We reviewed this hotel and had a lot of mixed reviews prior to going. I must say my wife and I were pleasantly please with the staff and accommodations. Everyone was always attentive and helpful. We originally got a two bed room and asked for a king and they were very gracious and changed us right away. The staff seems to want to please you and will go out of there way to be helpful.
Our only draw back was a lack of beach, but this in not only this hotel but most of the hotels on this part of the strip. It seems that the last few hurricanes have washed away a good portion of the beach, but we still had access and were able to go swimming in the ocean. There pool is very nice and you sit right by the ocean and can have drinks and take in the views like your sitting on the beach.
I would not opt to get the all inclusive since there are so many great restaurants in Cancun that are so good and cheap. We did have breakfast included and I must say it is a very nice spread and if you can have this included in your package for free I would do it.
Its location on the strip is very good just in the middle of the strip allowing easy access to either end with a small bus fare.
Once again for the price it is above norms and a very nice place to stay.
We would stay here again and would recommend it to our friends.

This hotel could be so much more. It is marketed as a '4.5 Star All-Inclusive' but is really a 2.5 Star semi-inclusive. They would be much better off taking away the all inclusive option (note: if you book here you can choose the non-all inclusive option do so!). This could be a lovely boutique hotel offering large clean rooms to couples. They have one decent buffet restaurant and another Mexican themed buffet which is open a couple of days a week. It gets pretty tired after a couple of days and one really wants to escape and enjoy other dining options in the area. The sunsets (due to a tower next door) on the pool area at 3:30 in the afternoon. The bar closes at 11:00 pm. They do have a basic room service 24 hours but no booze. No entertainment and here's the big downer - it sits right on the beautiful Cancun Beach but they have access! It's boarded off because the beach washed way (in 2005) so you can't get to the beach! If Cancun wasn't such a tourist trap I would love to go back to this hotel with my wife and have a nice romantic holiday. However, I would certainly not take the all-inclusive. The cheap watered down drinks and limited food is not worth it. That said the staff try really hard, they just have to deal with a poorly manged hotel and the rooms, hotel itself are very clean. Unfortunately, I have to say, save your money and go to Florida - Cancun is an over priced tourist trap and this hotel was a big disappointment!

We visited Cancun the last week in January. This is an excellent time to go if you want to relax, but still want to go out in the evening to a few of the bars without them being wall to wall and filled with drunk college students.
I was very nervous about going to the Avalon Grand because of some of the reviews I read. I was put at easy as soon as we got there. The check in was very quick. Our bags were taken up to the room for us and we had a quck meeting with the concierge who helped us out tremedously. She gave gave us some maps and reviewed them with us. It gave us many ideas of stuff to do and what not to do. It was definatly worth the 10 minutes it took. Ask as many questions as you want.
The room had one king size bed and was large and clean. The view was beautiful despite the fact we were on the lagoon side. The view was of the lagoon and the shopping mall that was across the street. There is a save in the room which is locked with a key you carry around so that nothing gets stolen. Just like in the USA, don't leave money or jewerley around in your room. Of course it will get stollen. We had no issues with our belongings being stolen.
We did have an issue with the air condition in our room. It was TOO COLD!!! I contaced the front desk and within 5 minutes someone was in our room to fix it. Well we though to fix it. The next morning it was below 60 in our room. So we called the from desk and he came up again to fix it. That afternoon it was over 80 in our room, and it wouldn't get colder. I went to the front desk and they immediatly without any questions said that I needed a new room, and that someone would be up to my room to take our bags to a SUIET with no extra charge. We had no issues at all after that.
The food was average. Nothing spetacular like lobster and scallops, but if that is what you wanted, then this was not the hotel for you. The food was good. You had 3 different hotels that you could go and eat at which was included in the all-inclusive price. Buffet style for breakfast and dinner. Order off the menu for lunch. You could always order room service or from the pool bar, kelly's bar, or the mexican restraunt in the hotel. Or you could go to the other hotels and have a different variety of food to choose from.
Everyone was very friendly and did what ever they could to help you. Seemed like they were there to serve you. The pool area was clean and wonderful. Beautiful view!! The beach was very small, but go down about 50 feet to the other hotel, and there was pleanty of room. Or you could go to any other public beach and swim. I was really looking forward to swimming in the ocean, but I enjoyed the pool much more. The ocean was very rough and you never knew how deep you were out in the water with all of the sand bars. The whole island is like this, not just this hotel.
We would definatly go back and stay at this hotel again! The excellent location was a big plus. All most right in the middle of everything on the strip. Take the bus anywhere, it is cheap. Less than 50 cents a person to take you just about anyplace. Just make sure you look at the signs on the bus to take you to the correct place. I would always pay in pesos, not american money. You get everything cheaper that way. Market 28 was not anything special. Not any cheaper!! If you want cheaper stuff go deep into town where there are not many tourists. Boy are there many good deals to be had!!
If you want to see a bullfight. They are every Wednesday. Buy your tickets at the arena. They are much cheaper, especially if you bargen with them. Otherwise they are 500 pesos a ticket which is much more then you can get them for at the door.

