Jamaica - Part I

Yah Man...

Me and a girlfriend, Manda, took the direct flight from Regina to Montego Bay, we left Regina at midnight and arrived at our resort, Sunset Beach Resort at 7 a.m.  It was perfect!

Our tasks to complete during our 8 nights/7 days in Montego Bay:

• Explore the entire resort
• Try all the a la cartes
• Work on our tans
• Float around the lazy river daily
• Test out the waterslides
• Taste Jamaican beer, Red Stripe
• Snorkel in the Caribbean Sea
• Learn to kayak
• Swim up to the swim up bar
• Sample new foods
• Take a ride on the catamaran
• Do an excursion
• Relax in the spa
• Sample at least 10 different fruity drinks
• Learn a new saying
• Try our luck in the casino
• Visit MargaritaVille
• Read lots of books
• Boost self esteem

The resort was quite large with 430 rooms, a long shimmering beach, a nude beach, 3 rock piers, a pirate’s paradise waterpark with waterslides, water falls, a lazy river, pools and a jacuzzi, and tropical gardens.  There was free snorkeling, kayaking, paddle boating, tennis, beach volleyball, 3 large pools (2 with swim-up bars).  A disco club, casino, pool bars, beach bar, 3 a la carte restaurants along with the buffet restaurant and the beach grill.

The staff at the resort were superb - courteous, always full of great compliments with a splash of flirtation and very helpful.  I don’t believe anyone could ever get tired of being called beautiful or continually being complimented daily, which is how all the Jamaican’s were - it sure does boost ones ego!

We definitely lucked out and had the most perfect sunny hot weather in the low 30’s all week with only a few minutes of misty showers 2 days, which was actually quite refreshing.

Within an hour of being checked into our room we were already smoldering hot so we thought what better way to cool down than taken a ride on the wild waterslide... well it was wild alright I lost not only our room key but also our towel key.  I pleaded with the front desk for new ones and they gave me one and only warning not to get our cards wet or lost them again, but they did say it happens quite regularly which made me feel a tad bit better.

On our first day we were overly excited about lounging and working on our tans we (and when I say we I mean I) forgot (or refused) to put sunscreen on regularly and by 3 in the afternoon our base tans had given us awful tan lines and actually may have made us look a bit too much like lobsters.  So we learned our lesson quick and pulled out the 45 SPF sunscreen and did hourly lotion downs for the next couple of days until the red areas turned more into brown and our lines started to blend then we took it down a notch to 15 SPF hourly.

Richie's Special

The first breakfast I fell in love with the Jamaican bacon - bizarre I know, but it was so delicious and I ate a heap of it every day for breaky.  This day we were introduced by fellow travelers to an amazing drink known only as ‘The Richie’s Special’ it was secret recipe of Richie (the swim-up bar bartender) - it was strawberry-banana flavor, smooth and creamy and went down like a milkshake every time.  We became hooked on this drink as our daily fruit intake (as there was 1 banana in each drink *wink wink*).  It was a shame one day when we found out it was Richie’s day off (down in Jamaica they only get 1 day off per week), but he was back the next day and everyone was happy once again.

A little ‘birdy’ (I won’t name her/his name) had told me prior to leaving on this trip that not only were there no bugs in Jamaica the last time they were there, but there were also no birds.  Well... first day there and not only were there a few bugs (very unnoticeable, but still noticeable) and birds, but there were also a hell of a lot of stray cats everywhere.  I didn’t see many bugs, but when I walked up to the beach grill that day there had been one bird perched on the back of each chair at the grill, I would say there had to be over 50 chairs there, yah man.

The scenery and views from everywhere at the resort was immaculate!  The swim-up bars were great, especially while lounging around in the pool on a tube and one could just float right up to the bar and grab a drink and keep on relaxin’ - now that’s service.  Although I would like to suggest to any resort that does have a swim-up bar that at the swim-up bar there should be a sign that reads ‘While sitting here enjoying your drinks please keep in mind that though your lower half is nice and kewl your upper half is being baked to a crisp and you will probably be able to fry some eggs on it later!’ - this is from experience.

One day we ventured off and attempted to do some shopping on the Hip Strip, prices are very much like they are here if not more expensive and each store has basically the same touristy stuff so it wasn’t much fun, but did get a couple of little knick knacks.

I would have to say the most strenuous part of the week was trying to decide which excursion we wanted to do and which day to do it.  We debated between going to Negril and walking the 7 mile beach, driving dunn buggies or ATVing - well the dunn buggies were broken so that narrowed it down for us, then after careful consideration we thought walking 7 miles all day in the smoldering heat seemed a bit like work and we were on vacation and so opted for the ATVing up one of the Jamaican mountains.  It was an exciting ATV adventure up a very steep and rocky mountain a.k.a. a very large hill and once at the top it was a spectacular view.  The top was some farmers land with lots of different kinds of fruit tress, we got to sample 2 different kinds of fresh oranges right off the trees.