First Non All Inclusive trip
Our first non all inclusive trip to Negril, Jamaica (Dec 2-11)
After 9 trips to Couples Negril on Bloody Bay, my husband and I were feeling that it was time for a change so after hours and hours of research we decided on Coco La Palm (CCLP) on Long Bay for number ten. We booked our trip through NegrilOneStop.com who gave us the best rate of any online site and started our countdown. BTW they were wonderful and very promptly answered many questions we had prior to our trip. We will definitely be using them again.
Ok here goes…….
Dec. 2
We arrived in Montego Bay. Sailed through customs, grabbed our luggage and exited the airport. Our private transportation (the Malcolm Brothers) was waiting for us right outside the door. The transportation was booked ahead through NegrilOneStop.
Once in Negril we went directly to the HiLo Grocery Store to change some travelers checks to JA$ at the Cambio, get a few bottles of wine for our room and get minutes for the JA phone we rented from One Stop. Here is where we had a little difficulty. Get in line at the Cambio and waited approximately 20 minutes (only 2 people ahead of us). My husband goes to the counter, shows his passport and starts signing the travelers checks. They look at them and say “we can’t accept these because the signature is different”. We walked away grumbling and of course thought to ourselves what have we gotten ourselves into. OK we shake it off and go get some wine (not cheap), it was $78 for 4 bottles. It would have cost $40 or $50 in the US. I think we were ripped off by paying for it with a credit card but we were now concerned about the cash we had lasting for the whole trip. Totally forgot to get the minutes for the cell phone. Go out and get back in our van to continue on to CCLP. Our driver, Winston, said “don’t worry they will probably cash them at CCLP and you can get minutes for your phone anywhere and also there are 100 minutes already on the phone”. OK I’m feeling a little better now. Not so sure about my husband.
We arrive at CCLP to a very warm welcome from the check in staff. Our Jr. Suite is not ready but we check in, get our room key, etc. They tell us to leave our bags and go check out the resort. Of course we immediately head to the beach grill/bar for drinks and food because we are starving. We split a pizza ($7) that was amazing and we are full and happy. Someone comes to get us and takes us to our room. The room is amazing but we already knew that because we checked it out on our last visit to Couples.
Our first dinner is at Idle Awhile (this is the non all inclusive sister to Couples) right next door. Sitting at dinner with a band getting ready to play and who walks up to the band but Ancel (you know the one-armed singer on the beach by Couples Negril). We greet him and he tells us he is singing at CCLP. I was feeling a little sad that I would not hear my “Welcome to Jamaica” song “Three Little Birds” by Ancel and there he was. We finish dinner and go back to CCLP. Ancel plays my song and we are off to a great second start on our new adventure. He is a hundred times better playing in this situation rather than strolling the beach. The chef at CCLP also did a few songs and was amazing. It was a great night of entertainment. We stayed to the bitter end even though we were exhausted.
OK I bet you thought I was going to do a day by day report but I won’t bore you to death with that. We are pretty boring and don’t go out after dinner. We are just happy to chill at the CCLP bar or on our deck.
Here are some random thoughts.
THE STAFF AT CCLP was wonderful. We charged everything to the room and tipped in cash. The beach towel hut staff set up our chairs in the morning under the trees with fresh towels. The security guard on the beach did not allow the vendors to bother you and kept them moving along unless you were interested in what they had. Staff was very professional and friendly and most have worked there for many years. I will say that every staff member we encountered during our stay could not have been nicer.
THE BEACH VENDORS were not a problem while walking the beach. A simple no thank you and they were on there way to the next “victim”. You could literally sit in your beach chair and not move all day. Food came to you. There was the jerk pork man (our favorite), the patty man, the fruit ladies (they cut the fruit up for you), ice cream man, cake man, and of course the ganga man.
THE RESTAURANTS we went to:
Marleys by the Sea @ CCLP – This was by far where we had our best dinners and was not any more expensive than any place else we went and lunch at the beach grill was also great.
