Secrets Papagayo Costa Rica - All Inclusive - Adults Only

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

5922 reviews

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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
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  Major disappointment - not a 5 star experience

  Overall, we were very disappointed with our experience. First of all, this is not a five star resort. The rooms need upgrading and the grounds need to be better maintained (dead grass everywhere). We found numerous large insects in our room, including a very large spider (looked like a tarantula). When we asked for assistance with removing the spider, a staff member, who did not speak English, came into our room and began spraying something all over the room without making any effort to locate the spider and remove it. He used his phone to translate that the stuff he sprayed would "kill her." We were hoping staff would take a more humane approach and just remove and relocate the spider outside. Someone then called and offered to send housekeeping to change our bedding, but no one ever gave us option to change rooms or ask if we were okay with having an unknown chemical sprayed throughout our remove right before we were going to sleep. The next day, we found a crab and scorpion in the room, so whatever was sprayed throughout the room did not work. Also, my husband requested a special dinner to celebrate my 50th birthday and a staff member told him we would have a private setting with balloons and decorations, but when we arrived at the Seaside Grill, the staff just took us to a regular table. When we said this was not what we requested, he did not seem to care and just told us this was the table with the best view and he had placed a cloth on the table. The staff did not even acknowledge that it was my birthday. It was so disappointing, and to make matters worse, no one even bothered to respond when my husband respectfully let the staff know about what happened. Staff communication was very poor, and customer satisfaction was not a priority.

  Jan 18, 2026
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  Anniversary Trip

  We loved everything about the resort. The staff were professional and friendly and helped anytime we asked. I loved the experience!

  Jan 18, 2026