I really enjoy warm places during the winter – so this year for Thanksgiving, my wife and I booked a long kid-free weekend in Jamaica. We spent 2 nights at the Holiday Inn Resort Montego Bay Jamaica, and then for our last night, we transferred over to the Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay. While most of our travel / vacation trips are go, go go (and so is our life), we planned for this trip to consist of mostly sitting around on the beach doing nothing but relaxing. As I think this Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Montego Bay review will show, we managed to do pretty much just that!! 🙂

Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Montego Bay Jamaica review – cost and price

The Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Montego Bay Jamaica is in its own special World of Hyatt category with the rest of the all-inclusive resorts, costing 25,000 World of Hyatt points. It is NOT eligible for a Category 1-4 redemption certificate. We used points, but if you’re looking to pay cash, I saw rates as high as $620 night (plus taxes) over the course of a few dates I looked at

You can check rates for your dates at HotelsCombined.com

Getting to the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Montego Bay

I assume most people (like us) will be flying into MBJ airport. From there, a taxi ride will cost in the neighborhood of USD$30-35 (the taxi companies all took USD with no problems). We came from the Holiday Inn Montego Bay all-inclusive, and our taxi ride was USD$15 (which I felt was STILL too much since it’s like a 5 minute ride, but whatever…)

If you’re renting a car, self parking is complimentary and valet parking is available (though if you valet you should tip; see below)

Checking in at the Montego Bay Jamaica Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

Once you arrive, you enter a spacious lobby and go to check-in. We were a little bit early (~1pm) and so our room was not quite ready yet. We just relaxed in the lobby until our room was ready, which took pretty much until 3pm.

There is also the Aromaz coffee shop in the lobby (or anywhere else on site) if you want to grab something to eat or drink. We were stuffed from all the food at the Holiday Inn, so we didn’t eat anything.

Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay Jamaica map and grounds

The Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay Jamaica and the Hyatt Ziva are all part of one resort (see below). Here is a picture of the resort map that they give to guests

This is a view of the Hyatt Ziva building from the back (ocean-side) of the resort

View of one of the beaches

There’s a cupola here that makes for good photos! I’m sure they do plenty of weddings as well

What’s the difference between the Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Ziva?

As I mentioned earlier, the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall and the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall are all part of one large resort complex. The difference between Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Ziva is that the Hyatt Zilara is for adults only while the Hyatt Ziva is for all ages. There is no gate or formal barrier between the Hyatt Ziva and Hyatt Zilara, just a sign (and occasionally a guard). This is the view from the Ziva side looking into the Zilara side.

And here’s the view from the same spot, facing towards the Ziva side.

Even if you find yourself staying at the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall, you will likely be traveling to the Hyatt Ziva area at some point, as many of the restaurants and amenities are on the Hyatt Ziva side.

Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall MBJ review – room

We had booked a standard room with points (25,000 Hyatt points), but due to my Globalist status, we were upgraded to what I believe was a “Oceanfront Junior Suite King”

It was quite spacious. It was up on the 3rd floor and had a balcony overlooking the ocean – here’s a video of me going through the whole suite

There are some rooms that have swim up pools attached to the room. I literally did not see anyone using these during our stay at the Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay Jamaica

Rose Hall Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay review – restaurants

There are a variety of Rose Hall Hyatt Zilara restaurants on the premises of the two resorts

Yes, they ALL have a Z in the name….

We were only there one night so went for Di Roza (the Italian restaurant). It was a bit tricky to find since this was before we realized that the Hyatt Ziva and Hyatt Zilara were all connected and it was dark outside. Di Roza, along with most of the sitdown (fancy) restaurants is located over on the Hyatt Ziva side (#30 on the map above).

Unlike over at the Holiday Inn, none of the restaurants on premises require reservations. We walked in and were immediately seated.

Here’s the menu (no prices, of course 😀 )

My wife had the Cannelloni e Spinaci

I had the fettuccine alfredo

Choice”z” is the buffet restaurant that is open for breakfast and lunch. We had breakfast there one day – it was a fairly standard (upscale) breakfast buffet. Here are a few of the stations. They also had an omelet station which is what I had. There are a variety of tables both indoors and outdoors.

Horizons is another option for breakfast and lunch and serves Jamaican cuisine. There are 2 versions of the Horizons – one at the Ziva and one at the Zilara

Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay Jamaica review – other food

Like most all-inclusive resorts, the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall has a variety of food options throughout the resort property. We did get a small afternoon snack at the West End Grill (no Z?!?!)

This was the menu

I asked for a margherita pizza flatbread, which came out as this

Should you tip at the Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay Jamaica?

The Hyatt Zilara Montego Bay Jamaica is an all-inclusive resort, and tips are encouraged and expected. So if you’re wondering how much to tip at the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall I will share what we tipped.

• $1 for the buffet servers at Choicez Restaurant
• $1-2 for the bellmen
• $6 to our server at Di Roza where we ate one night for dinner

Theoretically I’m not a big fan of the concept of tipping, but I’m also not (usually) willing to stick it to people who are counting on tips to make a living, especially when I’ve reached a point in my life where a dollar or two won’t affect my ability to put food on my kids’ table. We did definitely see people that were not tipping at all.

Amenities at the Montego Bay Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

We didn’t get to sample many of the amenities at the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall; in hindsight, I’d have liked to stay at least 2 days there (like we did at the Holiday Inn). It does have a pool on both the Ziva and Zilara sides. I will say that the adult pool on the Zilara side was definitely ADULT. When we arrived, there was a lady on staff with a microphone who was leading the crowd in lewd games that definitely made me feel uncomfortable. YMMV of course – Carolyn and I decided that we were not “adult” enough for adults-only resorts 🙂

There is a fitness center (pictured below). Tragically, the door on this side of the fitness center was closed and ironically it was “too much work” for us to walk around to the front 🙂

And f course the real amenity of a place like this is the beach, right! There were wide swaths of beach on both the Ziva and Zilara side.

There were cabanas to rent – I f

We had a great time at the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Montego Bay Jamaica, though for me personally, the Hyatt Ziva was TOO fancy. If I were going back to Jamaica, I’d definitely stay the whole time over at the Holiday Inn – it was much more of my style

Have you been to the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Montego Bay? What were your impressions? Leave them in the comments!