The Fashionable Frequent Flyers

Happy New Year, travel family! I hope you had an amazing NYE wherever in the world you are. As we kick off 2023, the fashionable frequent flyers are debuting a new feature on our blog: hotel ratings. We’ve been lucky enough to stay at some amazing places around the world and we want to share with y’all our unadulterated views of the different things that made a particular stay special (or not so special). We are deploying a 1-5 star rating system, and focusing on various things about a particular accommodation that we feel strongly enough that it should factor into the rating. The considerations may change depending on the country and the hotel, but we will try and focus on things we think make a stay at a particular place attractive. Without further ado, I will start us off with our rating for Excellence Oyster Bay in Falmouth, Jamaica.

Why does Excellence Oyster Bay get 4.5/5 stars? I’m going to highlight four things that made the experience at this hotel one to remember forever:

1. Aesthetics

I’ve stayed in many beautiful places around the world, and Excellence Oyster Bay is undoubtedly of the top 5 most beautiful hotels I’ve ever stayed at. It’s breathtaking from the massive and incredibly spacious lobby to the many beautiful pools and the architecture of the rooms and property as a whole. The restaurants are all stylish and the color scheme works to perfection. There is something about being in a beautiful hotel that just enhances the experience tenfold. Check out some drone footage here!

2. The Food

Excellence Oyster Bay is an all-inclusive hotel. Usually, when you think “all-inclusive,” you think of substandard food. To my amazement, the food at Excellence was actually pretty good, and most importantly, the portions were very reasonable. With all-inclusive, there’s always the concern that you’ll overindulge and be bloated the entire trip. At excellence, this turned out not to be much of an issue. Having said that, there’s one restaurant on the property I would NOT recommend and that’s “Spice.” The food wasn’t particularly good.

3. Entertainment

If you’re looking for a relaxing vacation, this is your spot! If you’re looking for a party-esque vacation, this is your spot! The resort offers a variety of entertainment options, including some very cool night options like band performances and tributes e.g. to Bob Marley. They also have an after-hours DJ playing music until after 1 AM. So if you’re not looking to step out of the resort, you basically have everything covered. There are plenty of bars, including a swim-up bar, and the cocktails are STRONG!! I was very much looking for a relaxing vacation (see pics below) and so I stayed by the quiet pools and lounged on the beach at the Excellence Club. The no-kids element was huge in getting my relaxation.

4. Room Variety and Opulence

Excellence Oyster Bay is a pretty large property. Several large hotels tend to have a very small selection of rooms but offer a large number of the same type of room–usually, the standard King or double bed. Excellence had sooooo many different types of rooms, including an added variety for folks who pay to be part of the Excellence Club. Our room was a junior suite with a private pool in the Excellence Club. There are at least four other varieties of suites, including a garden view, oceanfront, and a higher level with a terrace and pool. There are beach villas, some with a private pool and others which are not. Literally, whatever experience you want to have (and are willing to pay for), you can have.

Highly recommend Excellence Oyster Bay for your next (or first) Jamaica Getaway!