The Royal Sands Reviews & Ratings

Our family has been with Royal Resorts in Cancun since inception in the mid 80's. This is the finest resort in Cancun as far as service, quality of the facility, staff, restaurants and every other detail.

The Royal Sands has the best exercise facility and spa of any of the resorts we have been to. We used to go to luxury hotels but the Sands spa is the best and a must for your visit. Very kid friendly but they do a good job with making areas for adults too.

The other nice thing about the Royal Resorts is you can use the facilities at any of the 5 resorts in Cancun or the one Playa del Carmen and use your club card the same as if you were at the home resort.

I spend two weeks every year at this resort. All I can say is INCREDIBLE. A must see and stay.

The best vacation you'll ever experience! The rooms are clean and beautifully decorated. Rooms offer an awesome view of the Caribbean and the pools. Wake up early and enjoy the sunrise!

A week at the Royal Sands is like a week in paradise. The Royal Resorts look brand new everytime we go. The staff is unusually friendly and out to please. The new beach is gorgeous and huge!!! The Spa is a wonderful place to recharge. As soon as the plane hits the ground, your mind switches to vacation mode. It is my favorite place to really relax and join in on all of the activities. A wonderful week for all ages.

Our family of five stayed at the Royal Sands for Christmas week 2009/10. We had the unlucky once in a lifetime experience of being without a beach for 4 days . But the beach was replaced from hurricane damage and is better than ever. Weather in Cancun isnt great, Ive been watching it for 3 mths since our return. Its very chilly and windy most nights so bring jackets or light sweaters, sweatshirts. Rained a couple of solid days and was nice after that high of 78-90. whereas it was sunny every single day on the weather reports on tv in puerta vallarta. even now in Feb, its in the 60's and cloudy in Cancun. The Royal Sands is well maintained with a grocery store and restaurants, good service. The rooms are well kept and clean, but not modern. They are a little dated but very clean and spacious. I overpaid for my timeshare rental . Please note. EVERY room in this resort has an Ocean view. SOme are Ocean front. There is no bad view. SO dont overpay for a view! Of the Royals, my preference would be the Haciendas which is brand new and very authentic decor, granite kitchens, hottubs and very nice. its 20-30 min from the Sands and the units rent for less. The Sands was like staying in Florida.

DON'T try to put 4 people in the lock off! Even though there are two double beds you will pay extra for putting 2 people to a bed. I went last year with my daughter, her friends, and my two friends. Eight people total. The front desk clerk was very hostile when I told her we had eight people. We argued for quite awhile. I don't understand why a villa with one king, two single beds and two double beds can't fit eight people....but don't try it-they'll get your money! When my husband and I bought into the royal sands we thought it would be great for our family. The problem is, our kids can't bring any friends because according to the royal sands, our villa is maxed with six people. Very irritating. You'd think for the $30k we paid for the timeshare, they'd be a little more reasonable.

royal sands is the best. I am so glad my family bought this

i love everything about this, expecially the SPA its wonderful. i would go as often as i can the people are wonderful, they fulfill all our needs. the villa are beautiful we have oceanfront The food is excellent. the breakfeast buffet are great. I can bragg for pages and pages. you must see for yourself.

visit Royal Sands and never go anywhere else.

This resort is absolutely fantastic. The staff is the nicest that I have ever experienced anywhere. The place is immaculate. Beautiful gardens. I love the onsite grocery store. Has everything you could possibly want at extremely reasonable prices. The restaurant has delicious food; again at extremely reasonable prices. I loved the terrace on each unit. They are huge and its like having an extra room. The pools are great, the beach is wonderful. I have traveled a great deal and there is absolutely nothing I could find to complain about. Loved it!!!!

We love the Royal Sands! We stayed in Phase 2 the first week and Phase 1 the second week. The furniture, kitchen appliances and TV's had been updated. We vacationed 11/29 thru 12/13. Weeks 48 & 49 before school vacation.

The beach was beautiful & beach chairs have been replaced and there were many new palapa's for shade on the beach and around the pools. The service and restaurants are the very best and also the restaurants on the Blvd. have always been wonderful.

The spa and exercise facilities are top notch. There's nothing to complain about when staying in any Royal Resorts, if you have a complaint they will make it right.

This is one of the finest 5 star resorts in Cancan. Always a pleasure to visit.

We love the Sands, we stayed here 3 times in the past 2 years, both in Phase I and Phase II. Phase II is more quiet than Phase I and a little newer.

What we love about Royal Resorts is customer service - impeccable - and how clean the resorts and units are. The grounds are beautiful, the pools are very big, and the access to the beach is easy, although the beach is very narrow in all of the Cancun hotel zone after the last hurricane few years back. The beach will naturally come back as the sea retracts at some point, but noone knows when - it's all up to nature. They tried to bring sand in and spent lots of money doing that, and the sea just took the sand away.

To summarize the good: excellent customer service, beautiful grounds with large pools, fun atmosphere for families, the balconies are large and all have at least a partial oceanview, maid service is daily except Sunday and holidays (many timeshares have cleaning service once a week), easy access to the beach, good location within short distance of Kukulcan Mall and other hotels/shops/restaurants in the Cancun hotel zone, great exchange rate (better than outside the resort), decently priced grocery store on site, easy to get on the bus to go shopping for groceries at Walmart, Sams, Mega or Costco (just take a cab back).

Some downsides: furniture really needs updating, kitchen appliances are particularly outdated, TVs are small-screen and old, the beach chairs need replacement (they are cheap plastic and snap out of their position, plus they do not recline all the way making it hard to lay on your belly), the beach is rocky but again this is not the resort's fault (walk over to JW Marriott Beach to the right, that's a nice piece of beach with no rocks and nice waves to play in), the food at the restaurants on the property is mediocre (walk over to Hacienda Sisal next door, their food is awesome). The couches in the lobby have a strong smell too, they need replacement or a hefty cleaning.

