Obviously, all reviews you will read will be subjective, we are foodies, so that is why in our opinion, this place falls short compared to other secrets. We always go preferred, and have visited three other secret resorts, which, to be fair, you can’t help comparing, these holidays are a lot of money and you buy into the secrets brand, and therefore you are expecting excellence, so I will review what we have experienced. Prior to booking, I contacted secrets via Facebook page, response wasn’t instant and often took a few days if at all, however, they did reply and comply with room requests prior to arrival. Unfortunately, our plane was very delayed and we got to resort five hours later, about 8:00 pm, so we were tired and grumpy! Check in like all secrets results being preferred was quick, although we weren’t given a welcome drink upon arrival, and the towels were warm, not cold Room, this was very disappointing for a preferred room. Pretty much all room requests were catered for, but the room was really underwhelming. The partial view was absolutely a partial view, massive palm tree obstructing. Only one wash basin, the bathroom was designed really poorly, when you tried to leave the shower, the glass door, banged against the sink area, which was just very annoying, and if you forgot and pushed it with some force, you could run the risk of it shattering. Plus the shower itself was awful, barely trickled out and water lukewarm. The pedal bin in the toilet didn’t open, so you had to do that manually, which isn’t a biggie, but it’s still a pain. Like I said The room itself was just so underwhelming, it didn’t feel like a preferred club room, the seats on the sofa slipped when you sat on them, they had two big mirrors either side of the TV, but one of them had a massive plastic black covering that was bobbly, and just looked ridiculous , the TV protruded from the wall, and you could see wires, there was only one waste bin in the room, not one in the bathroom, the headboard to the bed was like wooden, slats, but plug sockets were connected to this either side of the bed, and this sort of moved, it was very odd, plus, and this was the same in the room that we moved to, they have a handle on the inside of the door to open and shut to go out to balcony and you need to shut it for the Aircon to kick in, but when you go outside on the balcony, the door needs to be fully shut for the Aircon to kick in, but there is no handle to open it again, so you have to wedge your fingers into a tiny gap and try and pull the door open, which is just a palaver every time you step out! We did get moved to a wonderful room, and we did look at about five other rooms before this one, and again they were pretty much all underwhelming. The beach is lovely, the sand feels nice on your feet, and although there is a little bit of seaweed, this is nothing in comparison to other Caribbean resorts we have stayed in. The sea isn’t as clear as you would like, and it is a bit murky , however, beach walks are lovely if you walk to the right, you can walk for a good 20 minutes before you get to the corner, however, there are lots of vendors there so we didn’t go past that bit, and everywhere you walk on the beach you are going to get accosted by vendors, even when you are on your sunbeds, they do try and speak to you, but a firm, no thank you, or a quick chat if you can be bothered is enough to fend them off. It does get a bit annoying though Preferred or non-preferred!? We were preferred, we always go preferred. If we can afford it, was it worth it here that is the big question? Check in , this was Swift, but we didn’t get a welcome drink getting out of the taxi and the towels were warm, not cold, Lounges, if you are a big drinker and you like your branded drinks, then preferred might be worth it, however, there was only gentleman Jack in the beach preferred, and not the preferred by the reception, so there are inconsistencies, and they only do cocktails that they know, for example, I couldn’t get a porn star martini Preferred club, Pool, there are two pools, the quiet pool is very quiet and small, and very hot as there is no breeze, it is literally just a pool. The main pool for preferred tends to be quite busy, and lots of people in there drinking, it does have a bar, the pool is attached to the lazy river, although I’m not sure why it’s called a lazy river as it’s just a strip of water that runs parallel and outside of building there is ground floor swim out rooms, there are big double day beds if you want to sunbathe on these, although I don’t really see the point as you are facing a building, so not the most scenic place to sit. The infinity pool again is nice for a picture, but again gets very busy. The preferred beach area, there are two preferred beach areas, one on the left, which is pretty much similar to the nonpreferred beach area, same sunbeds, same shaded, wreath umbrella things, if you are preferred, you can get numerous beach