We are just back from the Hyatt Zilara. We honestly had a great trip.

A few disclosures up front -

Yes, I am a travel agent. I can still have valid, unbiased opinions.Hyatt did not ask me to write a review or to say anything favorable about them to anyone.

Disclosure - I'm in my late 40s (it hurts to type that) and my husband is in his early 50s. We like PEACE and QUIET on vacation - we don't want or need a ton of entertainment, so I can't speak about the entertainment as we stayed away from the nightly entertainment. We like children, but we don't want to hear them on vacation (and we didn't here). We just wanted a romantic, quiet, relaxing vacation together.

Next disclosure - I was in Building 4, the Zilara building. We had a garden and ocean view junior suite. I saw on the video the comments that the building only had pool views, but we looked straight out onto a garden area. If you went out on the balcony and looked to the right, we could see the restaurant (Horizons??) and the ocean. I understand that if you are in a different building, YMMV.

Next disclosure - I think Hyatt Zilara has come a long way in the last few weeks. I do not discount the earlier reviews, but their experience was not my experience.

Final disclosure - Up until a few days before departure, I was ready to cancel. I was actively looking into other options. I'm so glad my husband convinced me to give it a shot.

Before I get into the resort, I want to discuss our experience at Club MoBay. At arrival, you are met at the end of the ramp as you are getting off the plane. You have a Club MoBay rep assigned to you. I do NOT believe that you could smooth talk or sneak your way into the fast track line as the rep assigned to you stays with you the entire time. It is very controlled, and it is my understanding that part of the fee for Club MoBay (I spent $80 to buy the arrival/departure package purchased through Island Routes) goes directly to the Jamaican government for allowing you to fast track. I saw several people asked to leave the fast track line as they did not have a Club MoBay escort. The fast track line definitely moved faster; however, there was only 1 agent taking people from our line, whereas the regular line had a lot of agents. So, it may have saved some time, but I'm not sure how much. That having been said, I'd still do it again. I did not see the arrivals lounge as by the time we got to the Hyatt Zilara lounge, there was a shuttle bus ready to go with no wait time, so we skipped seeing the lounge.

For departure, Club MoBay was a bit of a cluster. It was nowhere near our gate. Yes, the fast track was nice (it's not on the level of a Global Entry fast track or TSA pre-check, but it is a line saver). By the time we got to the lounge area, there was a huge crowd at checkin. The club was filled to capacity and they weren't allowing anyone in. They were offering 50% refunds (of the $30 to $35 fee for the departure service), and the line for the refund was probably 50+ people deep. We heard a lot of different reasons for the delay and denied entry ranging from flights are delayed and people aren't checking out, to it was oversold, to there was a fire closing one of the three rooms and people had to be evacuated. I don't know which one was correct. I do know that one room was definitely closed, so I tend to believe the fire story, but again, I don't know. Once we finally got in there, it was nice enough, but it was jam packed. There was an open bar and appetizer-type snacks and sweets. We were only there for about 30 min due to the delay in getting in.

I do have Priority Pass, and that may get you access to the lounge; however, the lounge access is capacity controlled, so I wouldn't count on it. That having been said, if I returned to Jamaica, I would do Club MoBay, but my expectations would be better managed after the experience. It's good, and I got my money's worth, but I didn't love it.

Ok, the Hyatt.

Checkin- we checked in with one other couple (who we didn't know previously) at a seated check in on the couches. I had not requested any specific room or building ahead of time because, honestly, after reading the reviews, I couldn't get a clear read on which was the best to request - each seemed to have its own problems. Is it possible that my room was upgraded because I am a travel agent with a large agency? Of course that's possible; however, the other couple who checked in at the same time as us and who we didn't know and who weren't travel agents received a room down the hall from us which I believe was exactly the same. Our room wasn't ready and neither was theirs. They brought us drinks and walked us to lunch. We had a pleasant and delicious lunch for about an hour. We came back and both rooms were ready.

We were in Building 4, Floor 3. We had a Jr. Suite, and I loved it. It was a beautiful, large, modern room. The soaking tub was wonderful. The bed was very comfortable. There was plenty of storage space and a nice sitting area. It was almost 100% complete - little things like one of the phones sometimes not working and an outlet without power were not an issue. There were a few areas that could use some touch up paint, but overall, the room was fantastic. The room wasn't perfect if you look at those small things, but I loved it, and I'd definitely rate the room an A (hey, I teach too - I had to give it a letter grade).

