đHgeocities.com/jwalton99/jam2005.htmlgeocities.com/jwalton99/jam2005.htmldelayedx¤\ŐJ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ȰԓőĘOKtext/html€ŘĘśőĘ˙˙˙˙b‰.HSun, 13 Aug 2006 20:53:18 GMT’Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98)en, *¤\ŐJőĘ Jamacia Trip, Christmas, 2005

Jamaica Trip, Christmas, 2005

 

We took a trip to Jamaica right before Christmas of 2005 for five days in a five star all-inclusive resort (the Hotel Riu Ocho Rios) on the north side of Jamaica. Jon, Teresa, Gabe and Natasha, (Gabe’s girlfriend), went on the trip.

 

The plane left VERY early on Monday morning, so everybody got together at one of the airport hotels on Sunday night (cheaper to stay overnight and leave your car there than to park at the airport) to catch the plane Monday morning.

 

We flew into Montego Bay on the North West part of the island and stayed near Ocho Rios which is on the North East side (we didn’t get to the south of the island). At the airport, we joined a group of people from our flight, were loaded into a bus heading east, and followed the north shore of the island.

 

Jamaica is about the size of Connecticut, and is 145 miles long (east to west) and between 20 and 50 miles wide (north to south). The spine of the island is dominated by mountains. Some of these are *tall* (Blue Mountain, the tallest, is 7,402 feet. By comparison, Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the US east of the Mississippi river is only 6,684 feet tall).

 

Jamaica was originally discovered by Columbus in 1494 and became a Spanish colony. It was captured by the British in 1655 and has been part of the British Empire (or Commonwealth) since that time. This means that the official language is English which is easier for the American tourists.

 

Jamaica’s southern side was also the site of the infamous Port Royal, once known as “the wickedest town on Earth”. It was a haven and a base for both privateers and pirates. On the morning of June 7th, 1692, a massive earthquake hit Jamaica and destroyed the town. It was never rebuilt. We later found that the earthquake had other implications for Jamaica than just the destruction of Port Royal.

 

The north side of Jamaica is very nice, particularly since the mountains help protect it from hurricanes. Due to the prevailing winds in the area, any hurricanes that will hit Jamaica (such as Hurricane Ivan) tend to move South to North. Climbing over the mountains robs the hurricanes of some of their strength, so the north shore is generally not hit as hard.

 

A recent hurricane actually had some impact on our trip: this hotel opened early because of Hurricane Willm. When Hurricane Wilma ‘sat’ on Cancun for three days, it did a lot of damage to the various resort areas. Hotel Riu is a German hotel chain and they have several resort hotels in the Mayan Rivera (Cancun and south) area. Those hotels were damaged by the hurricane, so Hotel Riu diverted planned trips to those hotels to other Caribbean locations. Our hotel was actually supposed to open January 1 of 2006, but the chain opened it early. Several people we spoke with had been planning on going to the Mayan Rivera but had accepted a switch to Jamaica after the damage.

 

This meant that there was still some finish up work being done (for example, some painting – done with the painters holding on to rope ladders!) around the hotel, but the hotel was *very* nice (see the pictures).

 

The hotel had a number of the functional areas clustered around the lobby with three wings of rooms spread out: one to the west, surrounding a pool, two to the east with another pool and then several ‘entertainment areas’, such as the spa/health club and water sports area.

 

 

 

Both the West and the East wings had a buffet/steak house restaurant (virtually the same on either side). In the center was the main buffet, the Asian restaurant, the gourmet restaurant and the Japanese restaurant. We were in the East wing, overlooking the pool and (at an angle) the beach, on the fourth of five floors. The room was very nice; the views from the balcony and the outside hall leading to the room were amazing!

 

 

 

At most all-inclusive resorts, ‘restaurant choice’ can be a big deal; this trip was no different. Usually an all-inclusive resort will have a buffet breakfast available, frequently either (or usually both) a buffet lunch or ‘grill food’ (hamburgers, etc.) and then usually the main buffet and other restaurants for dinner. I’ve encountered variations on this (in the Dominican Republic, there were ethic buffets available for lunch that were very good), but that seems to be a general baseline to expect at a good all-inclusive.

 

Frequently, guests will be limited to the number of “non buffet” dinners they can go to; for example, if you only stay three days, you may be limited to one non-buffet dinner. If you stay four days, that may be two non-buffet dinners.

