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Comparing the Hyatt Zilara Cancun and Jamaica

July 25, 2017 By Trevor 8 Comments





One of the most frequent comments I’ve gotten when reviewing either the Hyatt Zilara Cancun or the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall has been: “Which is better?” Unfortunately there’s no clear cut answer, because each property has their strengths and weaknesses. So rather please take this as my way of comparing the Hyatt Zilara Cancun and Jamaica.  

Comparing the Hyatt Zilara Cancun and Jamaica – Property

The two Zilara properties could not be more different. The Hyatt Zilara Cancun is more vertical, while the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall is much more spread out. Cancun is stand-alone, while Rose Hall shares a larger former Ritz Carlton footprint with the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall. Of course, this results in a different experience. For example, the lobby of the Cancun property is beautiful, spacious, more vertical, and also ends up being the central point for nightly entertainment.

Whereas the Rose Hall property is more spread out, but does have an evening entertainment area on the Ziva Rose Hall side of the property.

As far as pools go, the Cancun property has a single expansive pool spanning the property with more cabana style lounges rather than regular chaise lounges.

The Rose Hall property on the other hand has 2 pools on the Zilara side, and an additional pool on the Ziva side. Both seemed decent in size. There were however only a few cabanas, and those had costs associated with them.

Winner: Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

Rationale: I like to walk on vacation, so the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall definitely won when it came to property  

Comparing the Hyatt Zilara Cancun and Jamaica – Food and Drinks

Where the Cancun property lacked in property it certainly made up in food. The Hyatt Zilara Cancun’s food options were plentiful and all were wonderful.

Our first day started with lunch by the pool in Pelicanos, a very reasonable start.

We escalated from there to tepanyaki grill that night,

But the coup de grace was the Chef’s Table. It was phenomenal. This was not just a meal, it was an experience – somewhat customized, and prepared in front of you. 

For example, I don’t typically eat seafood, so they substituted chicken in place seafood in some dishes. 

hyatt zilara cancun

now with chicken instead

 

Even the buffet restaurant looked rather appetizing with ice cream, and a variety of dishes.

 

The Rose Hall property’s food offerings on the other hand, left something to be desired.

Similar to our Cancun experience, we decided to have lunch upon arrival at the restaurant close to the beach and pool. It was Jamaican flavor, which was appropriate and probably our best meal of the trip.

That evening, we ate at the Brazillian inspired restaurant, figuring we might need a day to sleep off the food coma from all the wonderful meat. It wasn’t as good as we had experienced elsewhere, but it wasn’t bad.

We also tried the Asian fusion restaurant and the British Pub. Ironically, for dinner options, the pub food was probably the best of those restaurants we tried.

Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

meat pie at the pub

For breakfast, we didn’t venture out, instead opting for room service, which was reasonably good each day. 

Winner: Hyatt Zilara Cancun

Rationale: Food was a very clear and deliberate focus at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, and it made a huge difference.

Comparing the Hyatt Zilara Cancun and Jamaica – Service

This is probably not the most fair comparison, as we had an upgraded room at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, but were upgraded to a Butler Suite at the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall. This meant that well, we had a butler. That made an impact, but it wasn’t the only impact. Every single employee we saw when wandering the resort was kind, and truly seemed to care about how we were enjoying ourselves. The lady who brought us our drinks at the pool remembered what we were drinking and truly enjoyed her job. Everyone came off as happy, and it didn’t look like an act.

That isn’t to say that the Cancun properties’ employees didn’t. They did, but just not to the extent that the Rose Hall property’s staff did.

Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

Phone that Butler Suite residents get for anything they need at the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall.

Winner: Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

Rationale: If the Cancun property made food a priority, the Rose Hall property made service the priority.

Comparing the Hyatt Zilara Cancun and Jamaica – The Room

The Cancun property’s room was reasonably expansive, it had an in room hot tub, a nice lanai, a sitting area; all the necessities of a nice quality room.

The Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall on the other hand provided us a pretty impressive Butler Suite which was significantly bigger than that of the Cancun property. This room had so much space that sometimes it felt a little empty. 

Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall Jamaica: Butler Suite

Overall, the suite provided plenty of room to spread out, which was nice, even though we spent most of our time down at the pool.

Winner: Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

Rationale: This was a tough one, because its hard to truly compare the two rooms since we had a suite at only one of the two.

Final Thoughts

Both Hyatt Zilara properties are great. I think though it depends on what matters more to you, as to which one may be a better fit for you. For me, I would likely return to either, though I did appreciate the ability to walk around the Jamaica property, but the food was really quite good in Cancun, so it could be a toss up. 

What are your thoughts? Have you been to both? Did you have a different experience?

Filed Under: Hotels Tagged With: Hyatt Zilara, Hyatt Zilara Cancun, Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall

Hyatt Zilara Cancun, Mexico: Restaurants and Chef’s Table

September 12, 2016 By Trevor 3 Comments

Hyatt Zilara Cancun, Mexico for a long weekend

Part One: Hyatt Zilara Arrival Experience and Room
Part Two: Hotel Amenities
Part Three: Restaurants and Chef’s Table

The Hyatt Zilara Cancun has a number of great restaurants. Most are casual, but one is more formal.

Pelicanos

Pelicanos is the Hyatt Zilara Cancun’s kind’ve “beachy restaurant”, it has a pool bar, as well as a regular dining area, that is open air, and with a wonderful view of the pool on two sides, and the beach and ocean on the other. The food was a mix of standard western fare, plus some Mexican options. Our favorite was the dessert.

