Driving up to the large entrance with beautiful fountains and private gates, makes you feel like you are entering a perfect little paradise. You will be greeted with warm towels to refresh yourself before you enter inside the main building. You will follow the grand walkway under a beautifully decorated entrance to the large wooden doors. The doors open magically and you are greeted with cookies and champagne.
Check In: We arrived around 1:00 p.m. and our room was not ready. We checked in and they took our bags until our room was ready. We were directed to the restaurants that were open for lunch and told to check back around 3:30 and our rooms would be ready.
We had lunch at Seaside grill and checked back at 3:00 and our room was ready.
Pools: This resort has a maze of pools winding in and around the entire resort. You can almost step out of one pool and walk less than feet and step into another pool. The Spa pool is a very quiet zone for those who want to relax. The main pool has lots of activity and entertainment throughout the day. Floats were not a big problem to find early in the daytime. You may have to walk around and find them floating in other pools. Towels are on the chairs each morning and you can get extras from the Aqua World hut. The people at the pools were very friendly and I even had a few people that had read some of my posts online recognize my online name Shellgirl.
Beach: The beach is beautiful white powdery soft sand with plenty of room to walk and lots of chairs and palapas. There is sea grass that washes ashore but they do a good job of cleaning the beach daily. The water is not as clear as Cancun and there is sea grass floating around but the pieces are very small and not a real problem. There is a large natural reef not far from this beach area and it prevents it from having a lot of heavy wave activity. The weather seems to determine how clear the water is daily. Some days it was clear to the bottom and other days it seemed to be stirred up. Beach service was always great. They have cookouts on the beach a few days a week with burgers, dogs, and chicken.
Rooms: We had a swimout room with the outdoor Jacuzzi tub. We never used the outdoor tub but we wanted the room to be on the ground floor. We spent the late afternoons outside our swimout by the spa pool relaxing. The rooms have double sinks and plenty of counter space. The shower is huge and the Jacuzzi tub is nice too. We had a King 4 poster bed with a night table on both sides. There are two phones in your room. They have plenty of closet space with a light inside and a full mirror. There is a hair dryer and ironing board and iron. There is a private safe in each room for your valuables. The stocked mini fridge is a nice bonus. They provide plenty of bottled water and soda and beer in the fridge. The rooms each have an entertainment center area with a TV and DVD player. You can get movies from the Concierge to watch in your room. The two adult channels on the TV were the running joke at the main pools each day! There are robes and slippers for your use all week long. The sitting area has a small couch and chairs and a desk area. Room service is 24 hours a day and can be delivered to your private “secrets box” or brought into the room and set up for you! There was maid service in the mornings and turn down service at night. They give you a little card to put in the door when you leave, so the maid knows to come in and clean. Don’t forget to use this card or they may miss your room!
Activities: You will be given a Sundial newsletter each night at turn down service for the next day’s events. The free shuttle service is listed for Cancun and Playa Del Carmen. A spa special for the day is advertised and special sales at the Signature Shop are advertised. You will find a daily activities schedule and restaurant and bar openings and closings for the day. They have a board at the main pool also for the daily activities. They have a large entertainment group that tries very hard to get everyone involved in the activities. J.P., Carlos, Jose, and Oscar are some of the crew and sorry I can’t remember all the names of the girls! The whole crew always has a smile and spends their days and nights keeping everyone entertained. They have volleyball, Texas hold em, bicycle tours, yoga, aerobics, bingo, crafts, snorkel and dive lessons, and water sports and many more. Each evening there are movies on the beach and entertainment/shows in the theater. The resorts hosts a cocktail manager’s party Wednesday night and the Caribbean buffet on the beach Monday night and the Mexican buffet and show are on Friday night.
Food/Alcohol: We had the breakfast buffet at Portofino most mornings and it was everything you could want. They have a late continental style breakfast at Oceana for the late risers. We usually had lunch at Seaside grill. They have great shrimp cocktails and sandwiches, burgers, fish, chicken, salads. You can order sandwiches and chips with guacamole by the pool also. There is a beach buffet a few days a week too. We ate at every restaurant for dinner except DaMario’s. We really enjoyed the meals at Portofino, Bordeaux, and El Patio. The service at Himitsu was really slow. We had excellent service at most meals. Some restaurants have many courses and it takes an hour to two hours to get through your meal. We felt the food at this resort was good to excellent. They have late night pizza service at DaMario’s most nights but we were always too full from dinner to eat after drinking each night. 24 hour room service is available to be delivered to your room or your “secrets box”. They have draft Corona and bottled corona, Corona dark, and another beer that I can’t remember now. They have Budweiser and bud light in cans. Most top shelf liquors are available by request. They make all the frozen drinks by hand and they seem to be the most popular drinks during the day. Try the Miami Vice and Bahama Mama, frozen electric lemonade and rainbow shots! If you want a strong drink ask for an extra shot of liquor! Pools bars close at 6 pm and the other bars are open until 1 or 2 a.m. The Desire’s disco/bar stays open the latest and that is where the crowd ends up after the evening entertainment.
Staff: The staff at this resort is the hardest working group that I have ever seen. Overall you will find most everyone is friendly and helpful and eager to please. One of the workers at the resort said they staff over 750 workers at this resort alone. That is almost one worker per person staying at this resort. Tipping is not required but gratefully accepted. We found that tipping does not make a large difference in service but you will find that the same person will remember you the next day and come to serve you again and many times remember what drinks you order.
Check Out: Our American Express travel representative Simon handled everything for our return travel arrangements. He called to verify our return flights and times and called our room to give us a time to meet for check out. We called for someone to get our bags and checked out and filled out a small survey and we were ready to go. It was very easy and we had no problems with our transportation or air travel.
Surprise: I was celebrating my birthday the week we were at Secrets and our friends got engaged during the week also. Our friends called the concierge to tell them we were celebrating my birthday at El patio. They arranged a chocolate cake with happy birthday on it to be delivered after our dinner at El Patio. The waiter brought the cake and had the mariachi band come over and sing to me. After a long night of celebrating we went back to our room to find it decorated with streamers and balloons everywhere. The Jacuzzi tub was filled with a bubble bath and rose petals. The maid had spelled out Happy Day on the bed with flower petals. A few nights later our friends who got engaged returned to their room to find it decorated and the tub filled with bubble bath and a basket of oils and goodies to enjoy for the evening too! These things were special treats provided upon request but we really enjoyed the special treatment.
Resort overall: We really enjoyed our time at SERC and would return again. The resort has a great layout and you really don’t need to upgrade to have a great room and great service at this resort. We will stay longer next time since we felt like we did not get to do and see everything we wanted to in 6 nights. This resort has a nice beach but does not have the beautiful waters that you see in Playa or Cancun. If you want the perfect beach this place may not be for you. The resort itself has the best of everything else you could ever dream of. If you enjoy good food, good drinks, and great service and hanging out by the pools or spending your day doing activities or indulging in the spa then you will love Secrets Excellence.
Check out my webpage at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~shell_angel/secrets/
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