Impression Isla Mujeres by Secrets — Hotel in Isla Mujeres

This will be a long read. The TLDR is that while it is probably the most stunning property I've ever seen, with incredible views in most directions, the people and the service and the nuts and bolts of how things work filed to reach the expected level.I feel I'm being gracious in offering four stars, as at this price, the expectation is simply too high to not be nearly perfect. ||||And on to the details for those interested.....||||Arrival||||As long as you arranged it properly ahead of time, the hotel has a catamaran to get you to the property. However, what they don't have is air conditioning at the marina. The catamaran runs every other hour. So if your flight timing gets you there five minutes after the catamaran left, you will be hot for the entire two hours you wait. Blazing hot. Like melt your hair off hot. There is a bathroom, and guess what - it's air conditioned. So maybe hide out in there. ||||They had one guy handling check-in for the 14 people on the catamaran arriving with us (in addition to crew members), so it wasn't snug but there were a good number on there. They do check in outside in that blazing heat mentioned earlier. There's no privacy whatsoever, so the upsell conversation when they offer you a better room for more money happens very much publicly. Like you're involved in the other people's negotiations. It's a nice idea to do check in over on the mainland, but between the ungodly heat and the lack of private space for check in (juggling passports, credit cards, etc), it didn't match with he luxury expectation. Yes, they offer you a drink, but it's little consolation for the rest of the situation.||||No shoes. So, you're getting on a boat. Do you have non-marking soles? So what, take your damn shoes off. No shoes on the boat. And where do you put your shoes? The crew has a clamshell suitcase opened on the dock. Your footwear has the opportunity to mingle with a dozen other folks' footwear after your long day of travel. Seeing 24 shoes fall out of the clamshell when they opened it at the arrival dock, it was a small miracle nobody's shoes ended up in the water below. ||||While we are on arrival, let's talk about ground transportation, because you have to get from the airport to the marina and vice versa on the return. Why on earth doesn't the hotel just make all the arrangements, or have their own. Others do it. And trying to coordinate all that in addition to your flights and the catamaran when you haven't been before and barely understand how it all works is a royal pain. Not to mention the hotel strongly recommending their preferred vendor, who charges way more than others and is no better. We used Travicons, and it was about $90 each way for black SUV Suburban service. They had an upcharge option for an Escalade, or a cheaper option for a sprinter van. ||||The White Lotus waving on arrival is cute but gimmicky. I have to imagine how awkward the employees feel making the endless wave to the arriving folks. I also feel for the employees for the garb they have to wear. I know locals are more used to the hot temperatures, but long pants and those long tunics on top...you could see the sweat dropping through for some. ||||Your butler meets you on the dock and gives you a grand tour. Ours was Ritik, and as others have mentioned, he's a terrific guy. We had very few special requests during our stay, but he did go out of his way a couple times that stood out and it was much appreciated. ||||When they hand you the room keys it seems so unique and special - they are small, square wood chips with the Impressions logo on them. They are cool. But then you go swimming with them, they sit in a moist pocket, and they delaminate. Cute idea, but doesn't stand up to normal life. I actually would have preferred a standard plastic key, or better yet a digital one so I didn't have to remember one more thing or fish it out of my pocket at the door. The small size of it, while captivating, actually makes it more difficult to manage, silly as that sounds. ||||Rooms||||We booked the most basic room, and we're upgraded at no charge to an Ocean View King. The upgrade was a nice one, on the 5th floor which is the highest room level, and it was on the side of the building that faces the street, not the dock. Which some may consider lesser, but the view of the ocean was actually spectacular. You did have some run down housing across the street to look over, but honestly a stunning view. We did not opt to upgrade further, as this view was great, and the hot tub sounds nice but in that heat? Not a chance. There is a hot tub as one of the pools in the property and we didn't see a soul in it the entire time we were there. Would make more sense in the hotter months to just make that another pool.||||The room has some serious shortfalls. Other than being very pretty, the function is very poor for several reasons. ||||1) Lighting: the lighting is just like regular hotels, but prettier. This means it's really dark in your room when the sun is down. And the three lamps in our room that could have supplemented all didn't work. But really the issue is the main lighting should have brighter options available. My wife certainly felt the bathroom could use more light. There was a lighted makeup mirror in the bathroom, but it was broken in two ways: First, dead batteries meant no light. Called and got that solved. However, it was also incapable of holding position. So, you'de sit at the counter, turn it towards your face, and it would instantly fall down so you could not see yourself. They were able to fix this as well, but it took another call. ||||2) Layout: There is a solid door just after you enter the room, that even has a lock on it. This leads to the shower and bathroom area. However, the area is a walk-thru and as such, this door (and especially the lock) serves no purpose other than to cause major problems because it is in the way of both closet doors and the shower door. The extra door should just be removed, as it makes everything in the area frustrating to deal with.||||2a) More layout: The beds are lower than typical, but not a big deal. They are super comfortable as are the pillows. However, the night stands are both literally like 8 inches off the floor. It's almost comical. However, it also creates a dangerous trip hazard for the one on the side of the bathroom, as it is perfectly square,.completely in the path to head that direction, and low enough that even in broad daylight you easily stub your toe on it once daily. Just plain dumb design. Throw that nightstand out with the door.