Review - The Jolly Bee Resort
This is a guest post by Caroline Bunny. Follow her excellent Flickr feed here.
Overview
The Jolly Bee Resort is an exclusive adult only resort on a private sim that opened on the 2nd April 2022.
Flynn and I stayed for two nights just before the Easter Weekend and as we stayed during the week, we had the whole place to ourselves.
The resort is run by Zarah Sterling and her partner, who live on the resort themselves and are available to support you both before and during your stay.
Overall look and feel
All pictures, and rights reserved - Caroline Bunny
The Jolly Bee Resort gives you the feeling as if you’ve landed on a tropical island, with beaches dotted throughout.
The resort itself is made up of several suites, which all have a light and airy feel to them, and hidden spots behind waterfalls where you can relax with your significant other. The whole resort is connected by walkways and each suite has its own privacy, set away from the others.
There are a lot of beautiful parts on the island, such as the zen garden as well as a hidden part behind a waterfall. We did feel though that more could be added to the landscaping, as parts of it, especially the beaches, felt a little empty.
Overall - 3/5
Rooms
There are several different options of where to stay, including the Zen Luxe Retreat Suite, One Bedroom Suites and the Lovers Retreat Suite, which we stayed in.
Check in usually starts at 1pm, but Zarah was kind enough to let us check in early (at around 11am). As it was a self check-in, Zarah sent me the landmark to our room so that we could explore and get settled by ourselves.
Each Suite comes with a security orb, ensuring that no one can trespass while you are there.
The Lovers Retreat Suite feels like a home away from home and they did a great job decorating it according to theme.
You will find a private living room with a large screen TV, allowing you to have a cosy movie night if you want to. Upstairs has an open style bedroom/bathroom situation, and a door leading out to a big balcony. Zarah set up a welcome buffet for us when we arrived and I find small touches like that really help.
While the furniture was very much in keeping, the one downside is that the bed (Swank & Co), while nice looking, comes with a confusing menu.
Personally I am not a fan if furniture is labelled Cuddle1, Cuddle2, etc. However, you are allowed to rez up to 150 prims (which I found extraordinarily generous) during your stay, and you could just as easily rez your own bed and make it transparent during your stay.
The Lovers Retreat Suite costs 2500L per night.
Overall - 3.5 / 5
The facilities
We booked a dinner on our first night, something neither Flynn or I had done before. Zahra was incredibly helpful and prior to arrival had reached out to me in order to individualise the dinner for us.
This included adjusting the menu to our tastes, picking a time when we’d like to have dinner and offering us to have a text experience, voice or a mix of both.
The dining experience itself was a lot of fun. Zarah set up a beautiful private spot for us behind a waterfall, picking us up at our suite and walking us over. Throughout the experience she gave us plenty of time and privacy, allowing us to really get immersed into the experience.
The hotel also offers an all day dining restaurant, which we didn’t use ourselves but it allows you to self serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, something that could be fun to roleplay if you want to wake up and go over to the restaurant.
The resort offers massages and beauty treatments at the waterfall spa, something we did not take advantage of this time, but the spa looked beautiful behind a waterfall with sea turtles just outside of swimming and I am sure it would be a great experience.
There are regular meditation and yoga classes held, although I believe these are most often during the day on a weekend. I am not sure if these are open to non-members as well as the resort itself is usually only accessible when you join the group.
I would have loved to see some more activities as there is definitely room for them, that could have been anything from small games along the beach or horse back riding along the resort.
The dining experience cost 1000L
Overall - 3.5 / 5
The animations
For the most part, all the furniture had great animations. You had a hot tub from Apple Fall, loungers from nutmeg and a tub in the room as well with great animations. The bed itself had decent enough animations but I struggle when they are not labelled descriptive.
One of my favourite parts were the animations we had during dinner. You had several roleplay options on the table, and could rez out additional food, holding hands, dancing and so on. That really added to the experience for me.
Overall - 4 / 5
Other considerations
Something that always stands out to me, whether I go away in real life or in second life, is the service I receive. Zarah could not have been more accommodating during our stay and made sure to go above and beyond for anything we needed.
She was supportive from the get go when messaging her to make the reservation, very helpful when deciding the menu and how we wanted to have our dining experiences and even let us check in early. She was super informative about anything we could do on the island and available for any questions throughout our stay.
I was also impressed by the fact that you could rez up to 150 prims during your stay, whether this was for poses or anything else.
Overall
We had a lovely stay at the Jolly Bee Resort and it is the perfect place to stay if you want to have some R&R. You get a lot of privacy during your stay, especially if you stay during the week when it is quieter. The service is outstanding and Zarah and Brax have done a lovely job.
I can only imagine that since they have only been open since the beginning of April, more things will be added as they go along and I look forward to seeing that.
Recommended
Jolly Bee Facebook Group for more information
Thanks again to Caroline for this excellent review!
