We have been to the Mayan Palace there several times since moving to the Phoenix area in 2007 as we can drive there in just under 4 hours. Having a car is absolutely necessary as the resort is about 15 miles from the small town. If you are a golfer, there is a great golf course. The ocean there is gentle - no rolling waves. The beach is awesome! The Grand Mayan is fairly new and we walked around on the property to see it a couple of years ago - it has a lazy river on the GM side. There are just 2 restaurants on property & the Balche pool bar/lunch area. They do have an indoor heated pool. We went to take our grandson to the beach for spring and fall breaks and he loved it. He was 8 when we first took him there.
There is not much to do there. There are quite a few high-rise condos in the Sandy Beach area and the big tourist thing is to rent 4-wheelers and ride along the sand dunes. They are building a pier and say that there will be cruise ships docking there. That is pretty hard for me to believe because the downtown area has some restaurants and a bunch of shrimp sales places. They do not many shops to by souvenirs (that doesn't bother me).
We have rented condos at Sandy Beach and have a friend that owns a house in the La Cholla sub-division and have stayed there a few times. We preferred those options because they were closer to the restaurants.
If you just want to hang out on the beach and have a low key vacation, the GM there would be great. The way it is built, you would be able to see the ocean from both sides if you are on the 3rd floor or higher.
My neighbor went in March 2015 when the GM was just about to open and took some pictures for me. The unfinished building has been that way since we first went there in the fall of 2007. They take things down and put new ones up in that building all the time. It original was going to be the GM building. Now people have said it will have some GL units. Who knows - they change things all the time.
https://pittle.smugmug.com/Timeshare/Puerto-Penasco-March-2015 GM & Lazy River construction
https://pittle.smugmug.com/Timeshare/Rocky-Point-October-2012 MP iin October 2012
We went to take our grandson to the beach for spring and fall breaks and he loved it. He was 8 when we first took him and friend there.
They own miles of land and built an International airport near the resort that had flights from Vegas one year on Fridays, but that was discontinued. So, you must drive there from Phoenix.