We continue to go back to Secrets Huatulco for the ease of travel getting there, the wonderful weather, and the lovely staff and residents of the area. As in many of the reviews there is a need for some renovations and cosmetic updates to the resort but the rooms are super clean, comfortable and functional. The staff are amazing- shout outs to Bibiana, Eduardo, Carolina and I cannot remember our young server’s name at Tamarindo March 14 (sorry) but he went above and beyond and found me Xtabentun! Our housekeeping staff Zeni and Yurisbeth kept our room so clean and beautiful. Vianey in the Preferred club (excellent). Finally the entertainment staff have endless energy, are always smiling and are ever willing to join another game of pool volleyball. Thank you Alejandro, Daniel and Erica.…
We travelled during March Break as a couple and met some wonderful people at the resort. This is our second time to Huatulco (first time was at Dreams) and we were excited to try an adults only resort. We had an oceanfront room and the views were spectacular. The mountains and beach view were amazing. We had no rain or any clouds for 7 straight days. The weather remained 30C each day. It was incredible. They only have the Market Buffet open for breakfast and lunch most days, never at dinner. Dinner is only for a la carte, unless they have an international themed night buffet outdoors. The Market buffet offers excellent service, and all types of fresh fruit and food. The a la carte restaurants were mostly very good. There is also the barefoot grill by the pool that offered delicious burgers, pico de gallo and homemade tortilla chips and pizza. We frequented Cin Cin, Bordeaux and Castaways often. Some nights the food was not consistent - but there were no major issues. The wine and service always very good. The pool area was fun and drinks plentiful. The servers , especially Bibiana was always there with a smile. The downfall was that pool chairs were taken by 7am most days with towels -so you have to get down early. Alcohol brands were hit and miss but that is to be expected. The only downside to this resort is the decor. It is in major need of a fresh renovation. The lobby was dated and the furnishings looks like they were 20 years old. The rooms had clean, comfortable beds and plush pillows and the air conditioning always ran smoothly. There was a large shower area and tub as well as 2 sinks for people to use. The rooms offered large screen TVs with multiple channels to view and there was also free WIFI at the resort. Overall, the beauty of this area is like a hidden gem. The amazing staff at this resort who were always so happy and helpful- overlook any of the downfalls l have mentioned. I suspect they will work on updating the resort to make it equal to most of the Secret Resorts in the Caribbean that customers are accustomed too. I would return to this resort easily... thank you for a wonderful week! …
This is not. a 5 star resort. Just returned after a 3 week stay and this is not a 5 star , more like a 2 - 3 star resort. The weather was very good, almost too warm, usually got to 32 degree's c, no rain. The views from the room were great, the room was ok, usually a quick clean (if you look closely the corners /tv/lesser used traffic area's are very dusty. The tile when wet is very/very slippery. The TV was terrible, most channels were Spanish, the ones in English had shows that were 20 plus years old. The restaurant food was average at best. Went to the Italian place twice, ordered the lasagna, came to the table cold in the middle, returned, came back about 2 degree's hotter. Gave up and left. returned in 10 days , ordered the lasagna again (thinking the first time must have been. a bad night, explained to the waiter the previous problem, exact same thing, cold in middle, returned, sent back out. Exactly the same as the first time, gave up and left. The entertainment was basically nothing, most of this quality can be found in a local tavern. Seafood was ok, steaks were of poor quality. Breakfast was ok, same thing day in and out , no variety. If anyone is wondering where all the pool side lounge chairs are take a walk to the property edge, down by guest parking , and there are several hundred chairs, piled up torn and rusting away. The so called tennis courts are a joke, full of gravel. Pickelball (only the fastest growth sport in the last 20 years), no way to even play on the tennis court as it is full of gravel. The grounds were probably beautiful at one time, not anymore, overgrown and looking sad. Every other resort we have stayed at, we noticed people doing things, fixing things, painting , adjusting, here saw 3 people using a weed trimmer in the middle of the day to cut the lawn while everyone was at the pool. No one else at any time. I think they need to re allocate some staff. …
Best Resort for couples. Service was STELLER! I enjoyed everything but, would like to give a shout out to the Director de Restaurante Eden. From the moment he greeted us to explaining the menu. Our waiter Anderson was amazing and was very tentative. This Duo always greeted us by name and gave us VIP service. Not all restaurants are like this. Food was AMAZING. My husband and I went for our wedding anniversary. We stayed 5 nights and plan to return next year. BRAVO.. to Secrets Huatulco and the this great staff. Last but not least Rosario who greeted us upon arrival also, was amazing. She is very knowledgeable and was quick to get things done for us. She too is Steller.
