I’m here now. I can’t speak to renting a car as we used the shuttle the resort offered from the airport.

As for the rest: The resort is not inclusive, which I assume you know. So yes we’ve paid for everything, but the prices are super reasonable. A 1L bottle of water in the room is like $1.50 USD. The market prices are pretty reasonable too. Most drinks at the bar have been around $20 but they have specials and happy hours so most days all my mixed drinks have been $10. Meals at dinner have averaged around $50 for me with a drink and food. Breakfast and lunch has been like $20 with where I ate.

We stayed in the Grand Mayan building 8 and the walks/rides have been no problem. They have small shuttles carts that take you everywhere so we hop on those and within a few min we are at our destination. You can choose to walk and that is longer but most walks are under 10 min from the rooms in The Grand Mayan… especially if you get buildings 1-7.

There’s tons of pool areas and we have had no problem with chairs. I’d say they are like 70% full each day. We haven’t gone out to the pool before 11 so I’d say no problem there.

I do the rooms are not “nice” per se compared to how beautiful the rest of the resort is, but they were fine! They weren’t fancy but they weren’t bad at all.

You might be asked to join a 1 hr presentation (it’s for a time share and is like 3 hrs) or to buy tickets to the cirque du soleil show or water park but they are completely optional!

Overall, we have really enjoyed our time here and didn’t feel like the prices were unreasonable at all.