The one annoying feature of the room that I wish I had asked to have changed is the motion sensor automatic light in the bathroom. It comes on at BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT when you enter the bathroom and stays on for what seems like an eternity after you leave. I would guess it's at least 15 minutes after the last motion. That means that a quick trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night lights up the room enough to wake a sleeping partner. I called and they said their engineer could fix that, but I told them not to bother because we were ready to turn in for the night. In hindsight, I should've let them do it.

There was work going on in the rooms above us and to the side of us. In no way did it disturb our sleep. We slept until at the earliest 11 am each day, and we were not bothered. We do ALWAYS travel with a sleep machine, so it's possible that there was noise that we didn't hear. If you don't have a sleep machine, at least download a white noise app for your phone - but I recommend that for ALL travel. They were laying carpet in the hallways during our stay, but as you can see in the posted video someone else so nicely shared, it's on top of tile, so it doesn't look unfinished.

The Zilara pool - LOVED it! I'm from the northeast, so I didn't find it cold at all. The swim up bar was lovely. Sometimes swim up bars have you too far out of the water - this was the perfect height with a nice footrest. No problem or wait getting a drink, and drinks were well made. You had to ask if you wanted a specific brand, but if you asked once, you got that brand from there on. It didn't seem to be an issue to wait for a blender. The bartenders were funny and seemed happy. We had no issues getting chairs each day; however, we never hit the beach or pool before noon, so perhaps it was busier in the morning. We easily got comfy chairs, chairs in the water, beach beds (that took until the late afternoon), and couches. There was no issue with chair hogs that we saw. We stuck our foot in the hot tub, and, to our senses, it seemed to be the same temperature or slightly warmer than the pool. We're not hot tub people, so it didn't bother us. On the Ziva side, I saw a mother with two toddlers playing in the hot tub like it was their private pool, so I'm guessing it wasn't too hot over there either.

The beach. Ok, MoBay isn't known for great beaches, so my expectations were managed. The Zilara beach itself was nice enough, but swimming in the ocean there was not pleasant due to all the seaweed and seagrass. I don't know if the seaweed was an issue to the specific beach or just the whole sargassum issue that is plaguing much of the Caribbean. If you walked down a little to the Ziva side near the jerk chicken shack, there were two perfectly nice coves. You did not need beach shoes, and the water was pleasant and calm. It was only about waist deep (I'm 5'6") when I swam in it. The beach is not the strength of the resort, but the beaches at the two coves on the Ziva side were perfectly acceptable. They were pretty, they had soft, smooth sand and they did the job. They were not comparable to the beaches of Negril, but they were good. I'm a hard core beach lover, but the pool here was so awesome, that we spent more time in it than at the beach. There are lovely couches under gazebo-like things near the beaches and we spent a couple lovely hours lazing away the time in them, listening to the very tiny waves lap at the shore.

Children - I did not see any children on the Zilara side except at the edge of what I thought was the Zilara beach's ocean cove. Hyatt put a big inflatable anchored in the water, and it seemed to me to be anchored in the Zilara part of the beach. Maybe my perspective was wrong, but that's what it looked like to me. I saw a family playing on it - you're not going to keep kids off a huge inflatable if it's the only one. I didn't see a lot of kids in the entire resort, probably due to it being mid-January and kids being back in school. Yes, I saw little kids, but not a ton. Again, YMMV.

The food - Overall it was very good, but some places were excellent. We loved our lunch at Calypso - delicious, delicious, delicious. We had a terrific dinner at the Brazilian place - we felt it was comparable to our experiences at multiple churrascarias in the country of Brazil. Was it comparable to Fogo de Chao? I don't know as I've never been there, but we certainly enjoyed this experience. Our waiter was excellent and did a rum tasting for us and a little bit of a mini mixology class for us. He did all kinds of different caipirinhas for us. That was fun.

We also ate at Choicez, the buffet. It was very nice for a buffet, very clean. As a side job, I am a certified ServSafe food safety instructor, so I'm pretty retentive about food safety. I was impressed with the behaviors of the cooks and chefs that I saw. I saw a lot of repeated hand washing and good food safety practices. I'm usually anti-buffet, but others we met at the resort raved about it, so we tried it.

We also did room service one night as we got hit by a bout of laziness, and the selections were very good. Service takes about 45 min, so you have to plan ahead. The only place we were disappointed in was Union Jacks - we thought we'd have an adult experience in a sports bar, but when we went in it was filled with teeny boppers doing karaoke. To be fair, it is on the Ziva side and the karaoke was advertised - we just didn't see that advertisement until afterwards.

