Grand Residences by Royal Resorts

The resort and its setting

Grand Residences by Royal Resorts is a beachfront property in Puerto Morelos, part of the Holiday Inn Club Vacations family. Guests consistently rate it highly (4.6/5 from over 1,270 Google reviews), and the overall picture is of a well-kept, beachfront complex with suites that have their own terraces, a couple of pools, on-site dining, and direct access to a private stretch of beach. It's the kind of resort built for owners who want a proper terrace to sit on in the morning and a beach they don't have to walk far to reach, rather than a high-rise tower stacked with rooms.

The area and things to do

Puerto Morelos is smaller and considerably quieter than Cancun's Hotel Zone or downtown Playa del Carmen, and that's largely the point for people who choose it. The town still has a working fishing fleet, a laid-back plaza, and a reef just offshore that's part of the same protected system as Cancun's — popular for snorkelling trips organised locally. It's a short drive up the coast to Cancun's airport and hotel strip, and a short drive down to Playa del Carmen if owners or renters want a livelier night out, bigger shopping, or the ferry to Cozumel. Inland, the Riviera Maya's cenotes and Mayan sites are within easy reach for a day trip.

Selling or renting a week here

If you own a week at Grand Residences and are weighing up selling it or renting it out, it helps to understand how resale actually works with Holiday Inn Club Vacations before you price anything.

According to Holiday Inn Club Vacations, the company does not publish a standard resale transfer fee — the $1,200 figure you'll sometimes see quoted on its own Horizons page is an exit fee for leaving the system through the company, not a fee for transferring ownership to a private buyer. Typical transfer times aren't published either, so build some flexibility into your sale timeline and confirm current costs directly with the company before you commit to a price.

Owners also report that Holiday Inn Club Vacations holds a right of first refusal on resales, meaning the company can step in and match a sale before it goes through to your buyer. And where a deeded week has been converted to points, owners report that those points revert to the original fixed deeded week on resale — except at three resorts (South Beach, Lake Geneva, and Gatlinburg/Smoky Mountain), which aren't affected by this. Grand Residences isn't one of the exceptions, so a buyer here should expect to take over the underlying deeded week rather than a points balance.

On RCI, which is the verified exchange network for this resort, a resale buyer should confirm with the resort or the exchange company whether their specific contract carries exchange privileges, since this can vary depending on how the week was originally set up.

On BidMyTimeshare.com, listing is a private, owner-to-owner resale: you set your own asking price, buyers contact you directly through the platform, and there's no commission taken on the sale — just a one-time listing fee to get your week in front of buyers. The same applies if you'd rather rent out a week instead of selling outright; just be upfront with renters about what is and isn't included, since Puerto Morelos draws people specifically for its slower pace, so renters here tend to ask about terrace views, beach access, and proximity to the reef rather than nightlife.

Practical notes

Before listing or buying, get the current annual maintenance fee in writing from the seller or the resort, since this isn't something either party should guess at. Buyers should also ask specifically whether the week being sold is a fixed deeded week and confirm this matches what's stated above, given the points-reversion policy that applies at this resort.