||||3) Safety: Hopefully you're so excited to be in this pretty place you don't worry about your safety. Want to sneak in? Climb up to a balcony. The doors there DO NOT LOCK. Literally, there is no latchability of that sliding door. And it opens from both sides, so both sides are a problem. I validated two other rooms had the same issue, so it's probably consistent across the resort.||||3a) More safety: The Secret Box. You'll read from other reviews about the secret box. It's basically a cabinet door you can open from your room, put something in, and the employees can do the same from the outside. So it's a great, non-invasive way to get things in and out of the room. However, ours was completely unsecured. Meaning, if someone wanted to, they could open the door from the hallway, jump through, and be inside our room, whether we were there or not. When I raised the issue, they fixed the lock the next day, but it's still a very flawed system that someone didn't think through. There absolutely, positively, should be a real deadbolt on the inside for the occupant to lock. That way not even a hotel employee with a key could enter that way. And just to be clear, the lock on the door in the hallway (once fixed) is not like a real lock on a door, it's a low-end simple lock and I'm confident I could just pull the door open myself from the outside even if locked. As we walk the halls, we would notice several of these secret box doors that weren't even closed all the way. I don't care how safe you think your island is, this is absurd and not up to any proper standard.||||4) Shower: Made for fun, but not getting clean. It's a truly beautiful shower setup. Two rain heads up top, one of which has a handle that can be used instead. All very pretty and we'll appointed. If you like soft water, you'll be in heaven. If you don't, you won't feel clean during your stay. More than that, pressure does not seem to be something they considered. Rain showers I always find less productive for cleaning due to their angle, but even when using the handle, the pressure just simply sucked. It made getting clean take twice as long as it would at home.||||5) Power outlets: Need to plug anything in? Good luck. The only two outlets along the desk-wall are taken by the Bluetooth speaker and coffee maker, so you have to unplug one to use it. There is one by each night stand, but you'll have to get on your knees to use it. ||||5a) Power outlets in bathroom: There is one and only one, and it's directly in between the two mirrors. This is another form over function, as when you plug in your curling iron, you won't be able to use it in front of the mirror as it's too far. Seriously?||||6) Hairdryer: How could they get this wrong. We buy them every couple years, and you don't have to buy a $300 dyson to dry hair. For $30 you can get a truly good Conair. But here, they decided to get a truly bad one. It works, but again - you'll need more time than you're used to.||||7) Major crack in ceiling: You'd think with the low occupancy that they could fix things. But there was a huge belly crack in the drywall ceiling of the room.||||8) Air conditioning: If you like it truly cold in your room, you're out of luck. They say they allow the system to go down to 68, but we only hot to 68 a couple times during our stay. We've stayed in plenty of ultra hot locales, and never had this much challenge cooling down to 66 or even 65. This hotel can't do it. There is a ceiling fan, but even on high, it's pretty slow and barely makes a difference when you have a high ceiling.||||9) Laundry: "you can clean 3 pieces during your stay" Really? That seems just silly. For the charges to be here, either make it none or unlimited. I can't imagine people will take advantage of a kind policy.||||10) Noise: The doors to the rooms offer little to no sound insulation. So when you try to sleep in, good luck. Better bring a sound machine. This also means when you travel the halls, you might hear some interesting sounds. This is a couples resort, after all.||||Those are the biggies for the room.||||Restaurants ||||1) Wildfire: We ate there twice during our stay. On the first visit, after 4 problems with language barrier of the server, where he couldn't answer the most simple of questions about sauces, preparation, etc, we had to pull in Erik, the manager. He had someone else handle the order, and then the guy who didn't have decent English came back for the rest of the meal. I tried the house Cabernet, it tasted like dirty feet.  We made the mistake of dining a second time. We were given the same server, and had the same problems. But this night, the overall experience was terrible. While the food was good, we had one entree that literally didn't come out until 15 minutes after the other three were delivered. Two of the sides never came. One of the drink orders had to be asked for FOUR times before the manager got involved again. What's more, water was never offered or refilled, so we were parched. The worst part of all was the heat. It was warm the first night, but the second night it was just not bearable for dinner. I actually brought a thermometer down to the table to confirm before thinking I may be unreasonable. It was 77 degrees at our table. That should never happen. While the food was good, it was not consistent. The 8oz looked like 4-5 ounces the first night. The second night it was 7-8, like literally twice the size. The ribeye was easy better the first night. Note that all the meats were VERY thin by US standards, but we're still pretty tasty. For instance, the ribeye and NY strip looked like they could have been 1cm thick. Crazy.||||2) Spezia: If you like pizza even a little, is fabulous here. They offer pizza at least in three places at the resort, but this is by far the best crust and beautifully cooked. The Bolognese was also fantastic, as was the salmon. We didn't live the desserts, but this was the best overall food in our opinion. Cesar was terrific. Very attentive, great English. The big negative for Spezia is that they actually open the big doors to the patio all night. Yes, it's a beautiful view, but...remember the heat? We thought it was great that they had ceiling fans to help, but then they turned them off. Really??||||3) Cacao: excellent gelato, good service, easy coffee. Lots of dessert-y things and open 24 hours.