Secrets Akumal Riviera Maya

Wow! The best holiday we have ever been on, and the best resort we have ever stayed in! Firstly, the location is simply stunning. The pictures do not do it justice, it’s even more beautiful than the photographs. Akumal beach is a beautiful place: white sand, blue skies and picturesque boats. The resort itself is breathtaking, all the hotel buildings are tastefully designed and set among the most amazing jungle vegetation. The plant and animal life make you feel as if you are in a tropical paradise. We stayed in a junior swim up room, and couldn’t be happier with the experience. It was great having a pool to relax in during the day or evening. The room itself was fantastic. The bed is large and extremely comfortable, bathroom and shower area was a large size and also featured a hot tub. It was spotless, the maid and room services came each day to clean and to re stock the free minibar with anything that we asked for which was a nice touch. In terms of atmosphere: we could not fault anything. There are 3 large pools to relax by during the day, no shortage of sun loungers or parasol umbrellas. Pool staff were so friendly and helpful, the drinks service was non stop and staff are happy to bring anything you request. Round the infinity pool there is a lively swim-up bar which is great fun. Staff at this pool put on activities all day so there is something for everyone: from beach volleyball, to floating blackjack! Entertainment staff also offer other activities such as hiring if tennis equipment or snorkelling gear to use at the beach. Even when sitting on the beach the staff were constantly round to ensure we had everything we needed. Food and drink was also a massive highlight. There are 8/9 different places to get food from. The Coco Café is a 24hour take away service providing all manner of hot drinks and snacks such as pastries and sandwiches. We loved getting a 6am coffee then strolling along the beach to watch the sunrise. The restaurants had a great variety, we loved Himitsu the Asian restaurant. The sushi was first class. We’d also recommend Seaside Grill for amazing steaks and grilled meat / seafood. At all of the restaurants there is no need to book a reservation, we just arrived whenever we felt like it and staff were so attentive. The great selection of drinks extends to every restaurant. On two occasions we also tried room service, which is also included. Food arrived quickly and was very good. Another highlight was the Market Café for breakfast service. A staggering variety of food and drink, literally everything you could think of. I could write for hours about how good our holiday was and how we’d come back in a heartbeat, but I’ve saved the best feature for last: the staff. The staff are what makes Secrets Akumal so special. Every single staff member we spoke to were so helpful and always wanted to go above and beyond to ensure our stay was perfect. But what we appreciated the most was their friendliness and genuine nature. We had great conversations with so many staff members, they recommended local sights to see and local people to speak to. They also helped us practice our Spanish speaking skills and talked with us as if we’d known them for years. We felt so welcome and were genuinely sad to leave. Special mentions to Karime our concierge, and staff around the pool areas: Antonio, Abraham, Francisco, Raymundo, Hugo. Too many to mention! Hopefully we will be back at some point in future. I would not hesitate to visit again, we have already talked about returning next year! You have to experience this resort at some point!

We had a fantastic stay at Secrets Akumal overall. The resort itself is beautiful, with incredibly lush and well-maintained grounds, a great beach and a choice of pools depending on whether you want more atmosphere or somewhere quieter to relax. However, what really makes this resort special is the staff.

There are quite a few people we want to recognise because they genuinely made a difference to our holiday.

Firstly, Alonso, our pool concierge, was brilliant throughout our stay. He was always attentive, friendly and made sure we were looked after around the pool.

Our absolute favourite waiter was Ricardo. We genuinely fell in love with him! He was warm, funny, attentive and just an all-round lovely person. He made every interaction enjoyable and is exactly the sort of person you remember after a holiday.

A special mention also needs to go to Juan, our Building 4 concierge. He was always friendly and helpful and did a great job looking after us throughout the stay.

The activities team were another huge highlight. Sena and Anthony were both fantastic and brought loads of energy to the activities, but the biggest shout-out has to go to Alun. He was easily the standout for us – great fun, incredibly personable and always made an effort to speak to us. He is a real asset to the resort and one of the people we will remember most from our holiday.

Food overall was very good, although there were definitely some differences between restaurants.

Himitsu was easily our favourite restaurant. We tried both the normal menu and the sushi menu and everything was fantastic. We would absolutely recommend eating there.

We also really enjoyed dinner at Seaside Grill. The waiter whose name we believe was Macario looked after us brilliantly and deserve a special mention for their service.

Unfortunately, Portofino was the one major disappointment. We were happy to wait around 40 minutes for a table, but after that the experience went downhill. The breadsticks tasted stale and our main courses arrived on extremely hot plates while the food itself was almost cold. We raised this with our waiter, who acknowledged the complaint, but nothing was done. Nobody came over to speak to us, there was no offer to replace the food and there was no follow-up at all. The lack of response was actually more disappointing than the food itself, and we didn’t return to Portofino for the rest of our stay.

We stayed Preferred Club and this is probably the other area where we felt the resort could improve.

The Preferred lounge was nice and we appreciated the upgraded drinks and additional facilities, but it lacked atmosphere. There was no music at all, even quietly in the background, so it wasn’t somewhere we particularly wanted to spend much time.

We were also surprised that there wasn’t a dedicated Preferred Club pool or even a reserved Preferred section around one of the existing pools. There is an exclusive Preferred area on the beach, which was a nice benefit, but again there was no music or atmosphere there. We completely understand that people want a relaxing beach, but some subtle background music would have made a big difference.

Because of this, we aren’t convinced we would pay the additional cost for Preferred Club again at this particular resort. The benefits were nice, but we didn’t feel there was enough differentiation from the standard experience to justify the premium.

Those points shouldn’t take away from how much we enjoyed Secrets Akumal overall though. The resort is beautiful, the atmosphere around the main pool is great, there is plenty going on during the day without it ever feeling like a party resort, and the staff work incredibly hard.

For us, the people are what take Secrets Akumal to another level. Alonso, Ricardo, Juan, Sena, Anthony, Alun, Cruz and Marionso – thank you for helping make our holiday so memorable.

We would definitely recommend Secrets Akumal and would happily return. With a stronger Preferred Club offering and a little more consistency between the restaurants, it would be very difficult to fault.