Blog Post

[three_fourth]

We (2 adults and 2 teens) visited Jamaica over Spring Break. This was our first visit so we had no idea what to expect.

Our impressions

• Jamaicans, for the most part, are very friendly people. They are very laid back and operate on island time, so forget about doing anything in a hurry. Getting our car from Budget Car Rental took about 45 minutes after we landed – and it took close to 30 minutes to return it a week later!
• While on the beach or walking around the tourist areas, vendors will approach you but they were never pushy with us, so we didn’t mind at all. One of the things you will be offered frequently is weed.
• The driving is rather crazy. We decided that on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the worst in the world), Jamaica probably ranks round a 6. Horn honking is very popular. You do it to warn others about what you are going to do, to thank others and to tell someone you are annoyed. Or at least that is what we decided some of the uses were!

Where we stayed

As we were only going for 6 days we elected to stay in Montego Bay as we could fly in there and not have to travel further to our final destination.

We found a 3 bedroom apartment with access to a pool on Booking.com for $800 . It was less than 10 minutes drive from the beach and generally in a convenient location. If you are looking for budget accommodation this is the way to go. It also allows you to stay where the locals live and get a more authentic experience of Jamaica.

However, Jamaica – or at least the parts we saw – is geared to tourists who are staying in the large resorts. Most resorts include all meals and have their own beaches and offer many activities. This made it more challenging than we expected to find restaurants and affordable options for water-sports.

Where we ate

Most of the restaurants offer wifi. The ones near the beach areas are used to coping with lots of people and service is reasonable fast. However, the ones we went to in the suburban areas made your food to order, so expect a long wait. These are all the places we went to – you will notice some are US fast food chains. We really did struggle to find affordable lunch options so don’t judge us!

Note 1: if you look at Google maps you will see restaurants that are no longer around. Twice we drove around looking for a place that must have closed down or moved.

Note 2:: if you look at online menus before you visit a restaurant, take that as a very very general idea of what might be on the current menu. We discovered most of the online menus are years our-of-date.

• Wendy’s
• Pizza Hut (twice) – close to where were staying i.e. convenient
• Scotchies (twice) – authentic local cuisine. Great prices and ambiance. Read full review here
• Cafe Blue – both the food and the coffee was great. This is a good place for a lunch.
• Facebaar – pictures of famous people adorn the walls. The food is pretty good but took a while as it is made to order. I know the place says it is a bar and nightclub, but at lunch time we didn’t see any of that.
• Memorabilia Bar and Grill – see full review on TripAdvisor. Would not go back!
• Sandbar Grill on Doctor’s Cave beach – very convenient if you are spending the day at the beach. Nothing amazing but prices are reasonable and the food wasn’t terrible.
• Bigg’s BBQ Restaurant – on the Hip Strip near the Doctor’s Cave beach. Sit outside and watch the ocean. The food was nothing special buut not bad either.
• Coffee n Creme Cafe– we enjoyed their food for lunch and also their coffee
• Cosmo’s Seafood Restaurant (this was in Negril) – the location is great, literally right on the sand. We ate and then spent the afternoon on the beach and grabbed some drinks before driving back to Montego Bay.

What we did

The day we arrived it was raining heavily and we were all tired so all we did was find lunch and later supper. One other day we also had rain all day and so spend the day in the apartment playing cards and doing some work.

Twice we spent the day at Doctor’s Cave beach. From what we read online we had expected it to be very crowded, but it wasn’t that bad. The beach has quite a few shady trees which I really appreciated. I am not a beach person, but I really didn’t mind spending a few hours here while the teens enjoyed the water.

One day we drove to Seven Mile beach in Negril. The drive allowed us to see more of Jamaican life as you go through a number of small towns. It took us about 1 1/2 hours. There are some public access points but as I had read that they aren’t easy to find we opted for going to Cosmo’s Restaurant to eat first and then paid to use their beach (400 Jamaican $ each).

On our final day, the sea was calm enough and clear enough for us to go snorkeling. I had been emailing Netty from Kelly Watersports since we arrived in Jamaica and she was keeping us informed about the conditions. I thoroughly recommend using them for water sports (they offer a lot more than just snorkeling). They operate out of a resort (Sunscape) but you just tell the security at the gate you are going to Kelly’s and they call them to escort you in. Netty is extremely nice, the prices are the best I found and their boats and equipment are in great condition. The boat captain who took us out was a lot of fun and he snorkeled with us. I would definitely recommend you use them.