Secrets Playa Mujeres Golf & Spa Resort — Hotel in Quintana Roo

Let me start by saying the only reason we enjoyed ourselves was because of the room choice we made when booking. If it hadn't been for that, I would give the hotel 1 star or less for our experience that did not meet our expectation for the price we paid. We stayed 4 nights in late September in the Ocean View Master Suite with Private Pool and Preferred Club. The total for the trip, including airfare and airport transfer,in case you are comparing resorts and amenities, was $4500. The first night we arrived was immediately following a CAT 1 hurricane in Cancun the day before, so we are definitely cutting them some slack on how the property looked, lol. The workers worked so hard the next day to clean the debris around pool and common areas. At check in, the woman at the preferred club told us that since we had noted the anniversary package on booking, there would be a banner on our door as well as a fruit plate, a bottle of liquor of choice and a sparkling wine as a welcome gift in the room once we arrived at the room. She told us that she gave us a great room and location. We arrived after dark, so we didn't know if it was good or not. This was our first time here, and she noted that, but did not give us any direction as far as where the restaurants were, offer us a map, gift shop for sunscreen, nada. She did tell us the restaurants open for the night due to the storm, so we got to our room, unloaded and went to find dinner at the Market buffet. (When we got to the room, no banner, no fruit, liquor, or sparkling wine) The buffet food was our first sign of things to come as far as quality of dining experiences. There were several choices, but NOTHING was good. All food was bland, needed seasoning, and when we ordered a Coca Cola it was flat. Later we learned that all Cokes are served from 2-Liter bottles in the resort, and all were flat every time we ordered. For as much as we paid, can I get a can that could be recycled? A bottle? We headed back to the room for rest after a long day of travel, hoping food would be better the next day. When daylight came, we realized that the location of our room (and outer yard and pool) are right next to the main beach walkway and the showers to wash off from the beach. It was a line and trail of people all day, offering no privacy or quiet in our room we paid quite heavily extra for. We asked for another room in a more private location and to our surprise, they obliged, which was awesome. Throughout the stay, the buffet food was horrific, my husband could not find anything that he liked to eat at any of the "nicer" restaurants, guacamole was just mashed avocado with no seasoning, and it seemed as though the theme was that all the restaurant foods were cooked in the same large kitchen and just distributed to the different restaurants for the appearance of variety. For example, the same risotto in Oceana as Portofino. We tipped heavily, and it did not seem to make much of a difference in the service we received with the exception of Edher, our waiter for pool service in our room. He was amazing, as was Artemio in Portofino and Reuben in Market Cafe. Ask to be seated with them if they are working! Everyone else's service was lackluster. We got the feeling very quickly that they did not like waiting on Americans and were rather smug to us most of the trip. The resort itself is pretty, with the exceptions of some obvious need of repair in ceilings and paint which a lot were weepy and wet looking. Both our rooms had a sewer type smell most days which we chocked up to the hurricane and maybe some backup of some sort that they could not control. Maybe not, lol. Turn down service was very nice as they cleaned your room in the process, so you essentially get your room cleaned twice daily. The drinks were yummy and plentiful, the Bali beds at the beach were a nice perk to preferred club guests, but other than that, we did not see much value in the preferred club. I think to get the room we booked, it automatically included. The room was INCREDIBLE and...

My husband and I planned a small ceremony on the beach along with a 5 night stay with a preferred club room.

We were told that we would receive information from our wedding coordinator a couple months prior to our arrival. Since we hadn’t heard anything, my husband called and left messages, multiple times, with no luck. Finally we received information from a coordinator via email a few weeks prior to our trip. We had asked the wedding coordinator about dinner reservations, since we had hoped our whole party (15 people) could eat together one night. We were charged over three hundred dollars for that meal…. At an all inclusive….. that seemed odd. We were told we would have a semi private area. That ended up not being the case at all. We also had dinner most nights with 10-15 people, with no need for that costly reservation.

Upon our arrival to the resort, we had to wait over two hours before our room would be ready. Check in was not until 2pm, so this was not frustrating by itself. During that time, we had an appointment to meet with our wedding coordinator. We proceeded to carry our carryon bags around, to lunch and then on a tour with the wedding coordinator. This was quite inconvenient. It would have been nice if there was somewhere we could have stored our belongings while we waited for our room to be ready.

We were charged for champagne for our wedding since we had over 10 people. The extra champagne was never even opened. The minister stood towards the sun during his 5+ minute speech on love. So our eyes were closed in most of our pictures. This was due to the time of day. Not a negative at all. We should have chosen a different time of day to get married lol.

Since we had booked preferred club, were told that we would receive a bottle of alcohol to our room… we got to choose between wine, vodka, tequila, etc….that bottle never arrived. Even after we inquired about it, we never received our bottle of vodka.

