Excellence Oyster Bay

Within minutes of arriving at Excellence Oyster Bay, we heard “Welcome home.” By day two, that’s exactly how it felt.

My wife and I came for our babymoon before welcoming our second child. We wanted to slow down, enjoy each other, and spend a few days being taken care of. Excellence delivered. For me, the real measure of a vacation is how quickly I stop mentally managing everything back home. Here, I could finally exhale.

The staff deserve the most credit. Customer service was a genuine 10/10. At meals and around the property, people consistently checked that we were enjoying ourselves and had everything we needed. Everyone was pleasant, helpful, and welcoming. Those small interactions made us feel cared for throughout our stay.

The beaches and pools were a whole vibe. Most days, we grabbed a cabana overlooking the ocean with the pool right behind us. That setup was hard to beat and easily one of our favorite parts of the trip. There was some sargassum during our stay, but the staff worked hard to clear it daily, and we really appreciated that effort.

If you like to train on vacation, the gym is a standout. I worked out four times during our stay and had everything I needed: free weights, cables, cardio equipment, and space for athletic work. It’s modern, spacious, and exceeded my expectations for a resort gym. Even with 10–15 people working out, there was enough room to get a good session in comfortably.

We booked Excellence Club and felt the upgrade added value. I particularly enjoyed the cocktails at the Club bars, where the premium liquor options made a noticeable difference. Dinner at Zenith was another highlight, with an upscale atmosphere, well-seasoned food, and solid portions.

The food overall was good, with some clear favorites. The breakfast omelets at The Kitchen were excellent. And if you’re craving pizza, go to Oregano—it was night and day compared with the pizza we ordered through room service. Room service itself was more of a convenience than a highlight.

One practical area for improvement is housekeeping timing. On some days, our room wasn’t cleaned until after 5:30 or 6 p.m. Earlier, more consistent service would have been appreciated so we could return to a refreshed room before settling in for the evening.

My biggest suggestion, though, is to give guests a deeper taste of Jamaica. I would have loved more Jamaican breakfast options and more pronounced local flavors. The jerk hut was a welcome addition, but I wanted that unmistakable jerk flavor in the chicken itself, without needing to add sauce to get there.

That extends to the pool music, too. I enjoyed the classic reggae, but more contemporary reggae and dancehall mixed in would have brought another layer of energy and personality. Having stayed at Riu, I’ve experienced how much that cultural connection can add to a trip. Excellence has its own atmosphere, which we appreciated, but there’s room to let more of Jamaica shine through.

What I’ll remember most is how easy it became to relax here. An ocean view, a cabana, time with my wife, and staff who made us feel at home—that was exactly what we needed before our family grows. Thank you to the Excellence Oyster Bay team for making our babymoon so special.

We just returned from 6 nights in a villa and wanted to leave our experience. The villa is by far the most beautiful room we have ever stayed in. The private space the pool and the beach were exactly what we needed to unwind and relax. The villa came with butlers. Our main butlers were Omar, Jordan, and Malik. We also were able to interact with Jason and Alex a little bit. All of them were fantastic and really made our stay special. Kimoma Kemar Felisha and Shanice were phenomenal at the zenith bar, always prompt with service and friendly with great conversation. Kiwi was so fun at our private paint and sip and helped us paint a beautiful painting. A true highlight of our trip was our beautiful beach dinner set up my Omar with the help of Jason. It was the perfect ending to our trip and was so fun to end the night chatting with them both. These 2 were made to be in this role, so kind and down to earth my husband and I felt like we were just hanging out with old friends. I can’t forget the amazing Sydia who did housekeeping for us and the wonderful woman who did turndown whose name I’m sad I didn’t catch. They always kept the room spotless and kept us well stocked with all the essentials. We always looked forward to what beautiful surprise would be on our bed when sydia left.

I can’t remember the villa enough to anyone on the fence. The room, privacy, and all the little perks make every part of this room worth it. We will definitely be back

We stayed at EOB August 23-30, travelling with our adult kids in two rooms (Ground floor beach house (BH 1201) and oceanfront club suite (1301). Arrival and check in was easy, and our Seasons driver Danielo was a blast on the way.

We experienced a few maintenance issues through our stay. The pool on our deck wouldn’t fill one day, fixed very quickly. Impressed! The second was the A/C in our room. Leaking all over the bathroom floor and not taking the edge off the August heat. While maintenance came quickly when we called, the issue wasn’t fixed the first time so two nights passed in a very warm room (sleep only possible under a sheet only). In the end, they measured the temp (thermostat reading 19C but room temp at 24C) and overrode the temperature setting so it could be “turned way down” (not sure if this actually does anything turning it down though). This took 3 visits to rectify (2 focused on the leaking and the final for the temp). Annoying and uncomfortable.

