## Another Wonderful Anniversary at Secrets Akumal — With a Few Areas That Need Attention
My wife and I recently spent six days at Secrets Akumal for our anniversary. This was our second time staying here, so obviously they did something right the first time!
Overall, we loved our stay. Secrets Akumal remains one of our favorite resorts, and there is a lot that they do exceptionally well. There are, however, a few areas where we think some improvements could make an already great resort even better.
### The Staff — Outstanding
Let me start with what may be Secrets Akumal's greatest asset: **the staff**.
We absolutely love them.
They aren't simply helpful—they are genuinely friendly and seem to have a sincere concern for the people staying at the resort. And when I say everyone is friendly, I mean **everyone**: maintenance workers, restaurant hostesses, servers, cooks, bartenders, beach staff, housekeeping, etc.
As you walk around the property, people routinely greet you with "good morning," "good evening," or "good night." It sounds like a small thing, but it makes the resort feel incredibly welcoming.
The beach staff deserves special recognition because they consistently go above and beyond.
### The Restaurants — Our Ranking
This is where things become a little more hit-or-miss, so hopefully our unofficial restaurant rankings can help someone planning their trip.
**1. Market Café — The Gold Standard**
Market Café is easily the most dependable place to eat at the resort. Breakfast is excellent, and honestly, lunch is just as good.
If you can't find something you want to eat at Market Café, there might be something wrong with you. 😂
The number of choices is incredible, and more importantly, the food is consistently good. I only wish they served dinner.
**2. Bordeaux — Best Dinner**
Bordeaux, the French restaurant, was our favorite dinner restaurant.
The food is excellent.
My biggest advice: **get there between 6:00 and 7:00 PM.** Once you get much later than that, expect to wait.
**3. Seaside Grill — Great Lunch, Good Dinner**
Seaside Grill is available to Preferred Club guests and serves both lunch and dinner.
Lunch is excellent, with plenty of options.
Dinner can also be very good, but once again, try to get there around 6:00 PM. Of all the restaurants we visited, Seaside seemed to have the longest waits later in the evening.
One thing to watch: some dishes—particularly the steaks—can be extremely salty. If you're watching your sodium intake, I would specifically ask your server if the kitchen can use less salt.
**4. Portofino — Good Italian, But Easy on the Salt!**
Portofino is another very nice dinner option, and the same advice about getting there early applies.
My only real complaint is the salt.
Sometimes the food is so salty that I started wondering whether the chef was secretly trying to take a few guests out. 😂
Seriously though, if you're sensitive to salt, ask them to go light when ordering.
**5. Oceana — A Welcome Change of Pace**
Oceana is a great option when you've reached the point in your vacation where you can't look at another steak, burger, or plate of fries.
Very good seafood and a nice change of pace.
No complaints from us here.
**6. El Patio — Quiet and Underrated**
Ironically, the Mexican restaurant was probably the quietest restaurant we visited.
It's very low-key, getting a table never seemed to be a hassle, and the Mexican food was good.
Definitely worth visiting.
**7. Himitsu — Unfortunately Our Least Favorite**
We really wanted to like Himitsu.
In fact, we tried it multiple times because we wanted to make sure our first experience wasn't simply an off night.
Unfortunately, it was pretty consistent.
The best way I can explain it is that everything tasted **Asian-ish**.
The sushi was sushi-ish. The Pad Thai was Pad Thai-ish. The ramen was okay at best. Some sauces didn't seem to match the dishes they were served with, and everything just felt slightly off.
If Secrets is going to offer Asian cuisine at this level of resort, I think the kitchen either needs chefs who specialize in those cuisines or more extensive training from chefs who do.
There used to be a Mediterranean restaurant here that we visited during our previous stay, and unfortunately it is currently closed.
That's a shame because the Mediterranean restaurant was **by far the best food we had during our previous trip**. We didn't discover it until our final night last time, and afterward we were kicking ourselves because, had we known how good it was, we would have eaten there several times.
Hopefully it eventually returns.
### The Rooms — 99/100
Honestly, Secrets does hotel rooms better than almost anyone we've experienced.
We've stayed at Secrets Akumal twice and have also stayed at Secrets in Cancun twice, and whoever handles the room design deserves credit.
One of my absolute favorite features is the **private room-service compartment** built into the entrance of the room.
