I recently visited the two Secrets properties in Jamaica, the Secrets St James Montego Bay and the Secrets Wild Orchid. The two properties are all on one property and share restaurants, public areas, bars, beaches, spa, and fitness center. All of the restaurants except the Ocean Grille are on the Secrets Wild Orchid side of the resort. Keep this in mind if you are handicapped or have mobility issues and don’t want to walk a lot. If you plan to stay at the Secrets St James property you will need to walk to the other side for dinner every night.

The spa and fitness center are on the Secrets St. James side of the resort and the pools are located in front of each resort. There is plenty of seating, chaise loungers, tables, and lounge beds around both pool areas. The water sports building is in front of the Secrets Wild Orchid side of the beach. Towels are available to use on the beach and by the pool at the entertainment buildings which are located near each pool.

The resort has daily entertainment like volleyball, basketball in the pool, etc. They also have a theater and show movies and have music at various places onsite. They give you umbrellas in your room which come in handy when it rains and you have to walk to the other side of the resort to eat or go to the spa.

Check In/Check Out
Upon arrival at 1:00pm we were fortunate and got right in with no wait. We were offered champagne and our bags were taken by the bellman to be delivered to our room. Check out was also relatively smooth; we had to catch a 1:00pm flight so we checked out at 10:00am so we could catch the 10:10am bus to the airport.

The Suites/Rooms
The rooms are clean and the beds were extremely comfortable. This is generally not the case in most Mexico and Caribbean resorts. The rooms are well stocked with towels, shampoo, robes, and bath products. The mini bar is stocked with various sodas, Red Stripe beer, water, and juice. On a scale of 1 being most basic and 10 being most luxurious, I would give the rooms a rating of 8.

Staff
The staff is very friendly, anything you ask or want, they are happy to accommodate.

Restaurants
There are seven restaurants on property. The World Care always serves a buffet breakfast. The Ocean and Seaside grill also serve breakfast but they were not serving it during our stay there. Lunch is buffet and “ala carte” menu at Ocean Grill or Seaside Grill. The resorts offer a lot of cheap fried items for lunch. Skip it and get in line at the BBQ on the beach for jerk chicken, it is tasty. The restaurants give you a choice of 3 or 4 items. On a scale of 1-10 with fast food being a 1 and gourmet cuisine being a 10, the restaurants at this resort rate from a 5 to a 6.

Bars
Secrets St. James and Secrets Wild Orchid have several bars to choose from. There is the Marlin bar, Manatees Bar, The Lounge piano bar, Barracuda Beach Bar, Desires Music Lounge, Piano Bar, Rendezvous, Revive (in the spa, not really a bar, they serve tea, coffee, juice, and fruit infused water), and the Sugar Reef pool bar.

The Piano bar serves premium alcohol. They had Grey Goose, and Sauza which are closest to the brands I drink normally (I normally drink Ketel One and Patron). Most bars onsite use cheap vodka and Cuervo gold. The drinks are mixed very sweet, so if you aren’t a big fruity drink girl or guy, just ask, they will accommodate any requests you have for your favorite drink.

Spa and Fitness center
The spa and fitness center is an amazing place to break away for the afternoon and work out and relax. There is a tennis court, basketball court and the fitness center has great machines and cardio equipment when compared to other resorts I have stayed at. The spa has many body treatments available and an amazing steam, sauna, cold plunge pool, and hydrotherapy pool. They charge $55 a person for a day pass to use the hydrotherapy pool, sauna, steam, etc. The fitness center is free to use and so is the tennis and basketball court.

Beach and Water sports
The beach is clean and lined with chaise lounges and palapas. It is easy to go to the water sports building and sign out a kayak, catamaran, or snorkeling gear and enjoy the water. It is free and you are allowed to keep the gear out from 1/2 hour to an 1 hour at a time. The snorkeling isn’t like Hawaii, Belize, or Bonaire, but you can see fish and marine life. The water is clear and calm and not very deep. We checked out snorkel gear each day and we saw puffer fish, starfish, small tropical fish, sea urchins etc. I didn’t do any scuba diving during our stay, but the resort does offer scuba diving for those who like to dive.

To book your perfect Jamaica vacation, contact the travel agent below!

Christine Ranum
Thornton Park Travel
Orlando, FL 32801
“Your neighborhood escape artist”
Toll-free: 866-468-1331
Local: 407-517-4705
christine@thorntonparktravel.com

Tags: adults only, all inclusive, caribbean, jamaica, Montego Bay, Secrets St James Montego Bay, Secrets Wild Orchid, spa

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Hotel Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.