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Spice – Buffet

There was a buffet, which was our primary choice for breakfast. As you would expect, they had made-to-order eggs, a variety of other options, including a fresh juice bar.

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Spice also served dinner. In the evening, we peaked our heads in (since we were busy trying other restaurants), and saw a very nice spread as well.
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And who could pass up the gelato! (did I mention the desserts at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun were quite good?)

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Asiana

Two of our three nights at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, we enjoyed dinner at Asiana.

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It was so good, that despite the wonderful hibachi show, we forgot to take pictures of the actual food.  But here’s the menu. This is a place where you go for the show, and are pleasantly surprised by the food. Trust me, get the Yakimeshi rice, its essentially fried rice, and it is one of the best things on the menu–and that is not to say the proteins aren’t great too!

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Chef’s Plate

Our friend Jeanne mentioned that we absolutely had to try the Chef’s Plate. It did not disappoint.

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It’s a private room, essentially with about a dozen or so chairs, and a view of the kitchen. The thing that spoke to me most about this, was that while they had a fixed menu each night, they were able to modify it, if you had particular allergies or things you wanted to avoid.

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We had opted for Monday, primarily because of the Short Angus Beef.

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What follows is each particular dish. Of particular note, for the first dish though, are the three blue dots, those imply that the dish is “special”, as I had requested mine to be served without the crab and tuna–I don’t enjoy seafood as much.

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The Foie Gras Capuccino was much better than it sounds. The bacon really came off strong, but it really made it to be quite the conversation piece.

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Next there was a palate cleanser, they called it Soursop and Gin Raviolis, which confused us, but we just went with it.

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Next was the Rockefeller Shrimp.

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And the distant cousin, Rockefeller Chicken.

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And then the Short Ribs, which were great, although we were all starting to get a bit full at this point.

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We finished off with a martini and coconut cream banana, and truffle.

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Wrapping Up

All of the dining establishments at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun were wonderful. The Chef’s Plate rose above the rest, but, I suspect that is by design. Even if the entire menu is not to your liking–because, perhaps, an aversion to seafood–they can tailor it a bit. You also get a wonderful opportunity to socialize with other guests. I’d caveat that the Chef’s Plate requires pants and a collared shirt for men. I think all the other restaurants had a much more relaxed dress code.

In entirety, we enjoyed our stay at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, there were some things that threw me for a loop, like the evening shows, but really, it is an awesome hotel, and I would highly recommend it to folks that are just dipping their toes into the idea of an all inclusive. I’m sure I didn’t consume enough to justify the rack room rate, but, considering I burned the equivalent points as a night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, I felt like we got a pretty good value.

Filed Under: Hotels, Travel Tagged With: All Inclusive, Hyatt, Hyatt Zilara Cancun

Hyatt Zilara Cancun: Arrival Experience and Room

September 6, 2016 By Trevor 16 Comments

Hyatt Zilara Cancun, Mexico for a long weekend

Part One: Hyatt Zilara Arrival Experience and Room
Part Two: Hotel Amenities
Part Three: Restaurants and Chef’s Table

Hyatt Zilara Hotel Transfer

Arriving into Cancun, I was struck by how new the airport looked and smelled. The one thing that kept ringing the bell in the back of my mind though, was the fact that the hotel hadn’t given us any details about where to find the driver. There were a ton of folks that wanted to help and give us a ride to the hotel (for a fee, of course). We looked around for a while, but saw no signage at all. Finally, I agreed to pay $20 per person for the drive to the hotel. Ironically, right as we were leaving–mind you this was about 20-30 minutes after we landed–we saw a Hyatt Zilara SUV driving into the airport grounds. Our choice had been made at that point.

Cancun, Air Margaritaville

Luckily, there is an Air Margaritaville, if you want to grab a beverage to consider your airport transfer options.

The drive to the hotel took about 20 minutes.

Hyatt Zilara Cancun Arrival Experience

We were welcomed from the moment the car drove up.  Everyone was very helpful and offered to store our bags if the room wasn’t ready. As we only had our carry-on we decided to keep our bags and find out for ourselves if the room was ready.

The Arrivals lounge for Hyatt Diamonds was closed so they had us check in at the normal check-in desks.

HYATT Zilar check in

Gina, who checked us in (and out) was very helpful.  She made sure that we had our dinner reservations and knew where everything was located.

Cancun Arrival Drink at the Hyatt Zilara

Arrival Mimosa at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun

Hyatt Zilara Cancun Room

They upgraded us to a (insert name of room) room.  It was more then enough room for the couple nights.

The tub took up quite a bit of room though.

Hyatt Zilara Tub

The bed was comfortable.

Hyatt Zilara bed

The bathroom had a shower with a view and a sink. In the room, as well as a another outside of the conventional bathroom area.

Hyatt Zilara Sink 1

Hyatt Zilara Sink 2

There was the closet, that included a safe, however, nothing special there.

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And since it was an all inclusive the mini bar fridge was fully stocked.  Though they need to upgrade the snacks.

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While the full liquor bottles were a nice touch, I think I might have liked a bit higher shelf — I tend to drink Appleton’s rum, for example.

There was also a nespresso, however we could never find any of the pods.

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Pro Tip: Do make sure you call for turn down.  We forgot one night and missed out.

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Conclusion – Hyatt Zilara Cancun Room

Overall, we felt the room was fantastic. The view was nice, the bed was comfortable. The pillows were good, and further bolstered by the fact that they provide additional pillows based on your desire (e.g. firm, soft, relaxing, etc.) at check-in.

Filed Under: Hotels, Travel Tagged With: Cancun, Hyatt, Hyatt Zilara Cancun

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