Secrets St. James Montego Bay - All Inclusive

Customer ratings & reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

10427 reviews

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  An Awesomes Vacation

  I had such an amazing time at secrets hotel. Big up to all the staff for their lovely services. The property is well clean and kept and very welcoming. The room were very luxurious, cool and clean. I believe this was worth every dollar that i spent. Big up to the chefs , bartenders, waiters for their wonderful customer service and making sure that i felt at home. Secrets is not a Secret because the world needs to know that this one of the best hotels here in Montego Bay Jamaica. :)

  Oct 22, 2025
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  Underwhelming!!

  Well, where do I start? We are literally sitting in MBJ Airport waiting to catch our flight out as I write this review. From the moment we stepped out of the transfer car and onto the Secrets property, the best way I can describe nearly every interaction or experience is…UNDERWHELMED! The entire reception staff seems like they have no idea what is going on and no organization. You get to the resort around 12 noon and check in, but can’t get into your room until 3, so they just tell you to go grab lunch and come back for your room keys. Ok…not a big deal, but annoying. Then we finally get our room keys and head to the room, but we can’t find our room because there are no lights on and no windows at the end of the hall where our room was. We literally had to use our flashlights in our phones to see the room numbers. Then we get in our room and find that it was cleaned, but very minimally. There were food crumbs on the coffee table and in the corners, the toilet bowl tank was nearly falling off, the mini fridge and bar were hardly “fully stocked”, with only a few waters and a few Cokes, and the bathtub was disgustingly filthy. I did go to the front desk and complain (which I rarely ever do), and the manager attempted to make it right by switching our room and upgrading us to Prefferred Club, but we would have to stay in the original room for the night and change rooms the next day. The next afternoon they called to tell me the new room was ready, so we went down to pick up the keys. Since we were traveling with another couple, and we were being upgraded to Prefferred Club…we asked if the other couple could also be upgraded so that we could all enjoy the same amenities and not have to split up. I was informed that it wasn’t possible to upgrade the other couple unless I paid $150 per night for the upgrade. At this point, we just wanted to get on with having fun, so I paid for their upgrade. Come to find out the next morning that our friends have to check out by 12PM, but their upgraded room will not be ready until 5PM. I felt like this could have been handled much better. Being they already had the old room booked for 4 nights…the chances that they already had someone to fill that vacancy already is very slim, and they should have been allowed to stay in the first room until the upgraded room was available. Instead…they were displaced for 5 hours…luckily they were able to stay in our room until then. So, now that the room situations are handled (our upgraded room mini bar still wasn’t fully stocked), we set out to enjoy ourselves finally. Unfortunately, we were never made aware of one of the 2 swim up pool bars were closed for construction….which made the only other pool bar available very crowded & loud. There were guests everywhere blasting their own music from their own speakers so we couldn’t hear any of the reggae from the actual resort. The food was disappointing to say the least. Think microwaved tv dinners on steroids. It was edible, but in no way were we wowed by any of the food…be it from the buffet or any of the sit down restaurants. The exception to this is Barefoot Cafe, Oceana, and room service. Their food was enjoyable. As our stay progressed we started to notice that any of the “higher level staff”, like anyone you needed to make reservations or changes with…it always seemed like you were bothering them to ask for anything. And many of them would be blatantly talking on their cell phones and completely ignore you. Most of the wait staff, pool staff, bellman, maintenance crew, etc were very nice and pleasant. We also noticed signs of and physically saw roaches in both rooms. Now, I know we were in a tropical climate and bugs are unavoidable, but we were grossed out. And lastly, there was ZERO policing of the Preferred Club amenities. Literally anyone can wander into the Preferred areas and no one checked anything. What is the point of paying extra for exclusive areas when just anyone can stroll on in and setup camp? All in all we were very disappointed. We don’t get to travel very often…and this was a splurge for us. I purchased this trip for my wife’s 40th birthday on several recommendations from people that had been here years ago. Well, in talking to some other guests that were there when we were, and had been there previously….it seems the common consensus is that the quality of the resort has taken a dive since Hyatt took over a couple years ago. We may be back to Jamaica, but I can assure you we will not be staying here, or at any Hyatt owned properties.

  Oct 22, 2025
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  Worst all inclusive ever

  The resort was undergoing several construction updates which we didn’t find out about until a couple weeks before the trip. One restaurant was closed for renovations. The resort appeared to be short staffed. The workers tried their best to keep up but it was impossible. The menus at the existing restaurants were nothing compared to other Secrets we have been too. Very limited choices and the wait time for food was nearly an hour. Himitsu was 2 hours. The lobby was also being renovated which left no common area to gather. Except for the piano bar, all other bars closed at 6, so the piano bar wait time for a drink was ridiculous. The Barefoot grill, had a very limited selection of items and it took forever to get waited on. The Jerk Chicken cart tended to stay at the preferred sides of the resort and it took several tries during our stay to actually get some chicken. The main pool for St. James was loud and crowded. Our first day, we had no air conditioning nor did our safe work. My husband spent hours in the room waiting for repairs. We’ve been to 2 other Secrets which were very good but this one was absolutely terrible. The shows were geared more to younger, hip hop style entertainment. The only highlight was the Shanna West, one of the Entertainment people. She tried her best to keep us occupied with games. Will not go to another Secrets

  Oct 21, 2025
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  A nice experience at St. James Montego Bay

  Our experience at St. James was overall above expectations. The accommodations were excellent. We had a swim out preferred and the amenities that came with that were worth the extra money in my opinion. The butler service was a pleasant addition to our stay. Our butlers, Dane and Tajae did an outstanding job of seeing to our needs and desires. Set us up every day on the beach and took care of our dinner reservations every night. The food was only okay. Some restaurants (Portofino and Teppanyaki Tables) were very good. Others, (Bordeaux and Altitude) were substandard. Blue Mountain was pretty good but certainly not great. Beach was beautiful. Pools were great. Service was outstanding. I would certainly go back.

  Oct 20, 2025
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  Consistently high level of service and quality experience.

  Had a great experience despite the renovations happening. Customer service was top notch and the restaurants were wonderful. I will be back for sure and can’t wait to see the upgrades.

  Oct 19, 2025