Secrets Vallarta Bay Puerto Vallarta — Hotel in Jalisco

I stayed at Secrets Vallarta Bay Puerto Vallarta end of June through beginning of August 2025 along with my husband and our 2 adult children to celebrate my husband's 50th birthday. We had two rooms. We used Hyatt Guest of Honor certificates on both rooms, which should have given us Globalist benefits, room upgrades, etc . We were supposedly "upgraded" to the Preferred Club, however, the supposed "upgrade" put my husband and me directly beside the very noisy, unattractive view of the pool construction that we were never informed about before our stay. To say that this noise was incessant is an understatement. In our room, at the other pool and at the beach, there was no escaping the constant construction beeping, jackhammering, etc. So we basically wasted our Guest of Honor certificates. They didn't have a room with two separate beds available in the Preferred Club building for our adult kids, so they put them in the non-preferred building but assured us they would still receive Preferred Club and Guest of Honor benefits, however, they did not. They did not receive the room upgrade nor any other benefits and had to request things several times before they would deliver them to the room. Not to mention that our "upgraded room" was one of the worst in the resort due to the construction. We spoke to the manager, Norma, in person at the resort about our disappointment and she offered to refund 25k points to us and see about returning our Guest of Honor certificates. I would have expected a much more generous offer due to the situation, but it was my husband's 50th birthday and I didn't want to tarnish an already disappointing trip with more negativity, so I just accepted her offer so we didn't have to discuss it in front of my husband on his actual birthday anymore. I was told it could take as much as 7-10 business days for the points to post and to confirm if the Guest of Honor certificates could be returned to our account. This discussion happened on August 3rd in person with Norma at the resort. It is now August 25th, (16th business day), and I have followed up with the resort and with Hyatt about 8 times with no resolution. I delayed writing this review to give both Secrets Vallarta Bay and Hyatt ample time to correct this situation, but they have done nothing more than waste more of my time trying to follow up on this. When we booked a couple months ago, the reviews looked great, so we didn't look at the reviews any more between when we booked and when we arrived. Had we looked again, we would have seen that they began unannounced pool construction in the meantime and many other guests were complaining about the pool construction noise. We should not have to rely on other guests to inform us about ongoing disruptive construction at the resort! Do yourself a favor and look through the recent reviews from the past month or two and note that the hotel has replied to the complaints and said that they are working on communicating the notice about the pool construction to guests at the time of booking, but they have been saying this for weeks or months now and still NOTHING is being done to inform guests about the construction or that the pool will be unavailable during their stay before they book or before they arrive so they can make an informed decision on whether they want to stay at this resort or not! I feel like we paid a premium to stay on this side of the resort (the Secrets adults- only side) as opposed to the Dreams side of the resort to experience the quieter more relaxing vibe, but it was much quieter on the Dreams side of the resort, even with all the kids over there! Then on top of that premium, we used our Guest of Honor certificates in hopes of really making this stay special for my husband's 50th birthday, but that was a complete waste of the certificates as our room "upgrade" was more of a "downgrade". Our adult kids who ended up in the non-preferred club building had a quieter room than we did in our supposed "upgraded" room. Won't allow me to post full review & videos won't uploa...

Rated 4 starts solely for the annoyance of private events in the lobby area, pool and the package presentation. Would we stay here again? Yes, but not anytime soon.

Pros - all inclusive, everyone is very nice and helpful. Good views. Good walking distance to the most popular places. Great rooms and water pressure. Restaurants are very flavorful and easy/quick to reserve a table. Adults only. You can walk over to the the Dreams side and experience all of their amenities as well. People from Dreams(including kids) cannot come to the Secrets side. Great room service. They have tables to help you with rides, events/tours, etc. Pharmacy located on the 3rd floor.

Cons - pool begins to close at around 6:00pm. Private events held in the lobby take away from guest experience (stayed 5 days and 4 of those days there were private events). The RESORT SALES PRESENTATION (not a timeshare, but sure does feel like one) - they tell you that you will get to experience a VIP breakfast ( IT IS THE REGULAR BREAKFAST EVERYONE CAN EXPERIENCE AT THE MARKET CAFE) and the whole ordeal will take no more than 90 minutes, including the breakfast. At the end of the presentation they attempt to sell you a vacation package that is catered to humans who can vacation once or twice a year. Our presentation took about 2 hours from start to finish. You can decide not to do it, but they do lure you in with Resort Cash that you can use in their shops.

Employees - everyone is always amazing, friendly. Miriam R. and our room service lady were the best! They will call a taxi for you when needed or help you in any way that they can.

Lobby - easy check-in/check-out, very clean. Taxi, bar and shops all conveniently located on the 3rd floor. BIG Downside - when there are events the majority of the lobby is closed, which is annoying because the event holders, not the resort staff, ask you to leave because it is a private event... a private event in the lobby of the hotel where everyone walks through and sometimes lounge. There were multiple times when we wanted to just hang out while waiting for friends and we were told by the event staff that we could not. For example, Site One, gold and tennis events.