We love the facility and location. The food was superb. The low rating is due to several factors. First, as UVC Premier members, this place sucks. The Premier Lounge is weak compared to the others we’ve visited. In addition to its small size, they were frequently out of everything we liked. The staff was often not in the lounge and we had to serve ourselves several times. At the pool, we had to ask for Karen for Premier drinks that often took 40 minutes. Hiking all the way up to the premier lounge was quicker, but didn’t feel very premier. As for the pool, this place allows the douchy behavior of placing towels on chairs at sunrise…some guests never returned until afternoon to claim their chaise lounges. A word of advice: ask the pool waiters if there are chairs available. They are usually aware of un-attended chairs with idle towels and books. It isn’t fair to guests and staff to have these chairs vacant in prime hours. The sign at the pool says 1/2 hour limit. Make them enforce it. Maybe guests should have to sign for towels? This could hold people accountable and works at other resorts. We travel often and usually love Secrets and Dreams resorts. In the case of Huatulco, Dreams is definitely the better place to stay.…
Just returned from Secrets Huatulco(Feb 13 to Feb 27,2023 Preferred Club), advertised as a 4.5* resort. I would give it a 3.0/3.5* overall. This resort is overpriced and not as advertised. For the good: View from our room (1320) was to die for. Castaways restaurant was the best for lunch and dinner. When in the preferred club you have access to the restaurant for breakfast to but must share with Hyatt’s sales persons selling their Unlimited Holiday Club. They take up half the restaurant and get preferred service so the waits can be long. The barefoot Grill had fantastic ribs for lunch and fire roasted pizza. Alexandrea, the beach waitress was fantastic. The beach has course sand that can be very hot and hard on your feet (wear water shoes). The other restaurants were mostly ok with the exception of the Oceana restaurant. For the bad: This not as advertised as per Secrets own web site. The Oceana restaurant is described as “Seafood, grilled steaks, and specialties at this à la carte restaurant.” This is not true; in fact they get very upset if you ask for a steak. There is a very limited choice of sea food. The Preferred Club lounge is a joke. Stuck in behind the Preferred Club Concierge office in what can best be described as a closet. There is 2 love seats and 1 chair, no table. The bar is a 3 foot counter. There was about 20 bottles of liquor, none of them were top shelf as advertised. The cooler was a slide top cooler box. They had 1 bottle of sparkling wine and if it ran out it would take about 20 minutes to get another 1, only one! Most days there was no one serving, it was self-serve. As per Secrets own visitor reports 83% of clients during our stay were from Canada. I drink rye whiskey. The bar staff kept trying to give me scotch whiskey, NOT the same thing. I tried to explain this to bar staff but thy had no idea what I was saying, whiskey is whiskey. One waitress knew what I was asking for, she said “ Crown Royal, ya, this place is too cheap to buy that”. As advertised as per Secrets own web site, Rendezvous Lobby Bar was open from 10:00am to 01:00am, fact the bar said they were closed at 09:00pm, but most nights were closed by 08:00pm. Our room was not bad except for the water on the floor every time I showered. Reported it to staff, nothing ever done. As we were there for two weeks I requested 12 more clothes hangers, at the main front desk, the main concierge desk, the Preferred Club concierge desk, and our West Jet rep, all said that they would take care of the request, never happen. The West Jet rep was useless; all he wanted to do was sell excursions. All in all, I would return to this resort if it was priced correctly (3.0 star – ½ the price I paid) but not at the premium prices and downgraded service. …
Just returned from 15 days at Secrets Huatulco and already planning our next getaway there. The resort is beautifully situated with stunning views - we saw dolphins and whales from our balcony! Although it could sometimes be a challenge finding lounge chairs, pool staff were great in bringing extra chairs or an umbrella to where ever they were requested. All staff were wonderful and each one helped make our stay perfect. Alexis at the Market Cafe was awesome and went out of his way for us, including explaining some Spanish phrases (muy rico!) which helped when we visited La Crucecita. Hostesses Nathaly and Alondra always had a smile when greeting us. We celebrated our anniversary while at Secrets and had the most amazing meal at Bordeaux. Thank you to Manager Gloria, Hostess Naharai, Waiter Antonio and especially Chef Victor Daniel for putting together such a fantastic meal and giving us such a special anniversary, one we will always remember. Thanks to Alejandro, Daniel and Abraham for making archery so fun and for helping us with our fins at the beach. Each restaurant was beautifully decorated with delicious menu choices. In 15 days we never had the same meal twice and were never disappointed. In addition, while dining in the open-air Castaways restaurant you could hear the ocean waves and birds, which added to the relaxing ambiance. Huatulco is absolutely beautiful and we always felt completely safe while walking around La Crucecita and Santa Cruz. Shop owners were helpful if you were purchasing but very respectful if you were just browsing. We recommend Secrets Hualtulco to anyone looking for a relaxing getaway.…