||||4) overall: disappointing. The biggest disappointment is the overall availability if food. At other Hyatt's like the Ziva, they have food carts available throughout the day for a quick bite, like made to order sushi and pizza, one even had a coconut drink being offered around the pool. Not here. You must order from specific restaurants at specific times. And you better read up each day to know which ones are open, as it's a revolving door and changes every day. There is no place to quickly order and go. You can't easily get something from Spezia for lunch,for instance, if you're not seated in the restaurant. But...remember we have a dress code at each restaurant..but we won't tell you about it in advance so you can plan. And my God, pants? That shouldn't be written anywhere as a requirement...Yes, they allow for bermuda length shorts, but frankly the app does not make it clear what's okay and what's not. ||||Want to think about your vacation in advance and plan reservations ahead? Nope, they don't do that. However, reservations fill up. Everyone has been posting that Wildfire has the best food, so good luck getting a reservation now. Nevermind that this wasn't our experience. Just open all the restaurants, remove the confusion, and let us make our own reservations through the app. Adding a middle man for dinner reservations is just a pain.||||Construction ||||They are doing construction but don't seem you. Every day we had water spitting out of our faucet when turned on that made it clear someone upstream had turned off the water. But there was never earning. Then, on our lady day, there was no running water in the bathrooms on the rooftop pool. So, imagine what the toilets looked like arrive nobody was informed not to use them when they could not be flushed, not good you wash your hands. ||||Additionally, there was significant construction going on all day on the rooftop pool. Again, no notice. But I'm talking about major nose creating construction, for four hours straight. Ridiculous! ||||Planning for your trip||||Want to plan ahead? Nope, can't do that. Yes, you can download the Hyatt Inclusives app to see some information. However, it's not very helpful. Let's look at the most basic of activities they offer: the bike tour. It says it's at 8am daily. It's actually at both 8am and 5pm daily, but this was never shown in the app. There is a weight limit to the bikes, they don't show that. They include helmets, they don't tell you that. They provide incredible e-bikes that make it so you really don't have to put in effort, which is amazing, but they don't tell you that. You will stop in spots that may have mosquitos, and you have spray in your room from the hotel. But they don't tell you that. Just one example.||||Another example is the scuba tour. They actually can hook you up with going out and doing some light scuba diving - no experience or certification needed. However, you have to plan over 24 hours in advance, and it must be finished at least 24 hours before you get on an airplane. They don't event list scuba as an option anywhere. ||||My point is that there are ao many cool experiences, but you don't get detail on any of them, and you are completely unable to sign up for anything in advance. So, on our arrival, we were going up the elevator with our butler, and saw the schedule of events on the digital wall - very cool. We were thrilled to see the candle making experience later the same day. Too bad for you - all filled. No more plans to offer that while you're here. Maybe next time. No wait list process either - which is kind of insane since at a relaxed place like this, people change their minds and don't cancel on the regular.||||Bike tour:||||Others have said it, and I agree - it's awesome! Franco was our tour guide and he was so kind and passionate about the areas he showed us. We actually would have really liked an option for a longer tour. There were two others on our tour, who were from Mexico. They basically just wanted to take the bikes and go off on their own, with no interest in the tour or Franco's guidance. It ended up being a pretty awkward situation, as they tried to pressure Franco to allow them to just go off on their own. I thought others said the tour was about 90 minutes - it only shows 60 minutes in the app...but as you've seen, the app hasn't been reliable. Long story short, ours was almost 60 minutes on the nose.|||| ||||Angeles and Franco get our callout as the most helpful people we met at Impressions. Angeles was a server who provided drinks and food at the pool near La Vista. She not only was constatly checking in to see what she could do to help, but when she saw specific drinks were desired, she anticipated and brought them without us even asking! And Franco, well, we would welcome him in our own home any time. Such a genuine soul and kind person. Precisely the kind of person you want representing your brand. ||||Golf Cart Rental:||||Excellent value. Yes, it's a little cheaper to rent a cart over by the ferry. But it's a crap show over there, and you have to leave them your driver's license. At Impressions, you just are handed the keys and off you go. I think it was $100 for 4 hours, $120 for 8 hours, and $180 for 24 hours. We were a little over four hours and they kindly only charged us for four. It's a seriously nice golf cart, including a backup camera, stronger suspension than most, and faster than most on the island. Plus, it's all electric and brand new, so it doesn't stink like the exhaust on the ones with engines. ||||Island: ||||Worth getting to the north point if interested. Stunning but very crowded public beach. Not much quality shopping. Super crowded and parking is doable but not clear. Don't pay full price for ANYTHING, anywhere.||||Pharmacies: ||||If needed, there are two pharmacies down the road a ways if you turn left out of the Impressions property. Prices are negotiable there, too, and they sell lots of things that are Rx only in the states.||||Property: ||||Be aware that there are a boatload of stairs. 80 I believe from the beach to the main lobby level. No elevator. I think I saw one of those chairs you could ride up along the stairs if you had mobility issues, but I suspect most people would prefer to not use that. So, be aware that if you have challenges climbing stairs, this may not be your destination. I don't think this was mentioned anywhere prior to arrival.||||Lastly, the instagrammable nature of the property. It's real, the place is stunning, top to bottom. It's no wonder it has those accolades. However, there were at least two couples there during our visit who were so "on camera" their entire time (think every moment in the pool and ocean, the docks, the restaurants...everywhere), that you felt you were being forced to be part of their social media. I know it's subjective, but it would be nice if there were limits somehow on this behavior. But at the end of the day, I feel this property is more about the looks than the true high class they wish to purport. We were looking for both, and...