Other reviews nail it, rooms are very tired and are showing their age. That said, this didn’t affect our stay. Room cleaning and mini-bar refill services were awesome. We interacted with both and were greeted by super friendly and helpful team members. The housekeeper in particular called maintenance once on our behalf due to the AC issue. We saw her frequently as we were often on the deck when she arrived. Very friendly and did a great job. The bar stocker guy was also awesome, made sure we were stocked with exactly what we wanted and checked in to make sure any special requests were met. TIP- Make sure you tip both these people separately, they will go out of their way for you if you ask and should be rewarded for that! We loved the main floor beach house, pool was a great temp in the August heat to cool off in (way too cold when we visited previously in November). Next time I think we’d book ground floor a private pool room and not a BH. Beach is not far and easily accessible from any room on the club side.

We are club members so took advantage of our Diamond spa service (awesome massages!!) and the included hydrotherapy (also amazing!). The day we were at the spa (August 28) the ladies changing area was unavailable for repairs of some sort. This made the whole spa experience very slow and they seemed understaffed. The poor girl managing the hydrotherapy and intake was by herself and could have used an extra person to help manage the flow of people. That said she was outstanding, we really enjoyed our hydrotherapy, I can’t remember her name but she had beautiful super long hair- Excellence management I hope this gives you enough info to recognize her outstanding service.

Food is good to excellent across the board, with one HUGE caveat pretty consistently. It takes FOREVER. Not uncommon to spend 1.5-2/2.5 hours at a meal. In some cases appetizers come pretty quickly and then meals take 45min to an hour to arrive. Worst were the French, second trip to the steakhouse, Caribbean Grove for lunch, Oregeno for lunch, dinner at Magna. This was a consistent enough issue (Spice was the only exception, super fast, great service and food) that it has affected my overall impression of the resort and whether or not we will return. Once food arrives it’s great but with such small menus everywhere I’m not sure why it takes so long. Food from the beach and pool menu took 1hr45. Like I say, across the board really, we had several meals where we almost left before our food arrived but with limited options and issues everywhere where would you go?!?! Servers are always very apologetic and we really felt bad for them. But wow. Spending 40 hours in 7 days waiting for food is a bit much - cuts into the beach/pool time!

This property also screams for more variety in which restaurants are open night to night; the same are open/closed on alternating days so you only ever have one set of choices. This surprised me at 80% capacity and left us feeling choices were limited. Helpful to have Club privileges or you would be really disappointed with the set of choices at dinner. Buffet breakfast is the way to go but try to hit 9-10am or it’s too busy and selection suffers after about 10:30am, we did not enjoy Magna breakfast (too hot inside and it took SO long). TIP- sandwiches available at the coffee shop are great when you don’t feel like waiting forever at a restaurant or want a late afternoon snack. Jerk Shack also delicious but the pork one day was pure fat, completely inedible.

Beach. Amazing. We have been to all but one of the Excellence/Finest/Beloved properties (this was our 10th stay) and the beach here is in a class well above the rest. Stunning calm waters, super shallow, beautiful soft sand. Chairs at the beach and pool were never an issue (exception Magna pool which we never spent time at because it has virtually no shaded areas). Service at the EC beach area is excellent. There are no floaties anywhere, bring one if this is a thing for you as it is for me! We did a kayak tour one day, really fun. Activities team did an excellent job, we had a ton of fun whenever we participated! X-Lounge area is also great for a more refreshing dip in the pool and the bartender we dealt with up there was outstanding!

Nightlife was decent. We wished the Soloist was inside the Martini bar area because the bugs are so bad in the evening. She was excellent! Karaoke was fun and the theatre shows were well done. Our previous stay had more impromptu evening entertainment so we missed that a bit this time.

Last note in this marathon of a review. Club is worth the upgrade just for the additional two dinner options. We did not use the club bars just because they were far from our room locations and liquor selection in the main areas was not terrible (contrast to all other Excellence properties where we spend a lot of time in the club lounges because of the higher end liquor choice). Hydrotherapy is also a perk worth taking advantage of, very nice!

Staff that stood out (I didn’t write down names this time unfortunately): ⁃ Sheldon at The Grill ⁃ Housekeeping August 23-29 in BH1201 ⁃ Mini bar service August 23-30 in BH1201 ⁃ All the bartenders at the Martini bar! ⁃ Hydrotherapy girl August 28 at 10am

Will we be back? Not sure at this point. The food delays across the board and restaurant choices (lack of) left us more than ready to leave on our last day. We felt we spent FAR too much time waiting on food when we wanted to spend time enjoying other activities. Based on this alone, coupled with what this property costs compared to others (El Carmen being the best overall bang for your buck), I’m not sure we’ll return. The beach is a huge draw and the staff is pretty excellent but the food waiting was unbelievably frustrating and resulted in a ton of wasted time.