Rooms - very clean. Water pressure was always great. Plenty of good quality shampoo, conditioner and body wash. Plenty of towels and even included a jet tub. AC worked great. Balcony view - amazing. We were on the 13th floor and a majority of the time we could only hear the waves. You do hear a lot of doors slamming when guests leave their rooms. Fridge, no cost to use items in it, you can always request for more at no charge

Pools - not the cleanest, however, they do have staff clean the pool everyday. I believe they were not the cleanest because of the guests eating/spilling drinks in the pool. The resort does a great job of keeping everything very clean. This is most noticeable by the amount of staff they have cleaning every morning and evening. The most disappointing part is that the pool and pool bar begins to close at 6:00pm and new towels are not placed out for guests getting into the pools around this time. ALSO VERY disappointing is that when there are private events being held, they take away lounge chairs and begin to close everything down earlier than 6:00pm.

Beach - LOVE how they have staff to keep non-guests out of the resort. There were plenty of times we saw a NON-guest try to enter the resort. The beach is almost never swimmable, but it is a beautiful view from the resort. Great location. Especially the sunset.

Mountains - the resort has views of both the beach AND the mountains. The best part is that you do not have to walk far to experience this.

Private events taking up the guests areas are the biggest annoyance to not just us, but plenty of other guests as well. They host plenty of resort related events to keep you busy. Resort is close to everything, especially The Romantic Zone, it was walking distance for us, but if you do not want to walk, or can not walk then you can take a taxi ride that will cost...

Will never stay at another Secrets or Hyatt hotel. I came across the Secrets Vallarta Bay hotel when I was looking for an all-inclusive, adults-only hotel to make reservations for all my wedding guests. I initially requested information on group bookings and a wedding sales manager reached out to me. I wanted to reserve 10 rooms for my guests. The sales manager offered me a group discount if a signed a contract for a 10-room booking. I should have immediately seen it as a red flag how insisting the sales manager was and how much pressure she was giving me to sign the contract. The contract was obviously written in Spanish and then translated to English which made it a bit difficult to understand. It wasn’t until a few months later when I found out that if I didn’t get the 10 rooms booked, I would not only lose my deposit but also have to pay one or more nights on the rooms that didn’t get booked. I went through so much stress worrying about this which made the group discount not even be worth the stress I was going through. I want to note that the wedding sales manager new I was getting married in Puerto Vallarta (not at the hotel) this should have been pretty obvious since she is the WEDDING sales manager, but I guess she forgot I was going there for my wedding. I had no time to do further research on the hotel and its services due to working full time and going to school full time so I had no idea they even offered wedding and bridal related services like hair and makeup, so I hired a local hair and makeup stylist for the day of my wedding. The day of my wedding comes, and I am waiting on my hair and makeup stylist at the hotel because I hired them for onsite service. I get a call from my makeup artist saying the hotel is denying their entry. The hotel then calls my room to tell me outside vendors are not allowed access without me paying the vendors fee of $500 USD. I go to the front desk and talk to the staff, and they were clearly WASTING my time. They then drop the fee to $100 USD per person, I had a team of 3 people. They said because they offer hair and makeup services, they don’t allow outside vendors for security reasons and that the sales manager should have offered these services to me since I was coming there for my wedding. Not once did the wedding sales manager offer me any wedding or bridal services. If I would have known, they did bridal hair and makeup at the hotel I would have booked with them because it would have been so much easier for me. They had no empathy whatsoever and did not care to have to put me through that much stress on the day of my wedding. I had to find a place in town to get hair and makeup done for my maid of honor, mother, mother-in-law, and myself. The hotel wasted so much of our time trying to get us to pay that fee by making us talk to multiple different people only to get the same answer out of everyone that I was 20 minutes late to my own wedding and my mom was 45 minutes late. I had to run back to the hotel after getting my hair and makeup done and put on my wedding dress in a rush, I finished getting ready on the way to the church. The catholic ceremony was so important to my mom, and she missed most of it. I had always imagined that on my wedding day I would have my mom there to help me get dressed and ready and instead I had the most chaotic and stressful time. What this hotel took from me and my mom is something I will never get back and I do not wish that on any future bride. This hotel and its policies are actually only in place only to get more money out of you and not actually for security reasons are the reason my wedding was almost ruined. Lastly, after all the wedding drama, my husband and I wanted to relax and use the jacuzzi but were unable to because black gunk and hair came out of the jets meaning they are clearly not cleaned properly! I could not believe how run-down things were despite how expensive the hotel was. The only good thing about this hotel was the restaurant staff and the aquatics staff (Jaime). They were super friendly...