We had NO wait time at any restaurant, and the restaurants seemed barely half full. We did not even try to make reservations as we didn't see the need. We like to eat at 8 pm or later, so perhaps earlier the experience was different. We checked out the other restaurants, and if we were there longer, we would've like to have tried more.

The lobby bar in the Zilara was very friendly, clean, and had premium selections. They also had food out throughout the day, but we couldn't get a consistent read on when it was there - sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. We found them to be very accommodating making whatever we wanted to take back to our rooms. The bar Stirz (I think that's the name) upstairs on the Ziva side is beautiful. There was a pianist one night that we saw - he may have been there every night, but we only heard him one time. There's also a very cool bartender who is from the old RC named Errol (??). He was terrific, quite the mixologist. It just felt like a nice warm, classic place to have an adult drink. The selection was probably the best at that specific bar. In my opinion, the choices were premium there.

Service - this is where they excelled. I went into it thinking that the whole service from the heart thing was going to be kinda hokey, and when people did the hand to the heart thing, at first I was like this is just strange. I thought it was going to be an uncomfortable rote gesture, like some sort of odd cult-like hospitality salute. It wasn't odd at all - the service genuinely had heart. I think this is the strength of the resort - the people and the service were, without exception, excellent. This is one of the friendliest resorts I've stayed in, and I've been to close to 60 countries in my travels. I was so impressed with the staff. They were warm, friendly, genuine, sweet, and remembered your name and your preferences.

The bad and the ugly - sigh, hanging head in shame. We made a BAD decision. We had a week for Jamaica, and we decided to do a split stay with half the week at the Hyatt and half at another resort. BIG MISTAKE - I SHOULD FIRE MY TRAVEL AGENT FOR SUGGESTING THIS (oh wait, I was the agent, my bad). Checking out of the Hyatt and checking into another resort was such a let down. We both knew immediately that we made a big mistake. I feel really stupid for that decision. We almost stayed the whole time at the Hyatt, but I was afraid with all the reviews and was ready to cancel, so we didn't. We just did a half week, and I regret that very much. I'm not sure it was fair to the second resort but there's no way the experience could compete.

Occupancy - the resort seemed empty. They said they were getting full, and a huge group of DoTerra agents (800 or more I think I heard) arrived during our stay. It still felt empty.

Walking - I was worried from the reviews that it would be a long walk to the restaurants as most are on the Ziva side. It wasn't a bad walk at all. It was quite pleasant as the chirping tree frogs kept us company. I'd say it was approx 5 min from our room to the exit of Building 4 and then another 5 min to a bunch of the restaurants that are grouped together. One of the two elevators in our building was out the whole time with a sign. We never waited for the other elevator - most of the time we hit the button and the doors opened right away.

Landscaping - Yes, you could see that the lawns in areas were just sodded. The telltale blocks of sod were giveaways. I think there were areas to still be planted with grass, but I'm not positive. Every day we saw a number of workers planting trees and doing other landscaping. We did not feel that this affected our vacation experience other than I sort of felt bad that they were sweating like crazy and my biggest concern was "the pool or the pond" (sorry, couldn't resist the reference) and which frozen concoction to help me hang on (couldn't resist that one either) to choose. The landscaping is clearly new and needs time to really take root. On the first day there, we did see a front end loader on the Zilara beach working for a couple hours. We just went to the Ziva beach, so it didn't bother us.

Ok, so this has been a pretty long review, and if you're still reading, well, wow you have patience. I apologize for any typos that my jet-lagged brain didn't catch. As I mentioned at the beginning, yes, I am a travel agent; however, I've got nothing to gain (or lose) by being anything but honest. Hyatt did not ask me to post a review. I'm doing this because I read so many other reviews here before my trip. I do realize that YMMV from my trip report, but I also know that I talked to a lot of other happy travelers when we were there. I think we managed to arrive just late enough to be past the worst of the opening issues.

I think the most interesting review comment is something that I'm going to steal from the gentleman that checked us in. He said that his property is, "Good, but not yet great." I think he was being a little too critical - I would say our experience there was always very good, typically great, with some excellent moments. I would like to revisit when they've been open for 6 months or more. I have some free nights from our Hyatt ccs to use, and we're debating whether to use them for Europe as originally planned, or to use them to return here.

Bottom line - don't over stress if you're going soon! I hope you have as good of a time as we did.