I stayed here with my best friend from High School for her 39th b-day. I arrived a day ahead and she arrived the following day.

The hotel is gorgeous as the photo's I posted here show. Lots of space, pyramid design with marble floors and walls.

To settle something quick - there really isn't any AC inside because the top of the pyramid is all glass, so you have the sun coming down. The area where you check - in has 3 sliding glass doors and to go to the pool area is also sliding glass doors. They are constantly opening and closing, so there's no way to really cool the place down. That being said...

I was there from June 7th - 11th, 2008. It was very empty, maybe 1/4 full if that. Never had a problem getting a spot under the cabana huts at the pool, even during lunch. Food was good, but only during breakfast is there a buffet. None of the other restaurants had a buffet. No stomach issues since its bottled water everywhere you go and look.

They had several shops, a general store type thing where you can get just about everything including a Internet cafe ($5 for 15 minutes), a tobacco shop where they guy rolled cigars right in front of you, a jewerly shop which was highly inexpensive compared to the prices at La Isla mall, another touristy shop with t-shirts & such. So there were places to shop for stuff. There's also a Expedia travel area (Yes, EXPEDIA....DOT COMMMM!!) where you make reservations for trips & whatever travel needs you want.

The restaurants are all on the bottom floors, didn't see many at the Mexican restaurant, but then again, the hotel was not busy.

Ok - here's the deal with the "timeshare". When you first walk in, immediately on your right is check-in. If you look straight ahead, you will see 2 tables on either side of a staircase. THIS is the point share area.

To avoid them, immediately as you step away from the check-in counter, a woman will try to bring you to an area to receive your free "welcome" gift. It's just some spa stuff, bubble bath, bath gel & something else. Tell the people at the "timeshare" desk you are not interested. Do not let them wheel & deal you. They will be nice though about it. Those folks get points for being able to sign you up to meet with someone.
It's not a timeshare per say, its a point system. And its only good for the Melia hotels which do not exist in the United States since they have no interest in trying to get into the Western market. They are basically Caribbean & Europe based hotels, but not many because its very upscale. So you use points to stay at these (or others) so you aren't locked for a week, you would use points for staying say 2 day or 3 days or however long.
I had nothing to do & didn't want to pay for an excursion, so they pay for breakfast (following day) and you listen to the guy yap gab about the Melia hotels. I got $70 towards any trip I wanted to take. It's a coupon, so you go to the Expedia travel area and book it through them. Hey, you won't find $70 in the street down there!

It's extremely safe down there, there's security all over watching so you don't have to worry about anything. There's no street bums & such. Bus goes everywhere.

If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask me. The below poster pretty much summed up the hotel & stuff. I would stay there again in a heartbeat!

Well, we originally booked a room at the Ritz and then had "buyer's remorse" so we canceled it and booked a room at the Gran Melia. WHAT A MISTAKE!!!!!!
If you want air conditioning and a room without a mold smell, do not bother to book a room here. Due to the enormous amounts of hanging plants in the 5 buildings on the property, they cannot use air conditioning in the main areas or the plants will die. Well, this equates to VERY humid and hot conditions in the hotel. When we checked in, we walked in the hotel and almost were stifled by the heat. The check-in line was terribly long and everyone was glistening. I thought maybe the A/C was broken or this is just how things worked in Mexican Hotels. Boy, was I wrong. We booked a room in the Royal Service section of the hotel. DO NOT DO THIS! It is a rip-off! The rooms are small and musty. The Royal Service building and pool are deserted. The snacks and breakfast are not worth it. It takes FOREVER to get from the Hotel to the street.
We were miserable so we walked down the Hotel strip to find another place to stay. After enetering these Hotels, we realized just HOW BAD the Gran Melia really was. We went to the JW Marriott, Le Meridien, and the Ritz Carlton and they were all magnificent. We asked to see rooms in each and were allowed to except the Ritz, which was at 100% occupancy (we were kicking ourselves that we had canceled our reservation here). We ended up getting a room at the Le Meridien-pure perfection. We ate several meals at the Ritz and the Marriott and have nothing but wonderful remarks.
Anyway, DO NOT STAY AT THE GRAN MELIA if you have any allergies, asthma, or any upper respiratory conditions. After 20 minutes, I was wheezing and had a scratchy throat. My nose was running and I had a headache. It was horrible. When we went back after investigating the other hotels and told them why we wanted to cancel our reservation, even the receptionist agreed that her allergies are awful when she is there. I couldn't believe it!

The truth is that we paid WAY less and had 100% better accommodations at the Le Meridien. The rest of the trip was incredible and leaving the Gran Melia (which we coined the "Mal Melia", mal meaning "bad" in Spanish) was the best decision we could have made.

This place is huge so we actually had a little bit of trouble finding our room the first time, but we enjoyed exploring so it was okay. I was very impressed with the lush tropical lobby/atrium. There are even koi fish swimming around and there are vines dangling down from every level. The rooms were very comfortable and nice and the bathrooms have some interesting perks that I have never encountered before (I will keep it a mystery because I don't know how to spell it, and because it is a funny surprise). They had live music by the bar which has great lounge areas and big windows overlooking the pool and ocean. We really liked the pool, but the beach was a little small, but it could have been high tide or something. We really liked the brunch and it was nice because it can get a little windy, but the brunch had indoor seating, yet it felt like we were outside because of the floor to ceiling windows. We would definitely reccommend this hotel because it is good value for the price. It seems that there are lots of choices and it would be fun to check more of the different hotels, but this one is a sure bet.

I stayed at this resort during April 2008 for 9 days. The first 3 nights I had a double bed room (although I was a lone). The hotel was fully booked due to some convention. The resort was really crowded (Pool and Beach also). After the end of the convention It was really quiet and I changed the room to a king size bed. The total no. of people in the pool was 8 including me. I felt that I was alone in the pool and that was really nice. There is a safe in the room.

Service was excellent. They really put a lot of effort in making the resort up to date. Whenever I complaint of something (like the hair dryer was not working) they immediately send someone.

When you go out of the hotel you need to watch for the stairs (not good for old people). In front of the hotel is McDonalds (if you are interested in fast food, I am not) and Aquaworld for trips and diving cruises. Prices of food and drinks are much higher than outside the resort (well this is the case in every hotel in Cancun)

Taking the bus is a nice SAFE experience (R1 and R2) will take you the city center and it will cost 6.5 pesos ($ 1 = 11 pesos).

I went for diving with "Solo Buceo" dive center at Dream hotel. I got my dive certificate from them “Check for Jurie the dive master he is THE BEST". The experience was awesome.

Overall all I had a very nice time at this resort and definitely will come back.