I read a lot of the reviews on here before I made my trip to the Avalon Grand, and I was a little nervous. I was traveling with my elderly parents, husband, and 22 month old daughter. We had the all-inclusive, whereas my parents did not. (I'll get to that later.) My parents were given a room in the main building, which had an elevator. It overlooked the lagoon and the strip, which was cool. My husband and I checked in, and tried to find out what would happen with a $20 handshake. The girl kind of giggled at us, and upgraded us without taking anything! That was a pleasant surprise. When I arrived at the hotel, I kept saying it's not that bad. This isn't so bad. There was a ramp for the stroller, which went up to the lobby. There wasn't one up to our 3rd floor room, so I left the stroller in my parents' room for the week. My mom (after reading about how many stairs there were) counted 41 stairs from the street to the lobby. I didn't really notice that too much. I never got around to counting the stairs going up to my room. However if that's an issue, I would request a room by one of the two elevators. The room was great! It overlooked the ocean, and you could hear the waves crashing from the balcony. We had a king bed, a fridge and microwave, kitchen table and sitting area. Our balcony was large, however my parents' balcony (who didn't try the $20 handshake) could probably on fit 2 chairs.

I really wanted to like the resort, and I thought the people on here were just complainers. However there was a lot of truth to what they had said. So by the second or third day, I was starting to get critical myself.