We stayed here for our wedding/honeymoon and would recommend to others looking for a peaceful paradise with attention to details!|Our main butler David went above and beyond to make sure our stay was incredible. He and fellow butler Vi checked in with us multiple times a day, set up our excursions and dinner reservations, and kept us up to date on the daily activities. Their response times were so quick and that made it easy for us to maintain a flexible schedule but still hit all of the dining and activities on our must list.|The entire support staff was amazing, we felt very well taken care of throughout the entire stay. Rebecca and Carla were extremely friendly and very outgoing during the resort activities. We were glad they were not afraid to get the ball rolling at dancing/karaoke nights and encouraged others to participate. Retro Night was a favorite. Guilman and the other pool/beach attendants were always ready to assist with getting chairs, umbrellas, and towels set up. They would greet us each morning and made sure we had everything we would need. Juan and Fernando, the servers at the beach area, were fantastic and knew our drink orders after the first day. They were very consistent with their service and we never found ourselves lacking in beverages or food. As with the pool attendants they were very friendly and went out of their way to greet us and ask how our trip was going. Roma, the main pool bartender and Eduardo from the rooftop pool/isola bar were also very friendly and recognized us each day. Eduardo would start making our drinks the moment he saw us at the rooftop pool and checked in on us frequently. The cleaning and room restocking services ensured we always had toiletries and water in stock. |It was very easy to get desired dining times at restaurants, especially compared to some other AIs. We stayed 10 nights so we had a chance to sample all of the restaurants 1-2 times, and enjoyed all of our meals. Tony gets a special shoutout for such an entertaining hibachi experience! The interactive elements were fun and his shrimp was bomb! Sake server Danny kept the sake flowing and was great with beer recommendations that paired with the meal. We attended the General Manager's Table on our last full day and it was a unique experience to learn about the staff, receive a cooking lesson, and even join in on the food prep! The welcome drinks for that meal were a standout cocktail. Some of our favorite dishes were the oatmeal creme brulee (UNIK), lamb (Wildfire), and Arrachera (beachside restaurant), and we loved the Friday taco bar at Mercado and Sunday brunch at UNIK. The cafe staff put obvious care into coffee orders, and we appreciated the mix of offerings that were easy to grab between meals (sandwiches, snack items, ice cream). |The resort does a good job of catering to different activity levels. There were several options for beach or poolside seating, and no space was overly crowded. Each swimming space was stocked with towels throughout the day. The beach had a tranquil water area for relaxing, but we spent most of our time in the more active waves so we could enjoy the floats and snorkels we brought along. The bike and kayak rentals were a plus for us. Our butlers made it easy to rent bikes, plan small excursions (snorkeling with a pickup from the resort dock) and full-day activities (Chichen Itza bus tour and ferry ride) to a point where we could just show up and start enjoying the experience. We didn't use the golf cart rentals but the hotel made taxi reservations a breeze for the times we needed to get into town.|We arranged for the Intimate Impression wedding package for our symbolic ceremony. It was a good value for the offerings, particularly the private dinner and opportunity for a room upgrade. The Temple was a beautiful venue for the ceremony. Our photographer Adela was dynamite, so warm and so easy to work with! She suggested a revised time to make sure we could capture sunset photos and I am so glad we took her advice. Our coordinator Jose made sure that the other ceremony details fell into place, including accommodating a ceremony time change, and it was very easy to enjoy the majority of the day in the water instead of stressing over tiny details. Some people will say they didn't get to enjoy the food on their wedding day but that was not the case for us--the food was plentiful and the view...

