This is the third time my wife and I have stayed at Secret Harbor in the last 16 months. So yes, we really enjoyed our first two visits in August 2010 and January 2011. We arrived on December 21, 2011 for our latest visit and found many changes. The setting for the hotel has always been the appeal for us. The beach is small and in the past, lightly visited from the cruise ships.
This has changed!
The bar and restaurant on the property are under new management. Unfortunately, the changes have created a homogeneous appeal to the lowest common denominator setting.
The beach this time had trash and cigarette butt litter that I didn't see on our last visits.
Management must be more interested in cruise ship traffic rather than their guests. The beach was a free-for-all during the part of the day when cruise ship taxis showed up. Management had one beach attendant on duty to monitor hundreds of day "guests" that would harrass the iguanas on the beach and set up their beach towels under the shade of the hotel guest's umbrellas so close you could smell them. Not what I need for the price of this place.
The poor beach attendants could not possibly keep up with this unsupervised activity. In fact, one day we had a women take my wife's chair while we were in the water.
Meanwhile, management was no where to be found. In fact, I don't even know who the Manager is. Not once did he show his face on the beach and make his presence or position known.
Other changes:
Washers and dryers are no longer available for guests.
Rooms are not made up until after 3PM.
Wi Fi is useless. I could not use my Kindle Fire. In the past, my laptop had no problem.
Beach attendants no longer have fresh towels for guests. You have to visit the office.
The beach is no longer cleaned and raked on a daily basis.
The website still has the Blue Moon Bar and Cafe listed. Beware. This is not the case. It has been replaced with a more expensive and lacking any character Sunset Grille. (Seperate Review).

I really would'nt convince somebody to choose this resort but I cant say "stay away" either. This is a FAR cry from what I'd expect from a " beach resort" but my overall experience was ok- so if you end up here, rest assured,you are going to have a great vacation.

Positives:

1. I thought the woman at the front desk was extremely gracious. Upon arrival we told her that we're disappointed with the location of our room, she immediately gave us a key to check out another condo, she was very accommodating and friendly.
2. I really liked the location of our condo (building 3) it's beachfront yet the last building so it was less crowded.
3.The condo was very spacious with modern updated kitchen.
4. I never had a problem with no water or lack of pressure.

Negatives:
Housekeeping:The condo was not spotless, bathroom was not clean, bathroom walls were dirty... :-(
Although I never had a problem with water pressure the hot water did turn cold after a few minutes...
Blinds in kitchen broken and missing slats..not a big deal at all but not impressive.
We also had a billing issue which the front desk was quick to resolve so double check your bill.
Bring OFF or insect repellant....lots of mosquitos.

I got over the initial letdown...this isnt a luxury resort.... but.... I was in St Thomas and I had a decent condo with basic provisions on a gorgeous beach surrounded by wonderful friendly people and watched STUNNING sunsets on the beach 2 steps from my condo... amongst the other great things the island offers....

Well, I don't like to give negative reviews, but feel like I have to! We went there for 4 days after reading previous reviews and it was pretty awful. The front desk staff was unfriendly, especially about their towel policy, and the check out process was very slow and inaccurate. They charged me for 4 beach towels at $50.00 each, discovered during checkout. We had left the towels in the room because they were dirty, and we were leaving, why bring them to the front as we were leaving and toting suitcases? If I hadn't been paying attention that would made an extra $200.00 off of us. The first day upon entering our beachfront condo, the kitchen counter and floor were covered with water that was coming out of the kitchen ceiling light. This occurred again the morning we left, in spite of maintanence saying they fixed the problem.

The beach was nice, but I have certainly seen better. The condo was minimally furnished and really reminded me of what a college kid would want, not a couple. There was virtually no water pressure in our condo, and on one day there was no water in the whole place! We had to brush our teeth with bottled water, and couldn't take a bath. We had booked an early morning excursion and it was unfortunate. This resort really isn't very well cared for. The towel guy was very surly..I wanted just a regular table height plastic chair for the beach, the loungers were hard and uncomfortable, so I asked him if they had any regular chairs- his reply was he didn't know what I meant! So I said " like you are sitting on". He says, no way.

We did enjoy the restaurant! We thought the food was very tasty, pricey, but good.

We will never go back!

We had a wonderful stay at Secret Harbor during the first week of November. Based on the advice of a previous review I called the resort ahead of time and requested an upgraded condo. They said they couldn't promise anything, but would try. We did end up with an upgraded unit, which was lovely and significantly nicer than the non-upgraded units appeared to be. Not sure if that's why we got it, but it's certainly worth the quick phone call to try. We found all the staff to be friendly and helpful as long as we showed some patience (which was easy to do in such a laid back, relaxing setting).

The unit and the beach would have gotten 5 stars, except that the bed wasn't very comfortable and the restaurant was underwhelming. The service and food were fine, but the selection was limited and most of the food was simply average (for above average prices). It would have been really nice to have better food available at the resort, and I would recommend skipping the Sunset Grille and going into Red Hook to eat.

The beach was absolutely beautiful, crystal clear water, white sand and great snorkeling. We saw lots of fish and a sting ray right in Secret Harbor. We would return to SH just for the beach alone. However, I would recommend following other travelers adivce about getting off the beach before dusk - we didn't and got eaten alive by the 'no-see-ums.'

During our stay we did a day trip with Pirates Penny to the BVI. It was a very well organized trip, though I probably wouldn't do it again. It was a long day in the heat, and though the sites were beautiful I don't know that I'd take a whole day out of our trip to do it again.

We ate at Havana Blue at the Marriot on our last night and would HIGHLY recommend it. It was expensive, but worth every penny. The food was unique and fabulous, and the setting was lovely. We also really enjoyed the fish place on the water in Red Hook (called Fish Tails, I believe).

I would highly recommend Secret Harbor, and am happy to answer questions if you have any.