*Are there some cracks in the wall? Yeah probably, but who cares it's part of Mexico's charm.
*Is there a beach? NO, not even close. I don't know what the lady before me was talking about. The waves were even hitting the wall at high tide! I couldn't even see where you could get to the ocean. (I just hung out at the pool, which was great, instead.)
*Did the maids steal from me? I really don't think so. In fact, when I left money out as a tip, I had to write a note in spanish that it was for them. Otherwise they didn't take it. And I'm sorry, if you left your engagement ring out of a safe location, you pretty much deserve to have it stolen. Why would you take that off on your honeymoon anyway? DUH!!
Who would I recommend this resort to? That's a tough one. My parents aren't as limber as we are. There was ramps going up to the lobby, but not going down to the pool by the beach. And forget a room like ours, they'd never make it up all those steps. So I couldn't really say it was for the elderly. It was pretty okay for my 30-something age, who was looking to relax. However if you want to be entertained, you better get out of there. The resort was at 30% occupancy. So they may have had a guy trying to get people involved by the pool 15% of the time. However the 10 of us just kind of looked around at each other. Not many people got involved. A young traveler, again there's just not much action going on. So unless it's you and a loved one, you should go somewhere else. For children? NO, NO, and NO. This was my BIGGEST complaint about this resort. The main reason that we chose this resort over others is because of their Kids' Club. It looked nice from the outside. But that f***in' thing was NEVER open. Not one day, not one minute. We even asked at the front desk, and they looked at each other like "UH-OH!" Then told us it wasn't going to be open. That's crap.
*How is the food? The food is actually pretty good. They have a great breakfast buffet. Their food tastes great, and this is from two people who travel to Mexico a lot. If you get tired of it, just go to one of their other properties. I could see how someone might get sick of the same thing day after day, however there are some choices.
*Where can you eat? Before we even booked our trip, we actually called the Avalon to ask them which restaurants were going to be open. (The reason was we had been to a resort in the Dominican Republic, who only opened 2 out of their 5 restaurants.) They told us, Oh yes, ALL of our restaurants are open. WRONG, this was my other complaint. Not only was Kelly's Bar closed all week, they even took down the sign going down to it. I guess people must've been complaining, so they finally took down the sign! So there is food at the main restaurant, at the bar by the (beach) pool, and then there is room-service. The restaurant at the Baccara was great as well. We even went to the Isla Muheres resort on the last day. I would recommend going there as well. It was a little more relaxed there, but it was a nice change. Their food was great as well.
*The lighting in the room? It wasn't great.
*Do they nickel and dime? The coffe and water was included with our all-inclusive. We ordered a bunch of extra waters with room service, and gave them to my parents. They asked the maid for coffee, and she gave it to them free of charge! They didn't even tip her until the last day. I can't say that that's the norm, however you never know what a few bucks'll get you! Oh, and they claim they have FREE Internet. NO, it was $5 a day. However the second time I went to log on, I didn't have to pay. So I would check that out before you pay them. There is a water dispenser by the Gym (and I wouldn't look forward to an extravagant gym, the equipment was falling apart). So if you really wanted to save a couple of bucks, you could fill up your water bottle there!
*Would I recommend this resort to a friend? Yes and no. We were pretty aggravated with some of the mis-representations. However the staff made us forget our disgruntlement! So as long as my friend reads my entire review, and knows what to expect, I would recommend it. But don't expect a kid's club, or all of the restaurants to be open.

My parents got a little screwed with their booking, and was under the impression that they were paying for an all-inclusive package. So we were aggravated when we found out that wasn't the case. So what we did was we would eat in the restaurant, and then order food from room service afterwards for them to eat! It worked out really well, and they saved a lot of money that way. I know it sounds kind of shady, I apologize! However we did tip everyone REALLY well.

We tipped Yuri at the beach pool about $40 the first day. He took out a "Special" bottle of rum for us. We definitely overtipped everyone there, but we were treated like Kings and Queens. We kind of felt like it wasn't that much to us, but it would mean a LOT more to them. So we were happy to do it.

I would recommend the white wine, and this comes from a die hard red wine drinker. It was buttery and yummy, and a great compliment to any seafood dish. Their cerveche is awesome as well!

The hotel was pretty clean, there was people cleaning somewhere, almost at any given time.

Everyone is going to try to sell you something. Even before we left the airport, the "tourism department" was trying to sell us vacation packages (I forget the terminology they used, but it was time shares)! Next Best Day Tours, who was our shuttle from the airport to the Avalon, set up a meeting the day we arrived to confirm our departure shuttle. That was a bunch of crap. That was just a line so that they could sell us some tours. We did buy a few from them. I didn't compare the prices on all of the tours. However I did the swimming with the dolphin one, out of the aquarium. It would've been cheaper to go straight to the aquarium and book it. (And that was after we haggled down the price with Best Day.) By the way, haggle on everything once you get there. From the taxi ride to the chach-keys, almost everything is negotiable. For tours, I would probably recommend going to Downtown to try to book some. You should DEFINITELY go to Market 28 in downtown for shopping. Everything is cheaper there, because that's where the locals can afford to live is downtown. I would try to go there as early in your trip as possible.

Finally, if you are going to go to the ruins, I would recommend Chichen Itza. My husband has been to both there and Tulum. Chichen Itza is farther, but he said it was worth it.

I hope that you have a WONDERFUL trip!!!