towels, normally from the main pool area, if you are nonpreferred you are entitled to one towel per day which you have to give your room number for at the beach hut area next to Olio. The other preferred beach section is on the right hand side, and this is the one that we preferred, they have some cabanas, obviously you have to pay $150 per day for this, which in my opinion is a bloody rip-off, but in this section the sunbeds Have padding, and are nicer, and they have the big double sunbeds, these aren’t in the shade, but are lovely. I’ve heard comment about their not being enough umbrellas, I am an early riser so used to get up and put my towels down by 7am, go for a walk on the beach, (feed the beach dogs) go to breakfast, and come back and towels ok, but there didn’t seem to be a lack of sunbeds, possibly a lack of shaded area around the beach area, and I can’t really comment on the pool because we didn’t hang out there. The servers on the beach are very attentive, so you never went thirsty. We are foodies, we love our food, we know what we like, and what we have experienced at previous secrets unfortunately, in our opinion, and like I said, food is very subjective, but again the word underwhelmed springs to mind. We ate in all the restaurants., So again, this is based on our experience, and what we like, but I would say we struggled for choice after a few days, and the quality of food wasn’t in our opinion, exceptional, and by this, there wasn’t one meal throughout all the restaurants that was to die for, one that we wanted to go back and experience time and time again, the food was inconsistent. Bordeaux, this is supposed to be the top of the tree, men MUST wear pants and a collared shirt in this restaurant, it is beautiful, and Aircon, So a really nice setting. We ate in here three times, everyone raves about the French onion soup, I love French onion soup, but was massively disappointed by this, it looks good as it comes in a big bread bowl, but it was Bland, and tasteless, and I tried this twice, hoping the first was a mistake, my husband have the scallops in a cream sauce and said they were nice enough, we had the salad starters, and again they were neither here nor there. I had the duck one night and sent it back, the skin on Duck is supposed to be crisp and this was Lardy, it was just really fatty and not nice. I had the fillet steak, three times, and only on the last meal did it melt in your mouth, that was medium rare. Husband had the salmon, which was nice enough, and the chicken supreme was dry, so this was hit and miss. We did have a nice meals but we weren’t blown away. Blue water grill- again the setting was nice in here, completely different, more like in American burger style vibe, we had the onion flower, which again was nice enough, it’s basically battered onion. The crab cakes were nice enough, and the chicken wings are okay, I had the skirt steak in here, again, thin, but nice enough, and husband had the other steak available, can’t remember what it was, think a ribeye, the reason I didn’t choose this is because it’s a fatty steak, and it was, but again it was a nice enough meal, we didn’t return, mainly due to the fact that the air-conditioning had broken, and it was so uncomfortable to sit and eat when the sweat was dripping off you. El patio- the Mexican, this service was the slowest. Unfortunately, we waited an hour until our food arrived, by then we’re almost lost the will to eat, we had the chicken fajitas which were nice and some of the chicken wrap thing which again was nice, would we returned to this restaurant- no, it was nice as a one off, but we wouldn’t return again as we felt we were restricted in choice of food, but this is our taste others might be different Himitzu- Asian This actually was our favourite restaurant, surprisingly, as we are big meat eaters. We would normally go at 9 o’clock, and it never felt noisy. However, we ate at 8:30 one night and the shows are so noisy. You can barely get a conversation in. We didn’t do the show as we have done those many times before. We ate in three stages, Sushi to start, the volcano Roll and chicken Sushi are lovely. We followed this with the prime beef, this was melt in your mouth and delicious, (so tbf so this was one item that did blow us away) for mains We tried the Kong Po chicken, that was so so, husband loved the pork dish, which is like sweet-and-sour pork, we tried the curry shrimp dish, which again was okay, and the rice at the bottom of the menu was lovely, I also love the welcome drink here sakura, we ate here, three times, and enjoyed each time, but like I said the food did become repetitive Olio- breakfast, here was nice if you are preferred, super quick service, the eggs, Benedict was nice, as was the super toast, but the menu was a little restrictive. We ate in there for lunch a couple of times, the chicken tacos are nice, but again I felt the menu was quite restrictive for our tastes, hence us not going back often. But