If you order room service while your Do Not Disturb sign is on, the staff can place the food inside this compartment from the hallway. You then open a separate door from inside your room to retrieve it.
It's simple, incredibly convenient, and something I now think every hotel should have.
So why 99 instead of 100?
**Bathroom lighting.**
The bathroom itself is well lit, but the combination of the light placement and the way the mirrors protrude creates strange shadows across your face. It makes shaving, makeup, and other grooming surprisingly difficult.
We've solved the problem by traveling with a small lighted mirror.
Problem solved—but something Secrets could easily improve.
### The Beach — Beautiful, But the Sargassum Was Brutal
The beach itself is absolutely beautiful.
Unfortunately, during this trip the sargassum was really bad.
And I want to emphasize: **this is not the resort's fault.**
The amount washing ashore was incredible, and the smell could become pretty rough.
To Secrets' credit, they were out there as early as 6:00 AM every morning trying to remove it. We're talking teams of workers, trucks, tractors and even heavy equipment.
One day we watched those poor workers going from approximately 6:00 AM until 3:00 PM, and they still couldn't completely keep up with it.
I do have one suggestion for the resort: invest in a proper **beach/sand rake machine**.
We use them here in New York. They're essentially large mechanical rakes pulled behind a vehicle that collect debris while allowing most of the sand to fall back onto the beach.
Watching employees try to tackle massive quantities of sargassum with small handheld rakes seemed incredibly inefficient, especially when conditions became severe.
The workers were doing everything they could. They simply need better equipment.
### Entertainment — Secrets, We Need to Talk
Okay, Secrets.
This is where we have a problem.
Let's start with the main theater.
The theater itself is a fantastic space, and some of the performers are very talented.
But the sound production desperately needs improvement.
During one show, there was a **phenomenal female lead singer**, and you could barely hear her microphone.
Guests were repeatedly motioning toward the sound booth. People were also trying to get the attention of someone controlling equipment from an iPad on the floor.
Nothing changed.
Eventually, even the singer herself stopped and motioned toward the booth asking them to turn her microphone up.
Still nothing changed.
It was incredibly frustrating.
I know this sounds harsh, but Secrets either needs more experienced sound engineers or additional training for whoever is operating the audio and lighting equipment.
You have talented performers and a beautiful theater. The production quality should match them.
### Silent Disco — So Much Fun... But Those Headphones
We LOVE the Silent Disco.
It's ridiculously fun.
But good lord, **please thoroughly disinfect those headphones.**
The mildew smell was BAD.
You could smell some of them before they even reached your ears.
Whatever cleaning process is currently being used isn't enough. They need a cleaning solution specifically designed to eliminate mildew and odor between uses, not simply a quick disinfectant spray.
It's such a fun event, and this one issue makes it unnecessarily unpleasant.
### Poolside Food & Music Events — Great Idea
We really enjoy the larger food-and-music events around the pools.
The atmosphere is great, the food is fun, and the productions add something different to the week.
Our only suggestion would be finding some way to bring the performances closer to the guests.
The stages extend over the swimming pools, which looks impressive, but because they can only extend so far, the performers sometimes end up surprisingly far away from where most guests are seated.
You can hear everything, but actually seeing the performance clearly can be difficult.
### Art/Street-Fair Events — Great Concept, More Variety Please
We also really enjoy the evenings with art displays and vendors that have more of a street-fair atmosphere.
It's another great concept.
The entertainment during those events could use more variety, though.
For example, having one rock violinist perform for nearly an hour becomes repetitive regardless of how talented the performer is.
It would be much more entertaining to rotate several acts throughout the event—a violinist, guitarist, singers, another instrumentalist, etc.
That would keep the atmosphere changing throughout the evening.
### Overall
Despite some of the criticism above, **we had another wonderful stay at Secrets Akumal and would absolutely return.**
The property is beautiful, the rooms are excellent, the beach is gorgeous, there are plenty of food choices, and most importantly, the staff is exceptional.
Some of our complaints are also relatively easy fixes: better sound engineering, more thorough headphone sanitation, additional entertainment variety, improved beach-cleaning equipment and perhaps a little less enthusiasm from whoever is holding the salt shaker in a few of the kitchens. 😂
We came here to celebrate our anniversary, and once again Secrets Akumal gave us a memorable vacation.
Hopefully this ridiculously detailed review helps someone planning theirs!
