Secrets Huatulco — Hotel in Oaxaca

I want to start by saying that the location of the hotel is beautiful. The experience though was really disappointing. I have traveled to many places around the world (Australia, Hawaii, many other US states, Dubai, etc) & I was so excited to go to Secrets Resort for my birthday with my fiancé. When we arrived we were greeted by the preferred area staff and was overwhelmed by how nice they seemed. Then, one of the staff mentioned a special sales promotion and said he will meet us for breakfast the next day so we can have breakfast and talk about the promotion. The day he referred to was my birthday, which I did express & he seemed excited to have breakfast with us on that day. We arrived when he told us to at the front of the hotel the next day and they drove us to the area where the Castaway restaurant was.

We were surprised to find out when we arrived at Castaway that he was handing us off to other staff. That person greeted us and had breakfast with us and seemed very nice. For 2 hours, he explained how the promotion was not a time share & how if we paid $170 a year we would get 25% off from what seemed to be any hotel in the world during our 30 year membership period. As an avid traveler, I was ecstatic about this since it seemed to be worth it. After I expressed my desire to agree to the terms of the deal, he pulls out a piece of paper and said the $170 a year was in addition to $50,000 that we would need to pay up front. We felt scammed and extremely disappointed that we spent 2 hours of our time on my birthday in a meeting for them to scam us. We decided to walk back to the front desk area even though we didn’t know exactly how to get there because I did not want to talk to any of the staff due to how upset I was for being scammed.

After we arrived back at the hotel, I decided to book an excursion for the next morning with Amstar. I talked to the front desk staff and they got me on the phone with the representative for Amstar that works at the hotel. The person said to arrive at the front desk area the next morning at 8:45 am and that we did not need to bring towels. The next morning, we arrived at the area to meet them for the excursion and they said that we arrived “too late” even though he told us to arrive at 8:45 am and that they had already left for the excursion for the day. I was devastated. I didn’t want to do anything so we relaxed by the pool and met some nice guests there as well. Luckily, we became friends with the other guests. Abraham, the entertainer, was very nice and made our day enjoyable.

After not trusting the hotel staff anymore, we decided to skip out on the SPA deal that they gave us while they scammed us at the promotional breakfast meeting. I called Amstar directly since the hotel staff ruined our original booking with them and told them what happened & booked another excursion for the next day. They said to meet them at 8:45, which is the same time that the hotel staff told us the day before.

Once we arrived at the front desk area I said “oh look we are not late today like you told us yesterday,” and walked to the van that was there to pick us up. The excursion was pleasant and the seafood restaurant we went to that was owned by a local family was excellent. It was the best food we had during our trip but it was not at the hotel.

The hotel food lacked in quality. The asian restaurant was the worst. The Italian restaurant had very small portions, but we were nervous if we ordered too much that it would seem like were taking advantage of them and didn’t realize how small the portions were prior. They told us that we can only eat outdoors since my fiance did not have the proper attire which was long pants & dress shoes. It was not advertised to us ahead of time that we needed the long pants and shoes & since it was a resort, we expected to be able to eat in restaurants with shorts on. It was too hot to wear pants!

Then, finally it was the day that we got to go back to the US (home). I was so relieved to leave such an awful place with terrible food. The views were...

We stayed here last month for 7 days with our adult daughter and her partner. We have vacationed at Dreams and Secrets for 15 years and we’re excited about this trip to Secrets but as soon as we arrived, we could tell it was not what you would expect from a Secrets. As shared in other reviews, it’s unfortunate that Hyatt took over the Unlimited Vacations company and hasn’t kept the excellence of a Secrets. The resort is a not a 5 star and is overpriced and it was disappointing because it was not what we expected but we made sure to have a great time as a family.

We booked though Air Canada and had a choice of a King room with a jacuzzi on the balcony and a King room with no jacuzzi - both for the same price. After reading the reviews about the jacuzzi not working well and having no privacy and that the rooms with no jacuzzies are in higher floors , I selected 2 King room, no Jacuzzi. When we arrived, both rooms were King with Jacuzzis. We knew we would not use the jacuzzi and wanted the room we booked, to be told by the front desk that it would cost more for that type of room. I told them that is not how Air Canada posted it and I had a printout of my booking but they would not accommodate us. I was told that it was an error with Air Canada. I shared that the wooden tiles on the balcony are broken and dangerous to walk on. They sent someone who said that it was fine. See photos. I was really disappointed with this interaction and it didn't start the vacation off well.