We have been to this resort previously and are seasoned travellers, Mexico is one of our favourite destinations. The view was as spectacular as ever, the staff were extremely friendly and willing to help. The location of the room was what we asked for, away from the bar and party pool, we were in building one on level three. That is about as good as this review gets. Even though the breakfasts and lunches were good the food overall was not as expected and most disappointing, by far the worst we have experienced in Mexico in 20 plus years. Burnt rice at Teppanyaki to very poor quality steak, sand in the clams and mussels no name but a few issues. The fish restaurant Oceans had the most consistent food, not the best but fair. Trying to find a simple after dinner liqueur in the Premium lounge was a challenge, trying to get it in a glass that was not plastic a bigger issue. There is a real lack of loungers on site, leading to the towel game at 6:00 am in order to capture a basic chair alongside the pool or at the beach. There are 126 chairs on the beach and close to 300 around the pool decks, 426 lounge chairs total. Given the fact there are 399 rooms with generally two per room that would equate to 1/2 a chair for each guest. This is not an inexpensive resort. Certainly not what we expected from a Secrets reporting a five star rating. No doubt management will highlight the good points of this review and downplay the bad. However there is no excuse for guests to take a cab into town for dinner. …
It started on arrival when they assigned us the wrong room with 2 smaller beds instead of the king room we were expecting and NO ONE would correct it. You pay for premium and it is bottom of the barrel booze. 2 out of 6 of us got very sick. Other couples there were sick as well. Room service was shocking, everything was over cooked and hard as a rock. They give you a red light to turn on which tells them to deliver to the cubby and when there is no tip money in there they knock and knock and knock and insist on coming in. The toilets in the room have glass walls, not our thing (and the maid did walk in on day 1)! I gave them a 2 as our room was spotless clean everyday and I made sure to tip them well for that. Everything else was so so disappointing. Huatulco is a great, safe place to visit however I do NOT recommend Secrets Huatulco.…
My score is solely based on the hotel in comparison to other all-inclusive options in the area. Review is an attempt at being constructive. Although the hotel grew on me throughout our stay, I always felt there was something missing or something could use some sprucing up. Our initial reaction was the building, lobby and décor is dated. Al-la-carte restaurants are sparsely decorated and lacked charm or any vibe. Rooms although very clean and kept up relatively well despite their age (except for the tiles in the shower) could use some updating. The bones of the place have potential however, I just felt that a lot of space was underutilized. All the activities are centered around building 2-3 at night. I get it’s a great way to keep people in one central location, makes sense during off season or during covid, however the resort’s been at capacity for quite some time now including during our stay and nights in that area felt overcrowded and loud. There wasn’t enough space to sit and relax in the Sky Bar. Some nights they would have the activities in the courtyard were the restaurants were located, which was a nice change however again lack of seating options. The lobby has a bar, but it wasn’t always maned, no music and seating were very uncomfortable, as a matter of fact no seating in any of the common areas were comfortable. So, people gravitate in the same spot and head back to the room earlier then they would due to the lack of seating. Moving the lobby bar to a more central location in the lobby should be considered and again lighting and ambiance (music etc. is important). None were present so no one gravitated there. The reef bar is a great space but under utilized and too bright at night, dim down the lights put some chill music and let it be a spot for people to have a drink before they turn in. We went there one night it was super bright and lacked any charm or vibe. This can be easily addressed with comfortable seating, turning down lights create an open-air vibe. Or open the Barefoot Grill bar at night it would be great to hear the ocean while having a drink this one might be a stretch though. Even CoCo café was underwhelming no ice cream …. common that’s a no brainer again lack of atmosphere no one goes there to chill. That may be the point, or it might be a staffing thing, but these are easy changes that aren’t costly that would improve customer experience. Another issue is that although the hotel was at capacity, they rotated restaurants and led some to have to wait an hour to be seated. Friday for example had only 3 restaurants open and for most it was their last day, not a way to end a vacation. No worries I am on vacation I don’t sweat those things, but others may. As for the food and drink the buffet was adequate, options at all other restaurants were good, never left hungry nor was anything memorable which is typical of any resort. During the day that’s when the resort shines, the pool is great although needs some TLC as some tiles are missing, the views and beach is great. That’s what sells the place it’s the location and weather, I completely understand why people return. Finally, the lounge chair towel game, is very frustrating, it’s one of the first places I have seen where half the chairs being saved at 530 in the morning, went to get a coffee before our excursion and yes there were already chairs taken. Now this is primarily a patron issue, and the hotel could enforce a process but it’s not that easy. It made for a difficult process to identify a spot after 730. And forget it after 830-9. What made things worst that some would never come back to their chair. Or would move the umbrella for shade and then leave, 80% of the time they weren’t there, why …. The high repeat customer of this place says it all, however if they want to attract additional repeat customers, they should up their game a little. Question is do they have to? there’s no competition in the area and the location and weather can’t be beat. …
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