El Secreto

What People are saying

Good staff but....

MildredMexicocityon 21/11/2017 04:26

The facilities are good, the staff is very kind and they make their best to make you feel comfortable but there are some unpleasant things:
-the insane plague of mosquitoes. It’s impossible to have dinner, it’s better no to leave your room after sunset. I’m aware of the presence of mosquitoes in the Caribbean beaches but this is ridiculous.
- please clean the neighborhood beach. It look really disgusting to se trash just where the hotel ends.
3- the beach is not enjoyable. No swimming only the view.

The best place in Ambergris Caye

Sara Oon 17/10/2017 01:15

A great hotel with all the luxuries you would expect in a small island. Accessible by boat only and about a 30 minutes ride from San Pedro. A perfect hide away but if you're looking to experience the culture you may be better served staying at a hotel in San Pedro. The swimming pool is gorgeous. The restaurant's menu is exquisite and dinner in the open space next to the pool is a die-for experience.

Beautiful - we did not want to leave.

JT-sayson 12/09/2017 06:46

We spent three days at El Secreto, having decided to go with the Getaway Package.

As part of this package, all meals were included, including soft drinks and draft beer. It also included a half-day snorkelling trip and a massage treatment, a romantic meal (see the picture) and a trip to some Mayan ruins.

From the moment that we arrived in San Pedro, El Secreto was looking after us. Someone from the hotel met us at San Pedro airfield and organised a taxi to take us to the dock. As we had arrived early in the day, our room was not quite ready. El Secreto offered, therefore, to buy us lunch in San Pedro whilst we were waiting to travel to the resort. We thought that this was a really nice touch.

After our lunch, we were taken in the El Secreto boat to the resort. This is about 11 miles north of San Pedro town centre, and most easily accessible by boat. Arriving at the hotel's jetty, the hotel manager, Estell, came to meet us off the boat. She walked us to the check-in desk and handled the paperwork. She was so friendly, even offering to call our airline to rearrange a flight, when she noticed that we had a large stopover in Belize City.

The resort itself is very well kept and attractive. With only 13 villas, you quickly get to know the faces of the staff and other guests, which makes it a very friendly place to be. The central area has the dining room and pool, and is so peaceful. The resort is at the water's edge and incredibly secluded. You really do feel like you are on your own island.

When we saw our villa, our breath was taken away. It was spacious and with an enormous bed. The bathroom was equally cavernous and we had our own hot tub. All villas have a hot tub; however, we wanted to be close to the sea, so chose a sea-view room. We were glad that we did this as it was fantastic to wake up and look out on to the water, seeing the hermit crabs scuttling along the beach and the palm trees swaying. The room was cleaned to a very high standard.

On one of the days, we went snorkelling. El Secreto staff took us on the speed boat to "Hol Chan" and "Shark Ray Alley". Snorkelling gear was provided, and the captain came into the water with us, so we felt very safe. He swam with us around the reef and pointed out the different types of fish. Seeing the barracudas, stingrays and all of the other abundant fish was very exciting. The sharks were not for the faint hearted, but really do not bite (at least not people, anyway). We really enjoyed this experience. If you are able to get up early, do. We had both locations to ourselves, but hordes of other tourists arrived as we left.

The next day, we had our massage treatments on site. These were done professionally and skilfully and we both felt very relaxed afterwards.

That evening, we had our romantic meal. As you can see from the photo, nothing was spared. I am normally quite cynical about this sort of thing, but even I was won over by the water's-edge location and intimate dining experience. If you're on holiday, why not?!

(We had read about the Belizean attitude to gay people being quite strict, but this was never an issue for us at El Secreto.)

A note on the food: We had all of our meals at the resort and were anxious about the food. However, it was all of a very high quality, cooked to order and fresh. There is a good mix of Belizean cuisine and some more international dishes. One evening, there was a huge thunderstorm, which made for a dramatic backdrop to supper.

On a practical note, it is right next to the water and tropical. Make sure that you have a healthy supply of insect repellant. The hotel supplies a can in each room, but if you have a brand that works for you, bring it.

We were so sad to leave El Secreto. It was a wonderful three days with luxurious surroundings and the most friendly staff. If you're looking for secluded relaxation, this is it.

