This report is almost a year old, but I thought I would share it anyways. We are about to come back very soon.
I booked our trip to Coco la palm well in advance, I think it was March and we were going to be there in December. That way, I felt like we got a good price and we had something to look forward to throughout the year.
Once we arrived the desk clerk said he had some bad news, and then his telephone rang. I was wondering to myself if we might be getting upgraded, I hear that this frequently happens. That wasn’t the case. It seemed that they didn’t have a room for us. I was really disappointed. We booked this trip many months in advance. I know there was some construction happening, and it was said to have been almost completed. I think they overbooked; planning the new rooms would be open.
We were sent to a nearby hotel across the street the Rayon. We were told to come across and eat and drink at Coco la palm. After two nights, they would have a room for us and we would move over to Coco la palm. At the time, we felt very misplaced and disappointed. The Rayon hotel is very nice, we had already stayed there numerous times and wanted to stay on the beach. We were familiar to the staff at the Rayon hotel and felt like they were wondering why we didn’t book with them. As it turned out, we really enjoyed going back to our familiar place and vowed next time we would come and stay there.
I have been thinking about how to write this review. I’m not trying to put down Coco la palm at all. We had a great time there and understand the construction was happening. It just felt very unfortunate to happen to us.
Well like I said, Rayon hotel feels like going home and it is small and very peaceful. We really enjoyed our short stay and they treated us very well. It did feel slightly uncomfortable, until we spoke with Pansy and promised to come back again. (Soon come)
Now, on to our report: We didn’t plan any big day trips. This was our first Negril vacation without our daughter. She is in university and has always come along with us. We have coming to Negril now for many years. I have been on the Negril message forum for many years also and picked up many great tips. I look for the web casts, places with entertainment, and great food. We don’t make a schedule, but I make a list of restaurants we want to hit and then play it by ear.
Our taxi man was so happy to see us once again. Our first night out, I really wanted to try Chicken Lavish. This was on my list for so many years. We arrived and we were the only diners there that night. We did witness quite a few people coming in and taking out their food. The food portion was very satisfying and the food was great. The price was also very good. Chicken Lavish did not disappoint.
We had a couple of pizzas at Coco la palm. We tried a deluxe and seafood. We certainly didn’t need two pizzas and only ate half. They were just ok in my opinion. We read about happy hour down at Canoe and decided to go there and stay for supper. Maybe we could do a little snorkelling too. Forget the snorkelling; the water was way too rough. The 2 for 1 dirty bananas were delicious. My husband was craving the chili coconut shrimp, and I tried the lion fish and fries. We spent an enjoyable afternoon there.
The next day we did some swimming at the beach. We had lunch at Rayon (yummmmy), some jerk chicken wraps, and they were delicious. Took a nice leisurely stroll on the beach. Used enough bug spray and sun screen that I felt like I gave myself some kind of chemical reaction. Someone going down the beach handed us a pamphlet for Kuyaba, so we decided to try it out. I had grilled lobster and my husband had lobster thermidor and they were both good, but that lobster thermidor won’t get out of my mind. I can’t wait to have it next time. The drinks were pretty good too.
The next day we did the One love pub crawl. We noticed about 5 others at our hotel went along too. My husband said to me earlier in the day that he really didn’t feel like doing the pub crawl, but I wasn’t going to let him back out, since this was basically the only mini trip I had planned. The bus didn’t appear full, but soon we started to laugh as we made our way down the road. We stopped at many great places that we would never have gone to on our own. We had a great time on this trip. The bus was practically rocking with excitement. Wow, I hadn’t had that much fun forever. My husband ate his words, he loved it too. It’s back on my agenda for the next trip for sure. After the crawl, we had a delicious bowl of pumpkin soup back at Coco la palm.
I felt like a commercial we see here at home in Canada. The lady takes a picture of every meal and the husband has already finished eating. It makes me laugh, but I take home some good memories. We ate a few patties on the beach and some fresh orange juice too.
Over to 3 dives, we always love that place. We started going to 3 dives years ago and have to have that chicken and lobster. This time we got a little greedy and decided to have a third plate and get some curry shrimp. Oh my goodness, that was scrumptious. I think we want that again. Enjoyed our evening very much.
I should have mentioned more about Coco la palm. We enjoyed the manager’s party with its various snacks. We ate from the beach bar too and enjoyed the jerk sausage. One evening we tried the special “Jerk Festival” it was so good. It was a beautiful plate all decorated with half slices of tomato and little pieces of green pepper all the way around the plate. The jerk festival was a mild jerk combination of 3 different meats on a bed of egg noodles, excellent. The breakfasts at Coco la palm were very good also; we always had something we liked. The hotel also gave us a certificate to return for 2 nights free. This would be great, but we were unable to use it. They said it needed to be used prior to a certain date and we did not plan to return at that exact time period.
We had a great time, but it was too short. We vowed to return for a few more days next time. So, soon come. We tried not to look at the problems at the beginning and had a wonderful time.
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