Secrets The Vine Cancun

I will start with the airport. Absolute nightmare. Took us almost 2 hours to get through. The queues were long and the luggage took almost an hour to arrive on the belts. You have to go through immigration, then collect cases, then cases get screened then you find your transport. Hotel is lovely. Food is excellent. All restaurants are a la carte. Personally for us, after a few days we would have liked to have a buffet evening meal rather than a la carte every night. You can eat in the sports bar, which is very good food. The lobby and restaurants are absolutely freezing, so bring long trousers and jumpers. You will need them. The air con is cranked up so much it is very unpleasant to be that cold in the restaurants and lobby. Even at breakfast the restaurant was freezing. The usual sun bed wars are common. Although the hotel says you can’t receive beds for more than an hour each morning, we would see the staff being tipped to reserve beds. Each morning we were down at the pools for around 7 am and every morning there would be rows of beds reserved with towels, and guest tipping staff to reserve them. Often the people would not come down until mid to late morning. Twice when we were there we were asked to leave our sun beds at 3 pm as they were setting up for an evening event. We then could nit find a sun bed to sit on as they were all being used and the staff did not lay out extra beds or indeed help you find a bed. We thought this was not good. The rooms are lovely and they supply toiletries, soft drinks and beer in the fridge and robes. The clientele are not a young crowd so if you are looking for a party scene, then this is not the hotel for you. The staff are all very friendly, helpful and polite. The coffee bar is excellent.

Generally, the hotel is beautiful and the staff is mostly great it is just hard to get past the stink of sewage throughout the lobby and several of the restaurants. It really is a shame because this hotel could be amazing if they figured out and fixed why it smells so bad!

We signed up for the preferred room which comes with the Butler. Butler cannot help with any extra services since there are no reservations accepted on the whole resort. Food was better at the buffet anyway. Save your money and get a standard room. Preferred gives you access to an additional pool and snack area but really not needed. We could not enjoy the evening entertainment in the piano bar because the whole area smelled like sewage our last couple days. Interesting this occurred after heavy rain. Hotel is nice and the people are all wonderful but it is not a four or five star hotel, more like three, yet we were charged a five star hotel rate.

Attended a chefs table with Rolando and Sergio at Secrets resort, and it was amazing. Getting to see how the food was prepared and what was in the sauces was such a treat. It made me was to be a chef and cook it at home even though it will not taste anywhere near as good. If you ever have an opportunity to eat at a restaurant with Rolando as the chef or go to Secrets where Sergio works it's a must.

The room was absolutely beautiful we had an ocean view! The food was good some places better than others but there was enough variety! The coffee bar is amazing! The beach and pool area are very well-maintained and a fun place to hang out ! Overall a really great experience for our 25 year anniversary!