Secrets Maroma Beach Riviera Cancun — Hotel in Quintana Roo

Overall, it was an okay experience. Great beach, definitely rent the regular beach bed. Service here was great.

Food/Restaurants The restaurants need to be a bit more cooled because I was literally sweating.

Breakfast and lunch buffet: The buffets were great. Servers were great and very attentive. The worker at the omelet station in the morning next to the smoothie station was amazing. She made great omelet.

Bars: The swim up bar was great. I forgot his name, but there was this one bartender at the swim up bar who was really creative with his drinks where I'd ask if he can do a drink with certain flavor or something and he'd whip something right up and it'd taste so good.

El Patio: Their tacos are so creative, especially the octopus and bone marrow tacos. The waiters were absolutely delightful. Definitely check this place out. We went here first dinner and I think that almost set our expectations a bit too high.

Himitsu: We came here twice and the food was actually pretty decent. The ramen and miso soup were good, and sushi was very serviceable. The sashimi in ponzu was good, albeit overpowering, but that overpowering allowed my wife who usually doesn't eat sushi to enjoy the sushi. BUT our experience during our second night was terrible, all thanks to a server named Elmer. He was rude, arrogant, and honestly a prick. He rarely came over and not once checked on us during the meal. And when we wanted to order main dishes after we had eaten appetizer or dessert after we've had the main dishes,, he'd cut us off as we started to speak and shush us with something like "let me clean this off first" or something like that. It's fine if he wants to clean stuff off, but don't cut off while we're trying to see if we can order.

Bordeaux: The food was okay. The waiter was really pushy with us buying wines, but we just wanted house wine. When he brought it, he poured some for us to try and when I simply asked if this was house, he proceeded to snicker while saying that of course it was house and that there was no way he'd open a non-house wine and made fun of the fact that I simply asked. I guess he hasn't actually served at restaurants because when you order a bottle of wine, they pour some to make sure that the wine hasn't gone bad. We pretty much decided to leave right after this without finishing our food. This was kind of sad because that rude waiter wasn't even our actual main waiter, and our actual waiter was very composed, pleasant and accommodating.

Entertainment: Shows: Element show had terrible sound tuning where the singer's voice was so muffled that it was hard to enjoy the music. Show was cool though. But because many of the shows were music-based, after this show our first night, we kind of didn't go to any shows. Archery: This was our favorite activity that we did and we're sad we were too tired to go the second time. There were 3 people running it with one of them being Andre, and they were so fun and very helpful in teaching us how to shoot. This was an absolute blast and I hope they offer this more, or even make it so that people can schedule and just go shoot some arrows, instead of having only like an hour every other day. Kayaking: This was fun. I think Andrewas there as well and actually ended up saving my brother-in-law when his kayak tipped over. It can be a bit tiring, but it was fun to kayak out to the ocean. Room: We got the partial ocean view, but honestly, we didn't care too much as if we wanted to see ocean, we would have gone out to the beach. The room itself was very well airconditioned, and turndown services were great. Everything was clean and the bed was so comfortable. My wife loved the pillow menu. There really is nothing to complain about the room and room service. Excursions: I didn't REALLY factor this into the review, since excursions are by Amstar. BUT DO NOT TAKE THE "FREE" TRIP TO PLAYA DEL CARMEN. Thankfully, the guy was almost 20 minutes late and we had already called a taxi by then with Luis Bello. Taxi is only like $33 each way, some taxis might charge more...

It was my first time in Mexico at an all-inclusive resort and I had the greatest experience from start to finish. My partner and I spent 6 days and 5 nights here and by the end of our trip, we wanted nothing more than to extend our stay.

Service: INCREDIBLE. Every single employee, no matter the time of day, treated us so kindly and made us feel very special. The crew at Secrets Maroma Beach take the time to get to know you and they always exceed expectations. They really did make this trip unforgettable.

Food: Delicious! We enjoyed the breakfast buffet and every single restaurant we went to for dinner served excellent food (my personal favorite was the Italian restaurant). We had access to the Preferred Club for breakfast and lunch and my goodness, the Caribbean Shrimp meal consumed my life! I ate it 3 times while we were there! If you wanted something quick during the day, they offered casual meals like pizza, burgers, and tacos around the pool areas. Room service was also SO fast. We would order food and have our food delivered to us within 20 minutes.

Drinks: Great service and great bartenders! Whether you're at the pool bar, lobby bar, or ordering from the mimosa cart, it was always easy to get a drink. They will make you any cocktail that you ask for and if you want to, there are bottles of wines and premium liquors available for purchase. My partner and I purchased a bottle of wine for dinner one night and it was delicious!

Room: We had the Preferred Club Junior Suite with an ocean view and it was beautiful in every way. It was so clean and they turned down the room twice a day, as well as restocked our mini fridge with sodas, waters, and beers. We had a balcony with a mini soak pool and it was so relaxing. There was a day where it was rainy so being able to just sit on the balcony in the pool was great.

