but the long lines to get a seat will discourage you from waiting. There isn't much to do down on this end but it's not too far to walk to the main attractions, which really should be the beach I guess, but here the water is really rough so opt for the pool or to sunbathe. It is a very family oriented hotel so if your looking for to go here for spring break this is not the place to party. The rooms are very basic in accomodations with some nicer features then you would find at the holiday inn. The most impressive features here are the pool, the convenience store downstairs and the lobby.

We are a family of 6 who have limited choices, and of course the Royal sands comes to the top with 2 BR villas. It was a great experience. Many have said that spring break in cancun is crazy, but we found it to be quiet and quite relaxing. Royal sands service is great. Our housekeeper has been there 4 years and was proud to be there. It was the same everywhere in the property. We always go different places, but this was absolutely great. We appreciated 2nd floor accomodations as it was easy to run up and down the stairs as opposed to elevators...the "loud" pool was not loud at all.
Great place

We just returned from The Royal Sands, we were there from April 5 – 12. Let me start by saying that I spent about 2 months on Trip Advisor doing research about the Royal Resorts and Cancun. I felt that I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and my expectations were high. I would say that all of my expectations were exceeded by a long shot.
We arrived in Cancun from San Francisco; we got to experience the new Terminal 3 at the airport. My research pointed to the fact that the bottle neck at the airport would be waiting for our luggage at baggage claim so we packed light and carried our luggage on the plane. Therefore we breezed through the Immigration section, bypassed the baggage claim, got a green light in Customs and were on the Thomas More Van and off to The Royal Sands within 43 minutes of landing. On the way to the resort our van mates were 3 couples who had been coming to the Royal Resorts for 20 years, 12 years and 6 years respectfully, their conversations reassured me that we had made an excellent decision about our resort choice.
After 2 quick stops to drop-off the folks at the Royal Mayan and the Royal Caribbean we drove up to the Royal Sands, we were greeted by a valet with “Welcome Home”, As we strolled into the lobby a smiling greeter asked our name and checked his clip board, he pointed out that we were in the Phase II section of the resort and that we could catch a ride around to the Garden Lobby if we would like. As my wife was handed 2 bottles of ice cold water I said we would rather walk through the pool area in Phase I to see everything first. I got us a little lost trying to find the Garden Lobby, but lucky for me my wife was preoccupied with the beauty of the ocean and the tropical breezes. After a self imposed tour of the resort we found the lobby and were greeted again with “Welcome Home”. The check-in was effortless, I need to inject here that I was a quite nervous about the check-in process because we had rented our week from an owner through Redweek.com and had only corresponded via email. As promised by the owner everything would be OK and thankfully is was.
As we opened the door to our beachfront villa the view from our 3rd story balconies was breathtaking, the color of the water was an awesome turquoise. We whipped open both sets of balcony doors and hardly ever closed them for the whole week. We read, ate and slept to the sound of the ocean crashing on the beach.
Although there are other resorts in Cancun that are more exciting to look at, with fancy columns and bric-a-brac architectural details; I can promise you that the Royal Resorts are about function over form, the company puts their time and money into the overall quality of the rooms and the restaurants and other offering around the resort rather than in the un-necessary fluff on the outside of the buildings.
Over the course of the week we walked down to the Tri-Royals (the Mayan, the Caribbean and the Islander) to enjoy their restaurants and activities. We also took the free shuttle to the CIC (Club Internacional de Cancun) for a change of pace, the ocean there is placid and it is like swimming in a pool. All of the resorts restaurants serve the same type of cuisine, but it is always fresh and well served. We thoroughly enjoyed our final nights meal and the Haciendas Sisal just across the parking lot from the Sands. The Spa at the Sands delivered an entire morning of pleasure for my wife on her birthday. She raved about the Hot Stone Massage all afternoon. The onsite Market was very well equipped and the prices were offset by the convenience. The activities offered in the Activities Center and by the Phase I pool were fun to watch and participate in. We took Salsa Dancing lesson from Pepe (who my wife really enjoyed dancing with) and the high point of the things to do for us became the Ceramics Painting. I had no idea we were so talented, I ended up having to get a shoulder bag from the interval timeshare sales office to take home all of the wonderful treasures we painted all week.
The overall experience at the Royal Sands was so bombastic that all I have been doing since our return to shop online for owners selling their weeks at the Sands so that we can become loyal owners like our bus mates and tell folks we meet about our “Home Away From Home in Cancun at The Royal Sands”. Go as soon as you can and be amazed.