They just dont care

Barbara Son 11/09/2017 17:43

DO NOT BOOK THIS HOTEL. It is super farm from san pedro water taxi ( where you have to be for all the tours ) and each trip you have to do will cost you more than a day at the hotel. Even though they have a boat they wont provide the free transportation, in my case they promissed via email they would, but every single time we had to use the boat we were charged an absurd amount of money.
We settled one price for a roubd trip, the captain took our money , but wasnt there to pick us up.... so we had to expend extra 100 to shuttle a boat to come back! Aside from all the money we had already payed when we arrived and when we were leaving.
When we complained we were told that they wouldnt refund us AT ALL, we had to fight for over 20 minutes to settle for less than half of what we expend in extras . They just dont care for real and they wont help you , they will rip you off in your face!

And oh! You will be eaten alive by the bugs, they wont even put up some candles to scare them away, you cant ear in the restaurant because of them!

Beautiful place but unfortunattly not worth it!!

Amazing, but secluded

Joan Lon 25/08/2017 18:13

I found El Secreto that a friend of mine stayed there on one of their vacations. There are definitely many pros and a couple of cons with this place.

Pros: The staff was SUPER nice and friendly. I was mostly in contact with Estell via email and she always replied quickly. I forgot to schedule a pick up so I emailed her the night before we were set to arrive and she set everything up right away. She arranged for Captain Edwin to pick us up the day we arrived so everything was a breeze. We arrive 2 hours earlier than planned, but the captain was already waiting for us. He took us on a 25 minute boat ride to El Secreto and stopped along the way pointing out some marine life and took us to see their barrier reef. He was very nice and knowledgeable about the marine life. We were greeted with cool towels (it was very hot and humid!) and welcome drinks. The person who greeted us at the front desk (Sorry! Can't remember his name) saw that we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes (30 bites in 5 minutes) and asked if we'd like to switch to a different villa. He explained that the villa we originally booked (Lake) will have a lot of mosquitoes because it was in the back by the lake. He suggested we switched to a Tropical Villa or he can upgrade us to a Spa Villa, but the Spa Villa was just vacated and would take some time to get ready. My friend and I agreed to the tropical villa because we needed to escape the heat, we were traveling for 10 hours at that point, and needed to hide from the mosquitoes. He updated our cost and canceled any transfer fee because of the inconvenience. They always had bug spray around and a can in our room. We learned quickly to always spray before heading out. Other pros: Room service came along with the booking so no extra charge, the pool is always open, we got free coconuts!, private jacuzzi, WiFi was available all over the resort, the setting was overall gorgeous, and the room was just without a doubt amazing and luxurious. Bonus: This is a very Instagramable place. We only stayed for 2 days and moved to a different resort and Captain Edwin took us back out and actually dropped us off at the dock of our next resort. El Secreto's service honestly can't be beat.

Sadly, here are the cons: Mosquitoes. You can't avoid them. We went through a full can of bug spray in a day. Because it's so secluded and in the middle of nowhere, the amount of bugs are ridiculous. We didn't have any other bug or bat problems like the other reviewers. It was just the mosquitoes. They were EVERYWHERE. We got so good at killing them. I think we killed 8 of them in 5 minutes just sitting on our bed. There's only one restaurant on site. The food was okay, but I don't think it's really worth the price and because you're so secluded, there are no other food options. Our jacuzzi was great, but were full of dead bugs. Our bluetooth didn't work on the TV and DirectTV kept disconnecting. The beach was full of sea grass and didn't look too appealing so we spent our whole stay in their pool. Pool was gorgeous so I'm not really complaining that much. On vacations to foreign places, I love to explore and hang out with the locals. Without a boat or golf cart to get to the center of town, you're basically stuck at this resort. I wanted to relax for a couple of days before exploring, but by the end of the second day, I was actually feeling trapped because there really isn't much to do. Don't get me wrong, you can always schedule to have the boat take you out to town, but I like to walk and have my own schedule when I vacation so this was a major con.

Overall, El Secreto is an amazing place, but I don't think it's wise to spend more than a couple of days here especially if you like to explore locally. There really isn't much to do. I do think it's a great spot to honeymoon or to get away from stress and life if you really want a break just by yourself and away from everything. Just remember that it's very remote.