We celebrated my father's 75th birthday there from 12/26/08 to 1/1/09. Our party consisted of three families, nine people, including a 2 year old and two teenagers (12 and 14). My thoughts:
1) Rooms are nice size suites and comfortable. Facility is generally well maintained though there were a few minor things that didn't work (A/C in our room occasionally froze up and would drip water on the floor, cleared up by shutting it off for a few hours while we were out). The speakerphone in the room kept picking up annoying static even when the phone was off. I just unplugged it (there were two other phones in the room). Our room safe didn't work. This is the only issue I chose to report and they immediately sent some one to fix it.
2) Pool was very nice but the water was on the cooler side. We found the pool bar and poolside cocktail service to be fine. We're not big drinkers so our standards may be lower than most.
3) Beach was nice for walking on and had fine grain white sand. There was a fair bit of sea weed washing up and some garbage in the water and on the shoreline. In the water, it was some what rocky. Compared to beaches in South Florida (Delay, Ft. Lauderdale, etc.), I thought this beach was a step down. Beaches in Hawaii are also much better but I didn't expect Cancun to be at that level. Bottom line, even though I like beaches and ocean/sea swimming, I mainly used the pool this trip. My 2.5 year old daughter did enjoy making sandcastles at the beach.
4) Housekeeping tended to run late in the day 3PM to 4PM. This was inconvenient for us because we wanted to be coming back from the pool about that time. They also sometimes forgot to do mini-bar service. A call to the front desk and they would send someone to do it quickly. Also if you left a note and told them what you wanted stocked (e.g. more water or a particular type of soda), they would generally give you what you asked for. I didn’t try asking for more beer so I don't know if they would do that.
5) Food is good but not wonderful. There reservation system for getting into all of the specialty non-buffet restaurants is atrocious. If you pay for a family concierge or royal service, you can book 7 days in advance. We didn't and we could only book 3 days in advance. Furthermore you have to go wait in a long line in the lobby to book the reservations. The result was some restaurants were totally sold out for our stay before we were eligible to make reservations. My step-mother had a long chat with the assistant GM and eventually got us into the Japanese Hibachi Restaurant which was sold-out.
During out stay we ate dinner at the Japanese Hibachi Restaurant, the Steak Restaurant, a Beach Party, and the New Year's Eve Dinner Dance in the Ballroom. The latter two were just special incantations of the standard buffer though they did go all out for New Year's Eve putting out a great spread including shrimp cocktail and mussels. The Beach Party was also a lot of fun
In all of the restaurants service was mixed ranging from very attentive and great to glacially slow. While not required, a few well spread dollars for tips can go a long way to improving the service you receive.
6) Royal Services gets you access to an adult’s only pool and some better chairs on the beach and butler service. Family Service is similar but with a family concierge to assist you. From the folks we spoke to, no one was impressed with neither the Royal Service nor the Family Concierge. I.e. save your money unless you want to go to an adult’s only pool with slightly better liquor.
Overall we enjoyed our stay here and had a nice time celebrating my father's birthday. We did not feel it was good value for the money. Granted we were their one of the absolute peak weeks of the year. Even taking that into account we didn't feel it was a good value.
I suspect some of the mixed service and other minor bumps are just indicative of the typical service levels in Cancun and Mexico. E.g. I got the sense other properties would have similar bumps. If you go with that expectation in mind, you should have a good experience.
--Jon
P.S. If you’re leaving from CUN airport at a peak time (e.g. mid morning to early afternoon), I highly recommend you arrive at least three hours before flight time unless you’re preferred or flying first class. Even then I would still arrive at least two hours before any way. We arrived almost two hours before our flight and barely made our plane. My father and step-mother had a similar experience (our flights were at 1PM and 2PM). My sister who had an early morning flight (10AM) breezed though the airport in no time flat and had lots of time to spare.