Let me start with a confession. I’m a bit obsessed with the Secrets Resorts. It started with our first trip to Secrets Wild Orchid for my 50th birthday. It was love at first visit!
It started with the VIP treatment upon arrival,
continued with the beautiful room with the expansive balcony view and soaking tub;
included, the fresh coconut water straight from the freshly cut coconut and the scrumptious jerk chicken from the roaming jerk chicken cart (all part of the all-inclusive, mind you),
not to mention, the different restaurants onsite, the breathtaking views of the warm tranquil waters of the Caribbean Sea,
oh yeah and, let me not forget the FABULOUS spa, worthy of its very own review!
I could go on and on. Needless to say, I instantly fell in love!
When I learned there were other Secrets properties, some in other parts of the Caribbean, I made it my business to explore them all. We’ve been to Secrets in Montego Bay, Dreams in Punta Cana,
and Breathless in Montego Bay.
so, Zoetry, the only Secrets property we hadn’t visited in Montego Bay, was pretty high on my Luxury Caribbean Resorts Bucket List. (Ummm, yeah, I have a Bucket List to visit as many luxury resorts in the Caribbean as possible and share the experiences, so get ready.)
But when?
We usually like to go to a different Caribbean island for our annual Christmas in the Caribbean tradition. However, with the craziness that 2020 brought us, especially all of the racial tension with the mental toll it was taking on us and many African Americans; we didn’t feel much like exploring.
We wanted the comfort of something familiar. We wanted to go somewhere where we could escape from all of the new and ongoing tumult, angst and issues racial inequality issues erupting in the US. We wanted somewhere where we didn’t feel like we had to live our race, EVERY DAY, like we do in the US, especially now. For us, Jamaica is that place.
Once we decided Jamaica, the rest was relatively easy to figure out. For a variety of reasons, we wouldn’t have any children with us on this trip. That gave us a chance to narrow down to adult resorts instead of family resorts.
We wanted someplace that would be less crowded and busy. We wanted someplace with a beautiful beach, wonderful service and was familiar. All roads led to the only Secrets resort in Jamaica we hadn’t explored yet, Zoetry. And what a great choice it was!
Resort size
I first learned about Zoetry on my 2019 birthday trip to Dreams in Punta Cana. I saw it in some of the resort promotional brochures. The description was of an holistic style, zen like atmosphere, with a focus on health and wellness offered in an intimate, smaller resort size environment. The resort size was important to me.
As much as we loved Dreams, the downside to us was the resort is MASSIVE! The good part of that is there are tons of restaurants, amenities, and things to do. The slightly bad part is to get around the resort you typically need to ride one of the plentiful trams.
In contrast to Dreams, Zoetry was the perfect size to us. It didn’t take long to navigate the resort and find our way around.
Check in
Check in was a relatively seamless, though not a contactless process. It was a bit more traditional but relatively fast. One of the things I appreciated was before you did anything there, or pretty much anywhere we went in Jamaica, everything started with hand sanitizer and in some cases a thermometer. Check in here, started with hand sanitizer. I think the process took, about 20 minutes.
The room
This is the unedited version so feel free to join in my sudden outburst of praising God when you hear it. There are moments like that, I absolutely know, no matter how hard my life has been over the past year, I am still blessed and highly favored!
The view from the balcony
Ummm, again, before you watch, let me give you fair warning. I am absolutely SWOONING over the view and the smell of the beach. It was my honest reaction to being in the Caribbean for the first time in a year.
Ok, call me bougie but yes, I try to go somewhere in the Caribbean at least twice a year. Also, I live in Florida and traveling to the Caribbean is relatively easy and affordable. Two additional blessings from God for which I am extremely grateful!
When I saw the chair, I took it as a divine sign from God that I should continue my morning mediation from this chair, like I do from the chair on my pool deck at home.
Hotel Sundries
The hotel provided these prepackaged sundries with a sanitization sticker on it for extra confidence.
Wide, open, uncrowded spaces
As you can see from the pictures there are plenty of wide, open and uncrowded spaces. This made it a perfect place during a time of pandemic.
Zoetry, the baby sister of the properties
Why did I call Zoetry the baby sister of the properties? Well, you know how today’s kids are a little more privileged and tend to need and want their own space to truly express their creative genius? That’s kind of like Zoetry.
Under the Secrets program called Endless Privileges, you can enjoy any of the sister resorts and amenities. Secrets St. James and Secrets Wild Orchid are basically on the same property. Breathless is across the complex. That made movement and cross interactions from one property to the next seamless and easy. However, baby sister Zoetry, has her own place about a 25-minute car ride away.
And like a woke baby sister, Zoetry, only eats organic foods and prefers to engage in higher thinking activities with more of a chill than a party vibe. If Zoetry were at a party with her siblings, she would be the one singing Alessi Cara’s song,
We like little sister Zoetry! That was our vibe. Especially in the era of Covid. While we thought about visiting the other properties, we anticipated they would be busier and louder and it would be at our own costs, so why bother? We didn’t and we didn’t miss a thing because there were so many great things about Zoetry, like the beach.
The beach
I read some of the reviews about the size of the beach. To me, it’s the right size for the size of the resort. In fact, for a small property, the beach front was larger than I expected. Here are some pics.
The very best thing to me is how empty the beach was. I literally had the beach to myself on most days!
There were complimentary water activities like paddle boarding that were available. I also understand there was a daily snorkeling tour. I never participated in it and opted to try my own snorkeling. Even in the snorkeling pic, you can see how empty the beach is.
The food
There are multiple named restaurants on site but truly only 2 main restaurants. Combine that with the resort being at low capacity, typically only one restaurant was open at a time. You could also order room service 24 hours a day. Though I will say, the menu doesn’t change so if you’re there for more than a few days, it gets old, quickly.
The food in the restaurants was delicious and fresh. Every day there was an offering of some type of authentic Jamaican food. Here’s are some pics of the culinary delights we enjoyed during our stay.
A healthy balance
Since there were a variety of healthy and/or vegan options offered at every meal; it made me feel a little better as I counterbalanced the healthy food with unhealthy amounts of alcohol, lol.
Jamaican Coffee, anyone? Speaking of drinks, you may have heard of Jamaican coffee, but in this case, I’m not referring to the famous Blue Mountain coffee.
The Jamaican coffee I’m talking about is the type of a guilty pleasure vacations are made for! This Jamaican coffee not only comes with Blue Mountain coffee but also with a shot of Jamaican Rum.
Thanks to one of the wonderful coffee shop baristas, I was introduced to and fell in love with Jamaican Coffee early in our stay. The combination seemed the perfect way to start a vacation day sure to be filled with a lot of lounging and relaxing. As you may suspect, on days like that, it wasn’t long before that first cup wasn’t enough and inevitably, I’d go back for a second cup.
The caffeine and alcohol “pusherman” cleverly disguised as a laid-back Jamaican barista, often laughed at me when inevitably, I’d come back looking for that second cup. I plead the Fifth on whether or not there were days with more than two Jamaican coffees before noon; and my nice tips should keep that between the barista and me, should there ever be inquiries.
The Spa
To keep this review from getting too much longer, I’ll do a separate review of the spa as it’s kind of a mixed one.
The Gram-worthy ambience
Zoetry is full of ambience and romantic nooks and crannies both indoors and outdoors. Most, if not all, are definitely Gram worthy!
Staying at Zoetry with it’s lush, opulent, peaceful and tranquil setting was an interesting contrast to the simple, rustic, peaceful and tranquil setting of Jackie’s on the Reef I describe in this post.
Both were wonderful, spirit renewing treats on my ongoing journey to reclaim my spirit!
