By Joanna Craig

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We spent 7 nights at Secrets Akumal Riviera Maya in November of 2016. The resort opened in late November of 2015. There are 434 rooms in total and the resort property spans over 1,670 square meters. The resort is laid out in such a way that basically any room on the 3rd floor of any of the buildings have somewhat of an ocean view. As the resort is newer, the décor and design throughout the property is very modern and nicely done, with great splashes of colour throughout. There are 3 large pools; a main pool, an infinity pool and a quiet pool.

The resort has 6 a la carte restaurants, as well as a breakfast and lunch buffet, a casual grill and a 24 hour café. There is a total of 7 bars on the property and room service is available 24 hours per day. (While 7 bars sound like a lot for a 434 room property, you have to consider the lay-out of the property and the location of some of the entertainment venues.)

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There are no wristbands, no towel cards and no dining reservations required (with the exception of bookings for the Teppanyaki Table at the Himitsu Restaurant).

 

Free wifi is available throughout the resort and there’s an app that provides free long distance to the U.S. Canada and within Mexico. All rooms contain an iPad which allows you to order room service, view the scheduled daily activities and entertainment, book spa appointments, or make special requests.

 

Before detailing anything further, I think the show stopper of this resort needs to be addressed first…the beach! The beachfront at Secrets Akumal is spectacular, with beautiful, soft, white sands, plenty of beach loungers and umbrellas. The real kicker is the stunning crystal clear waters and plentiful sea life. You can literally walk less than 15 meters out to snorkel and see plenty of turtles, stingray and a variety of fish up close. We took advantage of this every day and every time the turtles and other sea life were plentiful. It was a real treat get out in the ocean each day and not have to book an excursions to snorkel. It’s true that the beachfront area can get busy at times during the day because of the area’s popularity. However, we didn’t find this to be an issue at all. There was always plenty of space in the water and while the beach is public and open to anyone (like all beaches in Mexico), there was a defined perimeter area for resort guests only and the staff were quick to enforce the boundaries. (And yes, those are pics we took while snorkeling!)

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Back to the resort property:

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There are 10 guestroom buildings and each building has its own concierge. We found our concierge to be very helpful with everything from answering all of our general questions, to arranging day trips and special dinners. The rooms are fairly spacious and have all the necessary amenities. Bathroom areas are quite spacious, although closet space is lacking. The resort offers swim up rooms which provide privacy in that they are surrounded by trees and foliage. However, they are also a really good spot for breeding mosquitos. Friends of ours who were booked into a ground floor swim-up experienced a real problem with this and requested to be moved to a different room on a higher floor. The resort’s preferred club category rooms are located in buildings 1 through 4, along with a preferred lounge which offers check-in services for preferred category guests, a quiet place to relax, some higher end brands of liquor, and other beverages and appetizer type foods throughout the day.

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The 3 large pools on the property consist of the infinity pool, a “serene” quiet pool, and a more social pool with a swim-up bar. There are other smaller, shallow, water areas throughout the property.

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The resort also staffs an entertainment team who did an excellent job and if you enjoy being more social while vacationing, they provide a variety of activities to participate in, from beach and water sports, a variety of competitive and interactive games, pool bingo, morning bicycle tours, etc. We found there was essentially something for all levels of interests.

On the beach, you’ll find the Barracuda Bar, offering a vast variety of drinks. If it’s not on the main menu, just ask for it. If you can think it up, they’ll happily create for you.

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There’s an indoor/outdoor Rendezvous Bar. The outdoor terrace area has an open fire pit and a good selection of seating as well as swings and rocking seats and it’s a great place to enjoy drink before or after dinner.

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The dinner restaurants are located closer to the main lobby. No reservations are required for any of the restaurants, with the exception of the Teppanyaki Table at the Himitsu Restaurant. The French Restaurant is Bordeaux and offers up some exquisite French cuisine along with some basic dishes you would typically expect to see offered, such as french onion soup (If you like french onion soup, it’s a must order ;-0) There is an Italian restaurant, Portofino, which offers excellent creations of pasta and a veal osso buco that truly melts in your mouth. The El Patio is the Mexican Restaurant and offers a variety of Mexican and Mayan style dishes.

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Both the Bordeaux and the Portofino restaurants were our 2 favorite picks during our stay, with the El Patio coming in at a close 3rd.

In the evening the Seaside Grill becomes the resorts signature Steak House and offers 5 different cuts of steak from sirloin to T-Bone.

For breakfast and lunch there is an excellent quality international buffet with a wide variety of foods and dishes.

 

Both the Sea Side Grill and Oceana are typically open for lunch as is the Barefoot Grill, which offers more casual fare, such as burgers, bbq chicken, chicken wings, etc. throughout the day until 3:30 pm. Although, during our visit the Oceana, normally open for lunch daily and for dinner on alternate evenings, was undergoing some updates when we were there so we weren’t able to experience that venue. But while the Oceana was closed, seafood options were available at the Sea Side Grill.

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There’s the Coco Café, which is open 24 hours and serves a variety of coffees and teas, both hot and cold, as well as sandwiches and pastries. There’s also a variety of liquors available at the café.

 

Overall, we found the quality of food very good to excellent and we can honestly say we didn’t experience a bad meal at any time during our stay.

Our experience was that room service was also very decent and delivery was timely. As with the majority of the Secrets properties, each room has a “secrets box” so you can have your food delivered without ever having to see anyone at any time of night or day.

During the early evening, there is either a pianist or a vocalist performing in the Rendevous Bar. Some evenings, there was a band that performed in the outdoor terrace area after dinner. The Desires bar/nightclub is open nightly from 11:00 pm with a DJ. We’ve never visited Desires, but it always seemed very busy any time we passed by.

The resort has an expansive and modern theatre/entertainment venue with bar, called Showcase, where they provide a variety of nightly entertainment with some impressive quality acts and musicals. We took in a few of these, such as the rock show, the sensuality show, a magician’s show, etc.

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There’s a first class spa, but spa services come at an additional costs. Although we found the gym to be well-equipped, it was on the smaller side and due to that it was often much too crowded.

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Our overall experience at this resort was great and we didn’t experience any negative service issues to speak of during our stay. I think we’ve been fairly objective in our rating, given we had a number of other AM resort experiences to compare during this same visit to Mexico.