Here are a few pros and cons:

Pros: The most gorgeous beach and surroundings (we spent all our days on the beach), beautiful view of the ocean from the room, resort App, can kayak and snorkel, amazing housekeeping (thanks Theo), the bed is very comfortable and you can request an orthopedic pillow on the app which was great, no towel cards, food was mostly tasteful with the odd meal that wasn’t (we love Mexican food but were disappointed with the food at the Mexican night), 25 minute drive from airport. We went into town one day and it was lovely. If you walk to the left of the beach, there is a path that takes you to a secluded beach which was beautiful. It was our son in laws birthday and you can call concierge and request a bday banner on the door - this was a nice touch. Great fish and vegetarian options.

Cons Floor numbers don’t coincide with room numbers which is confusing, resorts and rooms are outdated, as others have commented, the rooms could be nicer and look out of style. The pools are worn down and tiles and sections need replacing. There are little things that can make a resort exceptional but it was disappointing to get dishes with chips, napkins that had permanent stains or were worn down, chair cushions with stains. The disco was depressing. We love going to the disco and are used to staying at adult resorts where it’s packed but here, the music is not good. The one night we went, there was maybe 6 people there but we still danced until the DJ started playing a slow song and then we left. There is a line at the buffet but the Mexican restaurant does breakfast too so we went there most mornings. The buffet is not really a buffet, you have to be served at the egg and bacon and hash browns station. Beach service is hit and miss. Service at the restaurants is hit and miss but we had great service at the al a carte at the Asian, dinner at Castaway, dinner at Oceana. Drinks are not great. If u want wine at the pool, you will get cheap Prosecco. The pool bar and lobby bar makes the best drinks. When u order wine, every restaurant fills your glass a 1/4 only and you have to keep asking them for refills so we eventually just started asking for them to fill the glass all the way up. The nighttime shows are just ok but the performers work hard. Be prepared for the ongoing vendors on the beach approaching you to buy their items.

Overall, the resort is overpriced and needs many areas of improvement, but the beach and view is stunning. What made our vacation amazing was the quality time...

This was the 5th Secrets resort we have been to and it was by far below the standards of the other ones. We knew going in that things would probably be a little different because of COVID, but in reality it was way different.

To start I would like to say we did come across some very sweet and helpful staff. There was Jamie in the entertainment staff, Ivonne who I believe was a restaurant manager, and Natalie who worked in the restaurants.

The biggest problem was our COVID tests. We had our test at 10:15am the morning before we left and they said we would receive emails with the results because we need them to return to the US. We had not received the email by 3 so we went into the preferred lounge to check. They said we would have them later that day. By 7 we still had no email, went back to let them know, they said we would get the email. Now we are up at 330am to catch the shuttle and still no email. We go to the front desk and the gentleman up there said it shouldn’t be a problem, wrote the hotel number on a card and said the airline employee could call if there were questions. We get to the airport and COULD NOT check in.The airline employee and my husband and I were all calling the hotel and there was only a busy signal.Luckily the airline employee called the Dreams resort and got a manager to help and finally send the email with the negative tests. The airline employee had to walk us through security because we were about to miss our flight after 2 hours of chaos.

Having said that this resort was not up to the standards of their other hotels.The pool was rough, there we’re missing tiles all throughout the pool and a lot of which were on the bottom and created rough patches which resulted in a gash on my foot.Another downfall here was the activities schedule throughout the day. At other resorts there are constantly people interacting and activities around the clock.This resort had things scheduled that never happened.We normally see around 10 different entertainment staff each day and here we saw 2 during the day and then 2 additional at night.They were all very nice, but there weren’t enough of them to run the daily activities.

The next problem we had was with the food, especially the breakfast and lunch buffet. I do realize it is hard to keep up with things in a buffet, but when you have food that is ice cold sitting out under a light bulb, it is not appetizing. I would rely on the fresh stations where the food is made to order, but the problem with that is the fact that I have a food allergy to mushrooms. The person at the egg station was dipping the same spoon into all of the food containers including one with mushrooms.When I tried explaining that to them they think I want mushrooms added in and then there goes my breakfast. Natalie did help the last few days to make sure I could eat my breakfast without mushrooms.Lunch was also not ideal. The buffet had raw dough pizza and burgers and pasta. You would think they would have options that I couldn’t find at a fast food restaurant at home. Castaway restaurant was amazing, but it is rarely open so the other lunch option it Barefoot grill which has burgers, hotdogs, and nachos.

The last thing was the lack of acknowledgment of our anniversary.At the other resorts they would put flowers on the bed in a heart shape, one year they had candles lit and flowers on the floor. We are normally greeted with a bottle of champagne on ice and sweet things like that. They will make a happy anniversary desert with writing in chocolate on the plate. There was none of that! The only person that did something sweet was Jamie the amazing entertainment guy!He printed out a card for us wishing us a happy anniversary.

We have loved the Secrets brand, but if this is their new standard we won’t be returning and will find somewhere else to go on vacation. We were not impressed at all by this resort and we were not the only ones, 3 other couples we met there said they would...