Post Script November 11-23, 2025

We originally scheduled to be in Negril November 4, just one week after Melissa. American Airlines let us reschedule a week later but there ?no change fee? ended up costing us about $160 each. I figured that there would be a few beach hotels open, and sure enough Coco la Palm had rooms for $154 each. We booked 3 days and were hoping Home Sweet Home would be open for the rest of our stay. We had also booked Michael's On Time Taxi for transportation from the airport. 1-876-887-9342 michaelheath007@gmail.com . As you might guess, he is always on time.
Even though Coco was running on generator, there was no air conditioning for any rooms. We scrambled downtown to the Temu store and bought a pedestal 16? fans for about $25. What a bargain and badly needed. Coco and most other hotels that were open would run the generators 20 hours per day, shutting down between 1 and 5 PM when most people were on the beach. This gave them a chance to refuel and do maintenance. Coco was pretty empty but they had lots of staff working. The beach was mostly empty too and no vendors. It was easy to get a lounge chair for the day. On day 3 we took a trip up to Home Sweet Home (HSH) and saw the staff cleaning up the mess from the hurricane. It was obvious at that point that we would not be staying at HSH on this trip. So we booked the rest of our stay at Coco with no problem. About a week into the trip the a\c started working at Coco. More people were arriving at the open beach hotels and vendors started showing up on the beach. Two days later power was restored to half of Coco, but the half we were in still ran on generator 20 hours per day. Apparently there were 2 electric feeds into Coco, one for one side and another for the other side. There was still a small stretch of beach that did not have power because the electric pole switches were blown.
Last Friday we headed back to HSH because we knew that Charlie the owner would be there making repairs. The repairs are moving along, but power is sorely needed on the west end. I think this link will get you to their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?comm...tion&ref=notif Many of the restaurants on the west end were closed because of damage or lack of business.
By the time we were leaving on Sunday, Coco was jumping as more and more people were coming. Lounge chairs were getting hard to find in the shade. Beach vendors, musicians and ganja sellers were in full force. All the beaches were clean from the day we arrived and excepting the first day, the water was a great place for a cool off. We went to HiLo a few times and they were well stocked in everything. We only use cash, so we didn't have to wait in lines for an ATM. We changed a couple of hundred buck at the downtown cambio (151 to 1) for taxi rides and items that were normally purchased in Jamaican Dollars.
We stopped up to Red Ground to see our friend Markie. We had brought down a solar light as he hasn't had electric in a few years. The light had a 10' cord so the panel could be set up outside and the light placed inside. We got it set up and it worked well. We met him a few days later for breakfast at Blossum's and in his bag he had the solar light. He was afraid someone would break into his shack and steal the light. To Janet and I it seemed a bit crazy and paranoid. We bought our annual carving from him and overpaid as is customary. This is a fellow I have known for about 15 years and has never had a job except harvesting bat guano from the cave for ganja growers the first year we met him. He only carves occasionally, so I don't really know how he survives. He was a bit peeved that he only got one free meal from the places providing free food in Negril. Of course we took him out for a few meals.
The good news is that Negril is coming back. Everyone we saw from the first day on were thankful we were there and spending money. We were more generous than normal with tips. The staff at Coco were fantastic and very polite. They have a good training program.
We ate at Coco, Kenny's, Best in the West, Blossum's and Firefly restaurant. Firefly surprised us the most. With a sunset view, good service, good food and the best all round prices we found.
Now the rants. We normally don't stay on the beach and haven't even been there in the last 4 years. Now I remember why. While some people like the ?action? we don't. I got tired of the myriad of ganja sellers bothering us. Than there were the guys who wanted money because it was their birthday. I asked the one what the date was and he could only spit out ?November?. Then he wanted something to drink, so I offered him what I had in my hand....no not what he wanted. Then could I give him some money. Sometimes it just doesn't end. The last night there while watching the sunset a fellow came up to me and said he liked my sneakers and asked if he could have them. Really? They were $15 Walmart specials. The sneakers he was wearing were way better than mine. I just unloaded on him. Beach security at Coco is good, but the higglers were out in force. Of course then there were the obnoxious guests, a group of 5. They were asked (not by me) to turn down their blaring radio a bit. As it ended up, nearly everyone at Coco went to the other end of the beach just to get away. Fortunately they left after 3 days.
We normally go to church over near Sav. Knowing how bad the damage was in Sav we decided to just stay in Negril. I was able to see a high quality image after the hurricane of the church we go to and there was significant damage. When Michael came by to pick us up for the airport (on time no less) he was very happy that we gave him the fan we had bought. He lives out of town a bit so still doesn't have electric but was waiting for the day he could use his new fan. Also, this is the first year I was not able to cliff dive. I'm hoping I have at least one more dive left in me for our next trip. I have posted a lot of photos as I was taking them, so look back on Negril.com to see some. The only photo I'll post is my last dive at HSH last November.
Come on back to Negril and you won't be dissapointed.
Regards,
Bob

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