Hotel Review: Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay

Growing up, all-inclusive hotels got a bad rap, especially in the Caribbean. But I had read a couple reviews that Hyatt was opening one in Jamaica, and as a loyal Hyatt member, it peaked my interest. After visiting the property, my mind has forever been changed on all-inclusive hotels! This one is spectacular, not only the location but the staff and food are amazing!

In short, the views are spectacular (and more importantly Instagrammable), the property is pristine and looks like it was built only yesterday, and the hospitality of the staff rivals that of Disney. What made the trip even better was I was able to get a really good introductory rate, since the hotel is new, checkout my post here for pricing and how I used my points to pay for my whole trip!

Property/Views

Sitting on its own private beach, the ocean front views of the Hyatt are spectacular. There are two parts to the property, Hyatt Zilara and Ziva. Hyatt Ziva is the family side and Hyatt Zilara is the adults only side. Both properties connect and offer similar amenities.

We stayed at Hyatt Zilara, the adults only side, and loved it. Surprisingly we found it was less couples and more adult groups that stay here.

The term all-inclusive means a couple of different things depending on which resort you go to. In this case, all-inclusive includes:

• Food and stacks (including 24/7 room service). What was really nice about this hotel was the variety of food they offered. Each restaurant has it’s own unique theme that ranged from Asian Fusion to Brazilian Steakhouse. During the day there are also various snack stations that offer really nice bite size pick-me-ups.
• Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages
• Activities
  • kayak or catamaran rentals
  • boogie boards
  • snorkeling

Room

Since I was using my points, I was expecting to stay in a smaller, cheaper room. But I was 100% wrong, our room was spacious and had an amazing view. Housekeeping was extremely thorough and we came back, everyday, to a perfectly clean room. One thing that caught us off guard was the turn down service. The hotel does do turndown service every night around 7pm and that includes drawing you a bubble bath with rose petals! It was an amazing surprise, but also a reminder to keep your room clean.

Spa 

Every time I go on vacation, I try to find a spa to aid in my relaxation. Looking online, I was really excited about the spa, however I was a tad disappointed with the amenities offered. The spa pictures online are from the adults only spa, which you can only reserve if you book a couples massage on the beach. So my single massage was booked in the main building spa, which a little less impressive. They have the standard showers, steam room, and sauna but it’s a little small with no extra pools or hot tubs. That being said, it was the best massage I ever had and I wanted to get one everyday so it was completely worth it!

Gym

One huge plus about staying at Zilara vs Ziva was the gym. The gym at Ziva is a little larger but the gym at Zilara was empty every time I went in and had all the equipment that I needed. It’s a tad small, but luckily I didn’t see too many people using it, while the Ziva side was packed everytime I passed by. 

Food

For me, traveling is all about exploring new cultures and part of that resides in the food. Most of the time, when I go to a new city, I have to scour Yelp to find the best places to eat, then worry about how I’m going to get there. At Hyatt, I didn’t have to do any of this which really eased the planning process. The property has 20 restaurants to choose from. Hyatt Zilara (adults-only) and Hyatt Ziva (family friendly) are two resorts attached to each other, and each resort has its own restaurants. The guests at Zilara can dine at Ziva, but guests of Ziva cannot dine at Zilara. I’m not sure how this is regulated, because it seemed like adults could pass freely between the two resorts, but they do take your room number when you see the hostess. So maybe they know you’re not at Zilara and they turn you away, I’m not sure how strict they are about that.

I’m always a fan of room service, especially in the morning, I wasn’t raised to get dressed and ready for the day before breakfast. Here, room service is 24 hours, and included in the daily price! The room service menu is pretty limiting and you can find everything that at ChoiceZ, the buffet, so I’d recommend walking over there.

Where we ate:

Urban Heat

The first night we ate at Urban HeatZ, which has international food. It was good and we each really liked what we got, but I wasn’t super impressed with the food, but the service was amazing.

Ranking: 6/10

HoriZons – Outdoor steak and seafood 

HoriZons is gorgeous because it’s right on the beach and has a beautiful view, so I’d recommend going over lunch. The food gears toward the Asian side and is extremely good. However, it takes the longest out of all the restaurants. We may have been more sensitive to time because we were trying to catch a flight, but we felt like this meal took forever.

Rating: 8/10

Barefood JerkZ – Jamaican Jerk Barbecue 

This shore shack serves really good barbecue chicken, I’m not sure what makes it ‘Jamaican Jerk’, in my opinion it’s not spicy enough to hold this title. But was still really good.

Rating: 8/10

FuZion – Asian 

This was our favorite place by far, there are three separate dining rooms, hibachi, a-la-cart, and Japanese BBQ room. We chose the Japanese BBQ because we weren’t in the mood for a hibachi show. We should have done the hibachi, the Japanese BBQ was extremely good but was just teriyaki sauce and the a-la-cart was just Asian food from a menu.

Rating: 7/10

BraZil Steakhouse 

Traditional Brazilian steakhouse with an intense salad bar and 7 types of meat, depending on the season. The sides that you get are black beans and rice and are both very good. Make sure you stay all the way to the end, they bring out the best meat for 6 and 7. The dress code says ‘dressy casual’ online but it’s resort casual, girls can wear a dress and sandals and guys can wear shorts (not basketball or beach shorts) and a polo or button down.

Rating: 9/10

Private Beach Dinner

We also did a personal and romantic dinner on the beach, which included a 4 course meal and champagne.

Hyatt has amazing ‘packages’, or add ons, that you can purchase for additional fees around the resort. One of the things we opted for was the private dinner for two on the beach. It seems like the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary and wasn’t crazy expensive, $95 per person for a four course meal. It was definitely worth the money, we had our own private waiter who was very attentive and all the courses were brought out on time and in perfect condition. There were two time slots offered, one to watch the sunset and another to watch the stars. We did the sunset time because I love sunsets and the view couldn’t have been more prestige! I loved every minute of it!

Rating: 10/10

Checkout a full listing of additional cafes and bars, as well as dress codes, here.

Dress Code: 

Some of the restaurants have a dress code. As a girl I can always get away with wearing a dress and heals but guys are always more difficult. However, this is a beach resort so ‘formal’ means slacks and a short sleeve button down or polo shirt. Dress shoes are not required but make sure you have a ‘nice’ pair of sandals, anything other than flip flops really. We stressed out about the dress code because, to me, formal means jacket and tie, but it’s a beach resort so that doesn’t make sense.

Tipping:

One of the first questions we had upon arrival was ‘how do we tip?’ From observing other guests we figured out that you tip a couple dollars at dinner, we kept it standard with $5, and at the pool tip $1 per drink. There is an ATM on property and my bank didn’t charge extra fees for using it. Typically my bank does charge fees for using another banks ATM so this was surprising.

The nice thing about it being all inclusive is not having to wait for the check at dinner, you can literally get up and leave whenever you want to.

The Towels at the Pool:

This was not intuitive so I figured I’d include this in my post. You have to checkout the towels before you go down to the pool. It’s confusing because there are no signs telling you this and the checkout station is tucked away in the corner. In theory, I guess you’re suppose to check back in your towels, but they round them up at the end of the night anyway, I never saw anyone check it back in.

Overall: The experience was amazing and we’re recommending it to all our friends and family.