it was nice to have table service instead of buffet. We also ate in here in the evening, it’s more a pasta selection, again, nice enough, if you want a break from meat, but would we go back in the evening for that menu, no Barefoot Grill, this is just a snack station. If you want to eat on the go or on the beach, they do burgers fried chicken chips, again, it was okay The Riviera, we are not necessarily fans of buffet, however, the breakfast is lovely, lots of choice, yes, it is repetitive, but if you like the same breakfast every day or a choice, you could of anything from fresh fruit, to oats, the omelettes were lovely, they are made Fresh, the avocado is delicious, so there are lots of lovely food there, but in the trays, they tend to be lukewarm, so crêpes and French toast is just a little on the warm side, not hot. We are in here for lunch nearly every day, but the food variations sort of alternate and not much changes so again the food becomes repetitive, every other day, you have a Sushi station, which was nice, but a lot of the dishes of food is same same. The home-made burgers are yummy, and if you want any fresh meat like steak, chicken, pork, it’s all cooked for you, I did have prawns (shrimps) one day, which I was very excited about, but they have not removed the entrails (Pooh sacks) which completely put me off, and when I spoke to someone in the restaurant about it, that’s how they are served, lazy cheffing!! they should be removed before going onto the grill! But like I said, we were there for 10 nights, and by the end of the holiday, we were glad to return home because of the repetitiveness of the food. I’m not sure what the standard of food like is in dreams, we went there once to the Asian, ate a couple of starters that came out within seconds and were lukewarm, this put us off so we left, we didn’t return to dreams again I fell in love with the beach dogs, I’m a big animal lover, and used to take them snacks every day, they are looked after by other beachgoers, and I believe they are taken care of by some of the bars along the left-hand side, they are very friendly and love chicken, beef, whatever you can get your hands on, and a bottle of water, so if you are a dog lover and like an early morning stroll on the beach, go and give them some lovings, they do not like the vendor’s and tend to run up and bark, and I have seen them do this to some tourists, to be fair, mainly men, and joggers, but if they do come running up to you, they don’t bite, and if you just react calmly to them and then greet them they are fine, they are just being protective, I’m sure they have been mistreated along the way. I’m going back to preferred, it was our anniversary, so we got an anniversary banner, and after complaining and swapping rooms, we did have some fruit and some rose petals, unfortunately we didn’t have anything on our actual anniversary day, which the hotel knew about, no mention of it in the newsletter , or anything in our room which was a little bit disappointing. (I saw lots of anniversary cakes being delivered to rooms) The minibar service is really disappointing, rarely topped up, unless you asked for it. We didn’t get a preferred beach bag, so please if you are preferred, don’t not come with a bag as you may not get one, they are subject to availability, we did eventually get one once I had kicked off, As walking round with a plastic carrier bag for two days was not cool, I’ve learnt a valuable lesson there. A gain inconsistencies with the minibar, I asked for cranberry juice, as I’m not a lover, fizzy, drinks, and water got repetitive, or Butler did this the first time, but getting it refilled again it was Mission impossible five phone calls, in the end I was told that I needed to go to a bar and collect it myself!! Not impressed, I heard that some guests had bottles of alcohol in their room, we never received any, some guests got snacks, again we had to continuously ask for these, crisps, M&Ms, for example, So, the question again, preferred, or nonpreferred, if you have a spare £1500 or dollars and you want the little extras, for example, you want your butler to book you into restaurants, as there is sometimes an hours wait, it’s a buzzer system, so you can go and drink at the bar and be buzzed when your table is ready, but be prepared for this if you are non preferred!! As preferred you have a different seating area, at the beach and Pool area, which is nice, and branded drinks, but if I am truly honest, this was the worst preferred we have experienced, the rooms weren’t worth it, I felt you had to fight for things that you were entitled to, so would I spend that money or recommend people to spend that money, like I said it’s entirely up to you and what you want to get out of your holiday and what you are prepared to pay or not paid for. If we were to come back to this hotel again, I would probably say it’s not worth it from my experience, but would we return to this hotel again, preferred