There were a lot of kids on the property when we went Thanksgiving 2008, and many parents just let them scream without bothering, a lot of other couples felt quite annoyed by that. If you are without kids, you may want to try instead the Royal Haciendas, the newest Royal Resort in Mexico, which is on the Riviera Maya, those apartments are new and gorgeous (very high end), the beach is beautiful (although there are still rocks in the water) - we found the Haciendas more quiet and relaxing. The Haciendas are a 15 minute shuttle ride to Playa del Carmen.

Also, this depends on your taste, both the Sands and Haciendas have very hard beds, which we adore.

Internet is free but you can only access it in the lobby, so it was a hassle to bring the laptop downstairs all the time from our ninth floor apartment. The Haciendas has free wireless in the room, although the connection is somewhat slow.

There is one thing I would like to mention for all the folks. The timeshare staff - your concierge in particular - are awesome people who often work 14 hour days 7 days a week for a handful of dollars, and their income depends on being able to bring you downstairs to the timeshare presentation. Since we come here for years we made close friends with some sales and concierge staff - we go out with them, keep in touch, etc. This year when we went it was worse than ever - our friends were so tired and overworked and underpaid, and they don't make money unless they can bring 80% of all apartments occupants to the timeshare presentation\sales person you are assigned to. At least stop by your sales person and say hi if you don't want to attend their sales presentation (although you may want to hear about the Haciendas or go see it, it is beautiful - this is their latest property they are still building out and selling); it will help your concierge a lot. We felt disappointed by Royal Resorts that they work the staff so hard and pay them so poorly - a lot of staff left this past year due to the conditions, many went to work at the new timeshare Westin Lagunamar resort which is just opening.

Overall, the Sands and Haciendas are still the top two timeshare resorts we have ever been to, and we do travel a lot. Highly recommended despite minor glitches mentioned above.

Just returned from a two week stay at the Sands. Service is outstanding as usual! The restaurant food was good; however, we enjoyed dining at the Royal Caribbean, Bubba Gumps, The Italian restaurant in the mall and Puerto Madero....pricing but worth the $$$. The beaches are supposed to be restored in the fall which will be great. We had a storm while we were there and some of the palapas on the beach came down but there are still plenty and the sand on the beach is still as fine as sugar. Cancun continues to recover from the hurricane Wilma and restaurants and condos are going up everywhere. Shopping is still best downtown at Walmat-foor food and anything else you need. The staff is sill the best-Javier is an excellent Sr. Bell Boy, always focusing on the customer's needs.

We stayed at the Royal Sands from Dec 29 - January 5 with our 3 children raning in ages from 8-5.

The resort arranged our pickup from the airport was seamless and checkin took less than 10 minutes. We had a 2BR lockoff and each room has an oceanview. The rooms were huge, nice kitchen, nice family room. The master bedroom and bath were spacious. The lockoff bedroom had two double beds and a bath (there was no kitchen in the lockoff unit). The family room had two pull down beds that were hidden very well.

The pools are the major attraction at the resort. One area is huge and about 30 feet from the ocean. There is a smaller pool in Phase II. Both pools have swim up bars and food is served in the pool area.

There are activities for adults and kids, although that's one area that could probably use a bit more diversity.

The restaurant at the Royal Sands La Veranda has received some negative reviews in the past, but we loved it. It was affordable and the food was good (try the Chicken and Lime soup).

The market in the resort itself is a little more expensive, but you can't beat the convenience.

The only downside is that there isn't much swimmable beach area, especially when the wind is blowing. Of course we checked out the other Royal Resort locations and their beaches were very rocky.

If we decided to go back to Cancun, we'd definitely look to stay at the Royal Sands again.

We've been going to Cancun for a decade and bought a time share in the Royal Sands when it first opened. Never one regret! Right in the middle of the hotel strip. Plenty to do.

Stay for seven days in the lock-off unit (hotel room). Place is well tended (clean and attractive and the hotel room was roomy and had plenty of closet space.

Was surprised not to find a coffee maker or microwave in the room. Or shampoo/conditioners or soap in the bathroom. And there is no maid service on Sundays.

Otherwise staff is very friendly and helpfull. Recieved two calls from our personal concierge (timeshare salesperson) but we where left alone when I made it clear that I was on vacation and with no intent on purchasing. The facility is located close to La Isla and Kukulcan (upscale) malls. The pool and grounds are kept immaculate.

Awesome, this place Rocks. Gorgeous view from every room. Great friendly service. Beautiful sand and pools. We WILL be back. May 2006 Vickie Kuhnley

Vacationed with friends during the week of March 24, 2007. Everything was perfect. Fantastic pools, nice affordable restaurants, fun Sunday welcome party (Free beer, dancing, limbo, etc. for 2 hours). It never feels crowded except on check in day on Saturdays. Very friendly and helpful staff. Make sure you take lots of one dollar bills for tips.

After renting for two years, we bought a week and have been going ever since. The property is simply beautiful. The facilities are exceptional. And kids absolutely love the heated pools.

The Royal Resorts are always among the highest rated timeshares. They are well maintained, clean and spacious, but not really a 5 star.(I think of Ritz quality as a 5 star) Not the place to be for quite as it is a noisy, crowded timeshare. There are several social activities. You need to get to the pool early to get a poolside chaise. The Sands, I think, is the newest and nicest in Cancun (though the Haciendas in the Rivera Maya is newer and nicer). The terraces are huge and excellent. The furniture is a little sparce and used. There are two huge pools, spacious but not interesting, not hot tub for such a large resort. Food is reasonably priced, a nice spa if you want one. The beach is great since the sand has been pumped in after the last hurricane.