My spouse and I recently visited Impression Isla Mujeres by Secrets. We were so excited, and hoped we would find a place worth visiting every year.

Unfortunately, we are still looking for that place. Although the property is beautiful, and the restaurants are pretty good, this resort was FAR below expectations.

To begin with, it was difficult to find out where to meet the catamaran in Cancun. After several attempts to contact the resort, we got through and learned the correct location. However, when we arrived at the sister resort in Cancun, they didn't have us "on the list" and it took a good deal of explaining and phone calls until we were allowed access.

When we were about half way from the mainland to the island, we were told the water was "too rough" and would be docking at a different resort. This was quite odd - I have been around the water much of my life and wouldn't characterize the water as rough, but it wasn't a big deal. When we docked, they put us in a gross taxi for the rest of the trip to the resort (note: we later saw that they had brand new, nice trucks that they couldn't be bothered to send).

At the resort, our "butlers" actually made our experience meaningfully worse. They were calling and texting us early in the morning (like 7AM...) to "check in" but when we actually wanted help making a reservation or scheduling something, they were completely unresponsive to the point where we ended up having to take care of our ourselves. That might not sound like a big deal, but it's a service we paid for and did not receive. When we asked them to reschedule our airport transportation after we extended our trip by a night for medical reasons, they promised they would contact the private car company and make arrangements. They did not, but we had paid for rountrip transportation, so we were out half of that.

The rest of the staff were hit and miss. Several were overly attentive (think about being asked if you need something every 10 minutes while you're trying to nap by the pool). Others were good. The "VIP services" people accosted us and gave us the typical "you're so special, here's a bunch of free stuff" spiel. Although we suspected this was a ploy to scam us into overpaying for a worthless timeshare-adjacent program, they did not mention that we would have to sit through a 90 minute presentation. When we did not attend that presentation, they harassed us.

Overall, the food is good. Not great, but good. The resort was only about 30% full for most of the days we were there, but we still found ourselves waiting for 10-15 minutes after being seated at restaurants.

It is SO LOUD at night. We are from a very large city and are used to noise. This was on another level. The resort is open from ground to the top floor, so any noise echos throughout the entire building. This was poor design, but the staff were either making the noise themselves or failing to keep guests quiet throughout the night. There was noise all night, every night. Further, on one night a door happened to be blown open and slammed open/shut every few minutes all night. When we called, nothing was done. The next morning we were told it was "coming from the house next door," which was such an unserious and insulting response. It was very clearly coming from inside. We did not get much sleep.

The jacuzzi was not working. The weather was not great a couple of days, and it would have been so nice to sit in a warm jacuzzi. When we inquired about whether the jets could be turned on and the temperature increased (it was the same temperature as the pool), we did not hear back that it was out of service until the next day.

Overall, this was a very uncomfortable and disappointing experience. This should be a $400-500/night resort at most, not $1000+. If you're looking to relax, go somewhere else. We had several conversations with other guests who had similar opinions.

One note for those brave enough to give it a shot: Irving, the main bartender at Sharks at the main pool, is the only saving grace. He makes great drinks and is...