 

The buffets I have been to are *excellent*. However, they are *buffets*. The other restaurants usually feature waiters and menus and are just more of a ‘dining experience’ (good for ‘dates’ on your vacation, for example). Determining where you will eat your dinners and what days is frequently a ‘major’ (and fun) decision of staying in an all inclusive. The buffet is nice, but the nice restaurants can be one of the high points of your trip.

 

Frequently, dining decisions are made soon after you get to the hotel; all reservations are usually made at one place (frequently guest services) and (most of the time) for your entire stay (unless you are trying to catch a cancellation). For example, after arriving, check in, put your bags in your room, then go down to guest services and make your reservations for next night at 7:00 at the Italian restaurant and three nights later at 5:30 for the Mexican restaurant.

 

This Hotel Riu was trying something different. There was no limitation on “how many” restaurant reservations you could make, but you had to make your reservation *that day*, at the specific restaurant. Starting at 9 AM every day…

 

The Hotel Riu has the twin steak houses, the Asian restaurant, the Japanese restaurant and a (apparently) REALLY good gourmet restaurant. The gourmet restaurant is difficult to get reservations for: it can only seat 64 people per night (in two specific seatings) and there are at least a thousand people staying at the hotel. Competition for those 64 spots was fierce!

 

Jon usually gets up ‘early’ (around 6 AM) and will wander down to the breakfast buffet. He’ll then usually settle in somewhere with a book for an hour or two, then head back to the room and see if Teresa is up. Once she’s up, the two of them will usually head back to the buffet: Teresa for her breakfast, Jon for “second breakfast” (more of a snack and pleasant company).

 

After that, the activities of the day begin. However, on this trip, one of the big activities was to try to get into the gourmet restaurant (which we never managed). The closest we came was Jon settling in an hour and 15 minutes before the reservations opened: the guy directly in front of him in line was the last person to get a reservation.

 

However, the Asian restaurant was good and the steak houses were *excellent* (and the steak houses never had a line for reservations!).

 

Monday was a day of quiet and rest, eating in the buffet and walking along the beach. Gabe was introduced to the aggressive Jamaican beach vendors. The ocean is public, but apparently, the hotels have some form of license/deed for the beach (and security guards to enforce it). This meant that ‘anybody’ could be in the water, but only hotel guests and staff could be ‘on the sand’.

 

So, there were usually four or five Jamaicans, standing up to their knees in the water with a variety of trinkets and souvenirs for sale on their arms.

 

Gabe got Tasha a pretty necklace and was introduced to the ‘street vendor haggle’ process (he did well).

 

Tuesday was the Ocho Rios Highlights tour. Ocho Rios is Spanish for “Eight Rivers”. Since Jamaica was originally a Spanish colony until the English captured it, a lot of the place names/geographic features are Spanish, rather than English.

 

There are eight different rivers that flow to the ocean in the area of this town, which explains the name. One of them, Dunns River, has produced an internationally known tourist destination, Dunns River Falls. This is one of the advertised ‘not to be missed’ experiences in Jamaica. The Dunns River drops its last 600 feet of altitude in 1000 feet, over a series of rock cascades. The bottom of the rock cascade ends on the beach, about 30 feet from the ocean and in sight of Ian Fleming’s (the author of the “James Bond” series) vacation house.

 

The objective is to climb up Dunns River falls from the beach to the top of the cascades, against the water.

 

It is a lot of fun.

 

Monday, we looked into the various options. Dunns River Falls is part of one of Jamaica’s national parks, and there is an entrance fee. We could have taken an excursion ‘just’ to the falls, but it worked out to be much more cost effective to take the Ocho Rios Highlights tour, which concludes with climbing Dunns River Falls.

 

Excursions are a significant part of the tourism industry in the Caribbean and are a valuable addition to your vacation. The tour operators work tightly with the various hotels to set these up. If using a package tour (usually the best bet for an all-inclusive), contact your tour agent to set up the reservations. Tour agents will usually be somewhere around the hotel, every day (during the day) and are a very valuable resource. For one thing, they ‘control’ your flight back home (or at least making sure that you meet the bus that takes you back to the airport and that your flight is scheduled). As well, they have a lot of knowledge about the various activities in the area and are there to help you have a good time; they can help you match up what is available with what you enjoy doing. We scheduled all four of us for the Ocho Rio tour on Tuesday; shortly after breakfast, we boarded the excursion bus for the tour. There is usually a guide on the tours. A large part of the guide’s (and driver’s) livelihood comes from tips, so keep that in mind when you prepare for your trip.