After our wedding, we received chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our room. Yum, my favorite! Only to be very disappointed when we saw they were covered in ANTS!!!! When I called room service, they stated they were unable to replace them but I could call back the next day at 11:00am and try. I stated that we leave for the airport in the morning…. Anyway, then I called the concierge and they also stated they were unable to assist. Obviously this was very minor. However, at the very minimum, there should not be ants in our room.

Then, to go along with all of that, we were on the fourth floor, right next to an elevator that broke on our second day. It was not fixed before our departure. We had to take the stairs to the fourth floor for 5 of our 6 days.

Upon checkout. We were asked if we had scheduled for our luggage to be picked up. We had not been informed that we needed to, so no. I told her we had just lugged our four large suitcases down from the fourth floor ourselves with a broken elevator…She completely ignored my frustration with the error in their process and just stated “so they are here? Oh perfect” over and over. I understand that everything worked out in her eyes but, being dismissive of my comments was not the ideal response.

I guess it’s disappointing to know that our experience of our wedding was A room next to a broken elevator The smell of fresh paint/stain while in the room getting ready for my wedding failed luggage service There was some kind of construction going on near the service elevator (Our room shared a wall with the service elevator area) so there was no chance of napping during the day, unless you can sleep through loud hammering noises. We were woken up on at least 3 mornings around 6:30am to the sounds of very loud service carts outside our room. Ants…

The benefit to preferred club was breakfast at Oceana. We did end up eating there most mornings. David at Oceana was wonderful. He created the best dining experience...

Cancun does resorts right. I celebrated my honeymoon here almost 2 years ago, it was perfect. We had the preferred club, which I wouldn't recommend at all the AMR resorts, but here the perks were pretty well worth it. We loved the bali beds, the little tiny snacks, cakes, ceviche, etc in the lounges, mini bar snacks restocked daily, the honeymoon dinner on the beach was so fun and hilarious. Great beach, great water.

The paddleboards are always my biggest disappointment, the water is never suitable to use them, here or in the dominican. So I always read reviews for each resort to see if anyone actually got to use them, and that's where I'm going next ;)

The golfcart rides are fabulous. We loved having access to dreams as well, went to the lazy river and waterpark a time or two, and ate at the restaurants. And watched a wedding from afar.

As you'll learn from reading reviews, the french restaurant at any AMR resorts is by far the best. SO GOOD. The other food is fine, we had fun trying everything, and getting pastries anytime we walked past a bakery, but it's definitely not the best food you've ever had in your life. BUT some great dishes, they kept us well fed, no complaints.

We ended up staying all 7 days in the resort, which I don't regret at all, but I do suggest going out and doing an excursion if you stay at a resort to get a feel of the country and see the true landscape.

We did go to the golf course (about 10 min ride away) not exactly complimentary green fees. It was hot but fun. We payed somewhere between $100-$200 for one person with club rental and cart

We loved the hot tub on the balcony. Rooms were super nice, great view, good bathrooms, closets, good amount of space. Bed was SO comfy. Room service if you have to use it is great late at night and reasonably quick.

We got a few free spa things. The hydropool or whatever it's called was actually pretty awesome, there's a sauna, icy plunge pool, beds that shoot water into your back with a lot of pressure, a hot pool. It was kind of awesome. We also got a quick massage, skin scrub/peel, and that was cool.

Would super recommend!

If you find this Secrets is too expensive, stay on the Dreams side and you'll still have full access to everything at secrets (I wish I knew that tip beforehand too) as long as you don't have kids with you.

One of the better resorts for drinks. Some of our favorite virgin drinks: -funky monkey (banana + chocolate milk basically) super good -miami vice -mojitos (regular and blended) -passionfruit mjioto -coconut mojito -coka colada (coke instead of pina) haha really good -pina colada -bahama mama

We went to the sales pitch for AMR resorts unlimited vacation club, we kept saying no, but I was curious of the cost, which they don't tell you till the very end. We settled on a 5 year plan . Here are the pros and cons: We decided it was worth it since you got a 7 day free stay at almost any resort, so we thought that was worth it, plus a couple year subscription to the UVC lifestyle, which gives discounts on hotel stays, rental cars, etc. We didn't use it as much as we thought we would. We also go some cruise credits (- you can't use it all at once which we originally assumed). As part of UVC club we get discounts on all the resorts, which I've compared to regular prices and it can be really good. Just to give you a rough idea: we went to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, for less than $1,000 for 2 of us for a week (depending on the sale, we can go to most resorts (dreams and some secrets) for 5 days for around $1000, some nicer secrets around 1500, and then the super expensive ones go up from there like Zoetry. Also what they don't tell you is there is a smallish annual renewal fee to stay in the club. We get upgraded rooms, fast check-in, and are always well taken care of. This is everything I wish I knew before...