Preferred Club: DO IT IF YOU CAN!!!! From start to finish, having access to the Preferred Club lounge, the check-in area, Preferred Club beach cabanas, and room perks made all the difference for us. I would book with the preferred club again simply for the Caribbean shrimp meal they offer!

Pools & Beaches: The pools were always spotless. There are a lot of chairs around the pools which are first come first serve and I recommend you wake up early to claim your spots because they do go fast! There are always wonderful employees walking around refilling your drinks as well! The beaches were also spotless and like the pool, wonderful employees were there for you whenever you needed something. I see a lot of people complain about the seaweed by the beach but.....its a beach. There will be seaweed. The seaweed on the beach didnt take away from the beauty and relaxation we were experiencing!

Dress code: For the restaurants, they do require men to wear collared shirts, pants, and close-toed shoes. However, if you didn't pack pants, they have beautiful outside seating available.

Weather: It was HOT and it was HUMID. Bring your deodorant and bring your hat and sunglasses! We unknowingly booked our stay during hurricane season but we had beautiful weather the whole time we were there. There was a 3 hour period on one day where it rained but after that, clear skies!

The crowd/being LGBTQIA: I booked this with my partner (we are two 30 year old men) and we were treated wonderfully by the staff from start to finish. We never felt uncomfortable by any patrons or staff while we were there and felt safe being ourselves. We had a relaxed crowd during our stay filled with all sorts of different people. There are people walking around who love to chat with new people and there are others who are there to just disconnect and enjoy some peace and relaxation. No matter what you're looking for, there is a space where you can enjoy your time. If you are looking for more of a party/late night scene, this resort may not be the best fit.

THANK YOU SECRETS MAROMA BEACH! We will be back! P.S. remember to tip your bartenders and waiters if you go!...

To sum it up, being very straightforward and covering almost everything:

Entrance: Fix the road leading to the hotel. It seemed like we were driving to an abandoned cave. The entrance and front desk do not give justice to the hotel being a 5 stars, nothing grandiose or elegant until you walk all the way to the lobby.

Service and staff: Excellent, very friendly, personal, and professional, that includes the entire staff in the hotel.

Rooms: beautifully decorated, very elegant, amazing woodwork, high quality, well kept, very clean, great amenities.

Pool: The highlight of the hotel, there's two parts for the pool, a relaxing side towards the beach, and another side leading to the swim up bar. Closing the pool and bars at 6:00 pm is a big disappointment.

Entertainment: A big fail! The hotel has decent activities during the day, barely any music, but at night, they miserably failed to have any kind of decent entertainment or music, don't call a place the club when the music is so low and so boring that you want to drown yourself to death lol so so boring and lack any kind of creativity or amusement. One of the shows was decent, but that is it!

Grounds: Very clean, well kept, maintained, and a lot of spots to walk around and chill, beware of the animals everywhere, they will steal your food if you leave anything for more than 5 seconds.

Drinks: Huge, huge, huge disappointment for someone who doesn't like sweet drinks and cocktails, and for a 5 stars hotels, it is not acceptable to dilute the drinks, yes the drinks are diluted, 300% positive about it, you would expect this from lower grade hotel, but it seems like greedy is greedy, they want to always make more money no matted what, even when charging a higher prices. I did not like that, I know my drinks and my tolerance very well, if I had the same amount of drinks I had at the resort, back home I would be on the floor, still it wasn't enjoyable to keep asking for drinks just because they want to illegally mess with the quality. You wouldn't have a problem with fruity sweet cocktails as you can barely taste the alcohol anyway.

Food: One of the most important aspects of the resort, and to be very honest, food did not meet expectations when they gave the impression that the food will exceed expectations. All restaurants are beautifully decorated and clean, nice atmosphere, enjoyable experience, lots of options, great presentation... However, quality is not up there, I would rather have a higher quality than lots of mediocre options, another thing they did is use the same exact plate in different restaurants and changing few minor things, like they all shared one kitchen in the back, which is probably the case... The hibachi dinner was nice, the chef who cooked was good, easy on the salt for next time though lol To conclude, food was not great but not bad, and did not stand to the high standards they claim to maintain.

Beach: A very nice stretch of sandy beach, shared between 3 other resorts, however spacious enough, nice beds, cool beach bar too. There was lots of seaweed, which is understandable for this time of the year, but I haven't seen anyone removing the seaweed day or night like they did in other resorts I have stayed at, they had a huge machine that they drive down the beach and clear the water and the sand from all the seaweed, but this was not the case.

All in all, the stay was relaxing and enjoyable, a lot of nice touches and small things they did by the pool and in the lobby that were nice and added to the experience, like ice cream cart, sunglasses cleaning, refreshing cold face towels, live cooking stations by the pool and such...

For the price and the level of the hotel, I would pick a different place with a younger crowd, better entertainment, and higher food quality.

Oh, and if you are debating or they try to sell you the proffered level, it's not worth it, and the swim pool rooms are decent, narrow pool, not connected to the main pool and rooms are too close...