 

At the beginning of the tour, we found that Jamaica’s three main industries are bauxite (aluminum is made from it), tourism and agriculture. On the road to Ocho Rio, we went by a large bauxite processing plant, the dock that the cruise ships land at and a large number of agriculture stalls.

 

One tip: try to schedule any excursions you take on days when the cruise ships are NOT in. A cruise ship will pull up, dump two to four thousand people at the dock who all want to see something in the eight hours they have before the ship leaves. Excursions are usually much more crowded on days when the ships are in.

 

Our first stop was a ‘craft fair’ (what we in America would call a flea market). This one was a collection of wooden buildings, separated into various stalls, climbing up the side of a fairly steep hill. The bus parked at the bottom of the hill and most of the passengers worked their way up the hill.

 

Teresa and Jon went almost directly to the top to work back down to the bus. At the top of the hill, we found a grassy area that was also being used for selling (people that don’t have a stall set up there). Teresa found two exquisite hand woven baskets for a really good price (after a certain amount of haggling) and bought them.

 

The sellers at this craft fair were fairly assertive. They were *not* aggressive or annoying, but they *really* wanted you to come in and look at their shop and they, very politely but firmly, made completely sure that you *knew* they wanted you to come in.

 

They were very nice people, we enjoyed that stop.

 

 

When traveling internationally, an ATM is your best friend. Avoid carrying lots of cash and an ATM will automatically convert your currency into the local currency and *without* the charge that a currency exchange imposes. I’ve had no trouble using a debit card throughout the Caribbean or in Europe and have gotten everything from pesos to Zlote (Polish currency) from them. Jamaica, because of it’s positioning, will accept and give American dollars.

 

Our next stop was “Fern Gulley”. This is a steep sided gulley, up the mountainside from Ocho Rios that is home to 500 different varieties of ferns. The gulley area is considered a rain forest and it was formed with the earthquake that sunk Port Royal shook Jamaica and changed the course of several rivers. The river that used to run through this gorge shifted and Fern Gulley was born.

 

It was a very beautiful place (see the pictures).

 

 

 

Next, the tour stopped a garden area. I don’t remember the name (it was based on the language of the original inhabitants of Jamaica, who were extinct a long time ago – it was ‘heaven’ in their language, and deserved the name). It was a lovely, lovely place with a really nice waterfall/cascade. We had a superb guide on this walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the garden was a pottery factory (Jamaican artisans produce pottery there from lumps of clay to finished products) and took the tour.

 

Then we stopped at another shopping area, in downtown Ocho Rios (gated area) that we used to locate an ATM and eat. This excursion took most of the day and did not include ‘a stop for lunch’ (this is unusual: many excursions that run through a meal time will provide the meal). This shopping area was more big ticket items like jewelry (some good prices, some not as good). Nothing particularly struck our fancy here.

 

Then it was on to Dunns River Falls. The excursion included the admission and the tour guide warned us that the sellers in the craft fair inside the park were aggressive (note the different term from our earlier craft fair visit – it is intentional).

 

A longish line of people snaked down the hill to the beach. Along the way, each group gets two park guides (one to lead the way, one to follow). The guides request that everybody in the tour links hands and then begin to climb the cascades. At times, you are very happy to have the linked hands, since they can be a helping hand up some pretty steep stretches (as I said, the river falls 600 feet in a run of 1,000 feet).

 

They can also be an anchor, as we found along the way (some people on the tour just didn’t seem to understand). There are also various take out points along the way (the climb is pretty strenuous, sometimes in running water up to your waist and frequently have water coming over a ledge above you and falling on your head – it was a LOT of exercise).

 

 

 

When the climb finished, we walked toward the exit. Not surprisingly, the ‘easiest’ way to exit is through the craft fair. Teresa had already scouted the craft fair and warned us about it. She wasn’t kidding… these vendors went over into the “pushy and annoying” level that we had managed to avoid to this point.

 

Teresa tried one special trick one the trip through the craft fair. The Tallahassee apartment complex we were in were still being constructed, a lot of the construction crew was Spanish and, if they didn’t want to do something you requested, they would give you a blank look and say “No English”.

 

So, Teresa tried that with one of the more pushy vendors. She looked at him, shook her head and said “No English” and kept walking. He said “Hey, lady, you dropped something.”

 

We kept walking.

 

“Lady, hey, you dropped something back here.”

