Secrets Royal Beach is a real coup de coeur, as they say in French. We were there last December for Christmas and wanted to try the brand new Secrets Tides in Uvero Alto but for a personal reason, finally decided to come back to Royal Beach. 100% sure Tides is as quality as "our" Royal Beach.

Question: Are Ramon Ynoa and his friends (Jonairy, Emilia, Estefany etc) still THE team at the Olio for breakfasts and lunches? Can't wait to be back there. Also, if you have a chance, say HI to Raquel (in the office), Angelo, our super butler and Francis, my boss at the tennis court, telling them that Claudio is coming back SOON :)

Gentilhom Angelo is off for the next few days. The person I spoke to said tha Raquel was at Dreams next door. Will find out about your team this morning.

We like the Showtime bar but for example last night was the Jazz show. Not our thing. So, for a late night drink the only option was the lobby. You still heard the show and their was no ambiance. A nice outdoor bar, closer to the beach with good music would be nice for late nights. The shows are super loud and sometimes you just want to chat with the people you are with.

Had supper at Olio's. Very good food and service excellent. Service here is above expectations as is cleanliness. Violinist at the pool yesterday morning. She was great.weather gets very cloudy but no rain.

You can use the buffet at Dreams next door but it is the smallest and least appealing buffet I've seen.

Towel game is definitely present. Must grab a place by 7

Loved Olio's which is PC restaurant for a la cartes breakfast. Also agree if not PC then limited for bars near the beach in the evenings. We never used the buffet at Dreams for reason you mentioned but it does have a nice view if sitting outdoors. We did enjoy the Dreams beach bar a few times.

Great! Knowing Dreams is an option also for dinners, we tried Portofino (Italian) and the seafood restaurant and loved both. As for Raquel, I chatted with her yesterday and I can garantee she is at Secrets, but good luck to find her, you will have to work hard lol. CLUE: tennis ;-) But she is a sweet young lady and I was very happy to meet her, last December...

Loving every minute. It is a beautiful resort. Very lush in vegetation.

However, it needs a few extra perks to bring it to the top. A beach bar that you can sit at like Hideaways at Dreams and more beachfront options for lunch like at Dreams.

We went to the Dreams beachfront buffet for lunch yesterday. It was actually very good even if choice was not grand. To sit with a cerveza, enjoying lunch with the ocean in view is so nice. You can always sit at your beach chair and enjoy food from the barefoot grill but choice is even more limited than at the Dreams buffet.

This is good to know. Thanks for this.

how do you become a preferred club guest?

You generally book a room/suite in the preferred club category and buildings. Also, depending on resort, you can also simply upgrade to PC services although since there are no bracelets I'm not sure if you can do this at Secrets, as they normally ask for room number. We were PC every time we stayed at Secrets.

Cost to upgrade is about 1200$ per couple for the week in US dollars.

If we booked the preferred package, it was about 800$ more per person at our time of booking.

We did not book preferred. We wanted to wait and see if we found this necessary. We didn't miss it. There was only 1 restaurant we couldn't use for breakfast and lunch. We had access to a beautiful quiet pool. More perks at preferred but this was great.