or nonpreferred, sadly I would say no, and this is purely down to the quality of food, as this is a big part of our holiday. We did do the romantic meal on the beach, the service, and the selection of food, and the quality of food was much better, we enjoyed this night, although we have the tomahawk steak and ordered it, medium rare, this is the first time we’ve ever had a tomahawk, and it is a very fatty steak, the lobster was lovely, but tiny!! But the setting was idyllic romantic, and the service was wonderful. We did try a massage, so we had a look at the spa, again nice enough, wasn’t too impressed with the massage, the lady was lovely, she did it nice and hard, but I felt it was a back rub, and she didn’t really tackle the knots that were there, the facial was nice. We didn’t really do the entertainment, as we normally ate about 9 o’clock when it was less hectic but shows start then, I’ve heard The Greatest Showman is a good show, we saw the last song of the Madonna show, and people were giving stand-up claps to this, so it might have be worth it. If you haven’t done lots of shows before, we have, it might be worth it!! we did make it to the disco a couple of times, that was shocking! the DJ needs to sort his selection of tunes out, there was no rhyme, or reason to anything he was playing, it was just terrible, he did play requests, (eventually) but in my opinion, a DJ needs to play tunes that get people up, dancing, not go from different crazy songs to another!! we did the casino one night, it is very small, but Aircon, which is a godsend at that time of night, and that was pleasant enough for a change of scenery. I loved playing volleyball, sometimes at 11:30, but mostly at 4 o’clock. So, to summarise, we did eventually have a lovely holiday, we met some lovely friends, and we had a nice time, but we did feel that we had to complain, to get what we would expect a five star resort and a secret resort should have, (and no one likes to feel unhappy and complain whilst on holiday) there were too many inconsistencies, and little things that shouldn’t be an issue, but were an issue, and not things that I would expect a five star resort to have. Sadly, We have visited other resorts and been more impressed and more blown away. (But don’t get me wrong you will not have a bad holiday here, it’s just not the overall standard I expected from a secrets brand- is this because they have been taken over by Hyatt who like to streamLine)you can see I have use the words, nice and lovely, not amazing, mind blowing, and delicious when describing this resort, I want it to be up there in the top 3 but purely on the food and the room (and I know you don’t spend a lot of time in your room, but when you do you want it to feel luxurious, special, and we just didn’t get this vibe initially and the inconsistencies in our room through which was beautiful in the end) However, I would say here that the staff are Phenomenal, they cannot do enough for you, they are always smiling, hard-working, and they do play a huge part in making your experience a nice one, (you don’t have to tip but they work so hard and deserve every penny) the grounds are beautiful and well kept, so overall we did have a nice holiday, but would we return, sadly not, it’s ticked off the list, we had a nice time, but for that price, I think it could have be better, and we have experienced a lot better at other secrets resorts, (but like I said, at the beginning, this is all subjective everyone raves over this place, and it is beautiful, and you will have a great holiday, but for the price you pay it’s the little inconsistencies and five star touches that you pay your money for that Sadly, in our opinion, It missed the mark and like I said, food is a big factor for us , and after 10 days, it just became repetitive, still nice enough, but it just didn’t blow us away ) so sadly we will not be returning unless the food quality, variety and consistency is massively improved and the room situation (partial views are partial, veranda doors, the overall look of the room and functionality, consistency’s with replacing shower gels, mini bar etc) Finally, we would just like to thanks to all the staff, but some of them went above and beyond! Preferred club beach by preferred club pool- Lady (so happy and helpful) and Fanny Riviera buffet -Santos meat chef, Adrian waiter,Emmanuel- burger chef Benjamin (manager blue water grill) always smiling Himitzu- darliz (fantastic waiter) sugey (always smiling and welcoming) Maximus preferred Lounge (always remembers your drink) Bordeaux- Porsche, romano (sorry can’t remember all of your name) Clara (always smiling, welcoming and accommodating) Milciades, Gabriela Ruddy butler (works so hard) and finally Darlin (manager) Darlin you turned our holiday around, you are a wonderful person and very good at your job- we cannot thank you enough for going above&beyond, you truly are a darling…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.