Secrets Papagayo Costa Rica - All Inclusive - Adults Only

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

5933 reviews

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  Beautiful country, not so great resort.

  My husband upgraded to the plunge pool room and it was fabulous. The view was great! But the pool is not heated, so we did not use it at night. We saw monkeys and pizotes! It was incredible. If you are expecting fantastic food, you are going to be disappointed. The food was not great. The best food was room service. Angus burger, tres leches, beef fajitas, and the Costa Rican breakfast were fantastic. The service at the bars and pool were also not great and my husband and I are big tippers. They will only come around if you tip them first. We prefer service before giving tips, but then we would have to go to the bar and order our own drinks. And those bar tenders did not seem very excited about making our drinks I did not even get a hello from one of the bartenders next to Aqua Cafe-he just looked at me. We did finally get two good servers at the Main pool, Randy and Edgar. I will say that the resort has fantastic van drivers. They will remember you and are awesome. Eli and Alonzo were the best! If you have trouble walking or getting around, this resort is not for you. This resort is on a hilly terrain and requires going up and down hill or using the van drivers. Otherwise, you might be stuck to your room. We did do a special dinner. The ambiance was great, we saw a show, and had live music from where we were and Wilson, our server, was fantastic. BUT, the main course and dessert was nothing to write home about. However, the three courses before the main course....phenomenal. The tropical ceviche, the tropical salad, and the pumpkin creme soup was amazing. I wished the main course and dessert was as amazing.

  Jan 22, 2026
• 

  Tired old hotel

  Tired old hotel. Food so so. Portofino wine cellar dinner with chewy steak and mushy lobster not worth $99/per person with no wine included.

  Jan 21, 2026
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  Secrets papygayo, Spa was excellent!!

  Its was nice just make sure if you cant do stairs you let them know before you book. They bent over backwards to help us. Very nice staff, great service. Kelyse was so nice to us, always found us to ask if we needed anything.Armando at the italian restaurant was superb.

  Jan 21, 2026
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  Secrets Papagayo – 5 Stars

  We stayed at Secrets Papagayo for our 25th anniversary. The hotel is very nice, with well-maintained gardens, friendly staff, and clean, comfortable rooms. We also saw iguanas around the property, which added a nice local touch. Food and drinks were good during our stay. While at the hotel, we heard other guests mention Nexttripcr.com, so we booked several activities with them. They are a local company and provided personalized service. We visited less crowded places, enjoyed a catamaran and snorkeling tour, and explored Rincón de la Vieja with a volcano hike, rain forest, hot springs, and a waterfall. They also helped us with airport and hotel transportation, which made everything very easy. Overall, we had a great vacation and would recommend Secrets Papagayo.

  Jan 20, 2026
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  Worst Resort Experience We Have Had

  This was the worst resort experience we have ever had. We have visited many different Secrets resorts, and have had absolutely wonderful times and fantastic service. This resort could not be more of the opposite. The number 1 issue with this resort is the transport situation. This resort is odd, in that it is fairly small, but very spread out, so you have to rely on their transport system to be taken from your room to the main pool area and restaurants. We routinely would have to wait 15-20 minutes to be picked up, and estimated that almost 5 hours of our time during the week was just spent waiting for transport. Next, the service is very subpar. One of our favorite aspects of other Secret resorts is the poolside service and friendly staff. In a week’s time, I think we were approached by pool side service 3 times total, and all 3 times they never ended up bringing us our order. For the restaurants, especially for lunch, the average wait time for food was over 45 minutes. Which is a double issue, because the staff will actually take away your seats at the pool if they see you gone for more than 30 minutes. While this did not happen directly to us, a couple next to us had their stuff taken by an employee while at lunch, their seats given to someone else, and then the employee lost their stuff. After that, that couple had to spend the rest of their vacation going to lunch in shifts so that 1 person could stay at all times with their stuff at the pool. And speaking of the pool, there is a significant issue with the number of chairs available, and I’d guess on average there was about 30% of people who could not find anywhere to sit, and just had to lay their stuff against a wall while accessing the pool. The beach that the resort has access to isn’t actually part of the resort, it is just a public beach, with kids and families. So you could be sitting enjoying yourself at the pool, and 30 yards away are kids screaming playing on the beach. And there was little to no beach chairs to be able to sit down there and relax, because as stated, the beach was just a public beach, and not part of the resort. The restaurant selection is very limited compared to other Secrets. While the food was good, if you did not get there immediately when things opened, you likely would have to wait an hour or so for a seat, since there was only 2 main restaurants. They also were very inconsistent with their dress code rules. I have no issue with the rules, but there are sometimes they would enforce them, and sometimes they wouldn’t. I routinely saw men wearing cut off shirts at breakfast, so one day I wore a cut off shirt thinking it was fine, and they would not let me in. So I literally wore my wife’s swimsuit cover up and apparently that was better, while they let her go in with just her bikini. It made no sense. We have also always appreciated at other Secrets resorts that while we do not sign up for the preferred club, that it is not rubbed in our faces. Unfortunately here, the preferred club to is so small that no one uses it, so you are frequently surrounded by preferred clubs guests who are getting specialized treatment. The rooms are definitely smaller than any other Secrets we have been too, and our little AC unit made his clicking noise all night that made it hard to sleep. The gym AC on multiple days was not working, so it as like working out in a sauna. To top it all off, the 2nd day we were there, my wife developed a bacterial infection on her foot from the pool, and within 12 hours went from absolutely nothing to a severe infection that needed to have a doctor come to our room to drain her foot, and spiked a 103.6 fever. It got so severe that we actually had to go to the emergency room at the hospital, as they were worried it was starting to be systemic and cause severe issues. For the next 5 days while she was unable to basically do anything at the resort due to this, not a single time did a single Secrets staff member check up on her. The manager that was present when her foot was being drained even seemed to go out of her way to avoid us whenever we would be near her. I do want to highlight the probably lone bright spot of our trip, and that was the entertainment director, and I believe her name was Merari. She was fantastic, and was the single person who seemed to go out of her way to make sure our stay at the resort was as good as possible.

  Jan 19, 2026