 

Teresa finally turned around to look.

 

“No English, eh?” was his smiling comment.

 

That finished up the Ocho Rios Highlights tour.

 

<grin> And now a few words on some of the joys of staying at an all-inclusive resort, and the interesting things that happen. At an all-inclusive, both your food and liquor is covered in the price. This means that there are bars open most of the time where you walk up and order a drink.

 

Gabe and Tasha are both college students, they are both fairly careful with their money and neither of them drink a lot. So, they have not had a lot of experience with ‘exotic’ drinks, partially because the exotic drinks tend to be expensive (and they both work hard for their cash) and they did not know if they would like the exotic drinks.

 

So <wide smile>, they were taking the opportunity afforded at the resort to experiment and try the various exotic drinks. Tasha would usually order (I believe they just went through the drink list from the beginning) and Gabe would finish off anything that Tasha didn’t like.

 

Jon found out about this about noon on Wednesday (at the buffet lunch), when Tasha mentioned that she hadn’t liked many of the drinks last night, so Gabe had finished them for her.

 

This was *after* it was reported that Gabe was not feeling well on Wednesday morning and didn’t come down to breakfast. It was right around the time that Gabe didn’t come down to lunch and Teresa’s maternal instincts kicked into high gear (she was looking for a fever thermometer).

 

Gabe felt better later in the day and he and Tasha apparently kept experimenting, but not quite as heavily.

 

Wednesday afternoon was spent snorkeling off the beach, shell hunting and generally ‘being on vacation’. Dinner that night was at the Asian restaurant.

 

Thursday turned out to be the high point of the trip. Air Jamaica had given us some coupons for one of the excursion companies (there are a fair number of them at most of the resort areas, and different tour companies tend to partner with different excursion companies). This particular ticket was for 50% off a tubing trip on the White River (one of the eight rivers that flow into Ocho Rios). Teresa, Jon and Gabe had really enjoyed tubing the times they have done it, so the family decided that this was the excursion to try.

 

It was spectacular. http://www.wrvja.com/index.html

 

This particular company uses zebra stripped Land Rovers as their transportation. So, our black and white Land Rover pulled up to the resort not long after lunch, the four of us got in and off we went. We stopped at another hotel to pick up another group (they were going to kayak the same river) and headed up into the hills.

 

Our guide was excellent: he’s actually guided Mick Jagger (who has a vacation home in Jamaica). Our guide drove well, kept us entertained (and not too scared – we spent a lot of time on a “one lane, two way” road). This road ran up into the mountains and the jungle (parts of the area would be considered rain forest, all of it could be considered jungle). It was amazingly green, very beautiful scenery.

 

In the center of the White valley is an area that is called “Island of the Sun”… effectively, it is a tourist base for the various adventures that stage there. There is a wide meadow with bamboo growing, a pond, a gazebo, some creeks run through and into the river, there are restrooms, a bar/snack room and small souvenir shop. This is where the tour completes (and sell you photos <grin>). It was a very nice area (as we found at the end of the trip).

 

 

 

We drove about another couple of miles up the valley to the put in for the tubing. Jon was very impressed: the facilities were clean, the tubes had ‘seats’, and there was one guide per four people tubing (in our case, there were *only* four people tubing, but 1 guide to 4 customers is their usual ratio).

 

The White river is called that because it is mineral water (it flows over limestone) and was *incredibly* clear. The White River valley was beautiful, the tubing trip was beautiful, the guide was good… it was one of the best excursions I’ve been on.

 

About half way down the section of river we tubed, the tour took a break where we pulled out, walked around a little, ate a sample of jerked chicken (SPICY! but good) and rested for a moment. There was huge bamboo in the area, probably eight inches thick and forty feet high: per our guide, it was probably about three years old.

 

Then it was back into the river to continue floating down to the Islands of the Sun. As we floated, a photographer worked his way along the shore (at specific points), taking digital pictures. He did an excellent job, we bought a CD with the pictures on them (see below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we dried off, the kayakers made it back and everybody loaded up, the driver took us back to the hotel. It was a wonderful day.

 

The next day, Friday, was our last day. We took the bus, made it back to the airport and flew back into Atlanta.

 

We will definitely go back to Jamaica for a vacation. We do plan to try to go a bit further East on our next trip (into the Negril area). Apparently the east end of the island is more mountainous, it is in the Negril area where the “cliff diving bars” are and some more incredible scenery.