Wonderful, relaxing trip to Secret Bay last week. My husband and I were celebrating our 10th anniversary and booked the Zabuco Villa. It is every bit as gorgeous in person as it is on the website photos and exceeded our expectations. We arrived at night and marveled at the beautiful villa, but when we woke up at sunrise and saw the view...WOW! My hands-down favorite part of the villa was the open-air shower. The hot water combined with the cool ocean breeze was sensational. Also, the bed was the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. It is very peaceful and quiet there and most of the time we were alone at Secret Beach. Amazing. This should go without saying but if you are looking for a glitzy resort with bars and nightlife, this is not the place. We felt like we were at home but in a beautiful secluded setting with no responsibilities!

The staff is very friendly and Anna accomodates most anything you could need. The food was great, we just told them to prepare us local dishes every day and it was all delicious, especially the desserts! They do run a bit on "island time", if you tell them a time for a meal, they will probably run a little late. This didn't bother us because it was a very laid-back vacation, but if you want things on the dot, you might specifically request that. We also did not care to do the couples yoga session that was included in our package and they subsitituted a massage on the upstairs deck which was fantastic!

Dominica as a whole is very affordable and beautiful. We bought a weekly site pass for $12 US per person that allows you entrance to basically every attraction on the island. We went to several of them in one day with a driver arranged by Anna. We visited Trafalgar Falls, Emerald Pool, Titou Gorge (an absolute MUST) and snorkeled at Champagne Beach. We also did the Indian River boat tour on another day. It is so non-touristy, we were usually the only people there or one of just a few, which was nice. I would not recommend renting a vehicle as suggested by another reviewer. Nothing seemed to be marked, many attractions were off the beaten path, and I am sure we never would have found the places we were going to on our own!

We definitely would love to return to Secret Bay, I just hope that with all the success and accolades they have been getting, we will be able to get reservations again!

My wife and I enjoyed our honeymoon at Secret Bay for 7 days in the first week of June. It was our first trip to Dominica, and actually our first big trip together, and we had been so excited to enjoy the natural beauty and adventure of this special island. Secret Bay seemed like the best way to get luxury with a natural/local Dominican feel, so we booked Zabuco and planned to alternate between adventurous days and relaxing ones.

Before we arrived, I talked with Anna about many of the details of our trip - she helped me find flights and set up a rental car for us. She also gave us a form to fill out that told Secret Bay what we wanted to have pre-stocked in our kitchen. I was excited about as much local fare as possible including the Dominican rum and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Also, I couldn't find my SCUBA dive card, so I sent her a certification letter that I located online and she had it printed for me in the villa when we arrived - Anna was extraordinarily helpful!

We were greeted at the airport with an incredibly energetic and fun driver who gave us cool towels and bottled water - Anna knew our flight info and told us that they would have a taxi waiting for us. The driver Marcus let us stop along the way to take a few gorgeous photos on the coast. When we got to Secret Bay, Anna and Gilbert (and one or two others?) were there to bring our luggage up to Zabuco Villa. Anna gave us the villa tour before we ate a much needed dinner of fish and veggies, broke into the rum and fresh mango juice, and officially started the honeymoon.

Throughout the whole stay, the staff were very attentive to our needs. Security brought fresh eggs up to our villa early one morning, Anna sat down with us in our villa to plan all of the excursions we wanted to try, Gregor gave us a personal tour of the bat cave at Secret Bay, the amazing cooks prepared a number of local dishes for us, and most importantly the staff left us alone when we wanted to be alone.

There were a few hiccups - the fancy Siemens coffee/espresso maker in our villa never seemed to work properly, but the villa already had a regular drip coffee maker that we were able to use instead. We very much enjoyed the bath as well as the shower, but the shower leaked a little bit between the sliding door and basin...we actually forgot to tell Secret Bay about this, so it must not have bothered us too much.

I think the only thing we would change next time we go is that we would plan ahead a little more for when we wanted meals, laundry service, and housekeeping. Anna was able to get meals to us last minute at our request, but we would have enjoyed the pampering even more if we had spent some time figuring out our days and expectations just a bit...it seemed like our indecision occasionally inconvenienced the staff. For example, we asked for a second codfish breakfast since we enjoyed it so much the first time, but we asked the night before assuming it would be no big deal...we found out the next morning that the staff actually had to take an unplanned trip to the store to get the necessary ingredients and ran a bit late with the breakfast delivery because of this. We would have just taken whatever they had available if we knew it was going to be any trouble.

An unexpected benefit of being at Secret Bay was that it seemed like many Dominicans knew and respected the resort and its staff. We got some pretty awesome perks, like a personal tour around Syndicate Parrot Reserve from a very well respected ornithologist. The resort was ideally located for seeing the Caribbean coast of Dominica, but we never found ourselves on the Atlantic coast for whatever reason. We did take some long drives in the rental car down as far as Scotts Head, but this was really easy since we only had to follow the one main road down the whole coast.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble because I can't say enough about this wonderful trip. It was so clear that Secret Bay cares deeply about their guests as well as their island. It is a luxurious resort, but it is so in tune with the natural beauty of Dominica, and it is clear that Dominica will stay beautiful with eco-friendly resorts like Secret Bay.

I feel a little guilty not raving about Secret Bay because the staff is fantastic, and because we did have a very nice vacation. Also they personally ask you a number of times to write a review, and the're so nice that maybe people don't want to if it wasn't a great experience.

We didn't have some of the amazing experiences listed here: no one met us with hot towels - we called after we arrived and a cab was sent to get us. There wasn't homemade watermelon sorbet in a stocked kitchen: we were stocked with processed cheese and store bread, and had to ask again for the full order. Our prepared dinners were fairly dull: barbecued chicken twice, and a tasty but bland breadfruit casserole 2-3 times. The water in the wonderful tub never got hot enough (even after we asked if something could be done) so we boiled pots of water on the stove to make it warm enough. The pool was freezing, and the ocean water very choppy due to high winds. When we left, no one warned us that we needed cash as a departure tax and with the airport ATM out of order we almost missed the flight until someone took pity on us and loaned us the money (paid back via PayPal the same day). I'm sure it was probably listed in multiple places, but we didn't read through everything.

The villas are huge and gorgeous, and equipped with absolutely top of the line everything, including an impressively curated library. The grounds are lovely, with beautiful little sitting areas where you can watch the sunset. We had a lovely time relaxing and reading, and everyone was extremely nice. If you plan to explore, I highly recommend renting a car: we had a lot of problems arranging rides for outings.

So while we had a wonderful time, and were very relaxed and enjoyed our trip immensely, we somehow missed out on the experience that most of the other people had.