Alfreds for fish & chips. This was lunch. Delicious and so much food we couldn’t eat dinner that night. Wish it was next door to CCLP because we were too lazy to walk that far in the middle of the day when it was hot. Could have eaten the fish and chips every day.
Shereta’s @ The Seawind -lunch was great. Went back for dinner and picked the wrong night (it was a buffet for $25/pp and not good but as soon as we got there it poured rain so we didn’t want to leave to go elsewhere.
Country Peppa @ CountryCountry- once for lunch (just ok) and once at night for appetizers, salad & soup (good)
Chill Awhile @ Idle Awhile-Good
Niah’s Patties – shack on the beach. Great homemade patties and Niah even went elsewhere to get us a beer because he didn’t sell it.
Best in the West Jerk Shack – gets rave reviews but was just OK for us. Only tried it once.
Last but not least- Ivan’s at Catcha Falling Star on our 2nd night
What a gorgeous place this is. We would love to stay here a few nights on our next trip. Dinner was good but not great. We expected more for the price but I guess you pay for the view. It wasn’t real busy and they kind of gave us a hard time because we didn’t want to sit at a tiny table for 2 next to the waterfall. We wanted to overlook the cliff. Finally we were moved. Husband was very happy to get martini’s here because no place we went on the beach had them including CCLP. Martini’s are a bit pricey at $12 each. That is lots more than we pay at home in NY.
There are lots of places to eat on the cliffs but we never went back again and here comes another story of why. After reading all the message boards the general consensus was only take red plate taxi’s. They are licensed and legal. Never take a white plate taxi because they are not licensed and not legal should an accident happen. Route taxi is about ja$100/pp for beach route. Get out of taxi and pay another $100/pp for cliff route but if you don’t want to do this ask if they will take you all the way round trip. Message boards said don’t pay more than $15. We just did not feel comfortable using the Route Taxi system so we asked the first taxi driver at CCLP if he would do it for $15. He said no it would be $25; it’s only $10 more but me being stubborn I said forget it. We walked out to the road and started walking for about 5 minutes until another taxi pulls up. I say US$5 to and $10 back. It’s a deal and we get in. Get his card so we have a phone number to call him when we are ready to come back. All goes well. We call him and come out of Catcha to get in the taxi and I see it’s a white plate. SH#%! We made it back to CCLP just fine but it just kind of stopped us from trying again. We really are very uneasy with new situations and not very adventurous. Live and learn. The next time we would just pay the $25 or maybe get adventurous and try the route taxi system which would have been a total of about US$5. Anyway we got very comfortable staying at CCLP eating there and walking the beach to go to other restaurants.
PUB CRAWL through Negril.com that goes to a bunch of little bars on the cliff did not happen for us. I called to make a reservation the day before the crawl for 6 of us to go but it was already full. The One Love Bus Driver would have done it another day or time for us but we couldn’t make it happen.
We loved that we did not have to dress up. Shorts, T shirts and bare feet were fine everywhere we went. Again, this wouldn’t suit some but we love casual and are most comfortable that way.
Total cost of our trip including transportation, meals, drinks, and tips was about $1000 cheaper than Couples but you do have to keep in mind that Couples price includes lots of water sport activities, exercise classes, etc. all of which we did not use while there but were paying for anyway. We thought we might not get away cheaper than Couples because we like to drink but we found we enjoyed a few red stripes during the day and when we had a mixed drink we couldn’t drink more than one or two because they were very strong.
We made some mistakes along the way and spent more than we should have for some things but you have to start somewhere. We would not do travelers checks again since it didn’t work out for us. We understand we could have gone to the bank downtown and they would have accepted them but we didn’t really need them and didn’t want to waste our time standing in line. We will just cash them at our bank to put in the vacation account for the next trip. We rented a Jamacian cell phone for $5 per day but didn’t really need this either. We loved our first experience here and will definitely be returning. Maybe we will even try some of the other small resorts in the future but for now we have already decided to return to CCLP in April of next year (if the price is right).
