Newbie Trip Report 4/12 - 4/19

Newbie Trip Report

I will do my best at this trip report thing....but bare with me! There were several red stripes, vodka drinks and southern comfort drinks involved, so my memory may be slightly “fuzzy”.

This was our first time flying internationally (myself, my husband and our 2 “kids”, ages 18 and 19) Another couple joined us as well for 5 out of our 7 days.

We flew out of Buffalo airport Saturday, April 12th on the 6:20 am flight, so had to be up very early. Swear I must’ve checked 50 times before we left the house to make sure I had everyone’s passports....and a couple times on the way to the airport. My biggest fear was forgetting them!

Flight went perfectly, landed on time. Customs was a breeze. Expected it to take a lot longer than it did. I had seen how many flights were landing around the same time as us, and had almost bought Club Mobay, but with paying for 4 people, I just couldn’t justify the cost. I’m so glad I didn’t, as we didn’t need it at all.

Kingsley met us at the airport, and had his driver Dave take us to Negril. They were both very nice, knowledgeable guys. Made one stop for a cold beverage and were back on our way. Stopped at the Hi Lo in Negril for some Red Stripes/Absolut/Jack Daniels to keep in the room, along with some water (good for replenishing the liver), and exchanged some money.

We stayed at CocoLaPalm, and we were very happy with our choice. The grounds are absolutely beautiful, the staff was all super friendly, I felt completely safe there, and the pools and hot tub were nice to have. LOVED the beach there! After walking up and down the beach and looking at other properties, I felt like CocoLaPalm had the best stretch of beach, and it was never crowded. Only downside was there wasn’t a whole lot of action there, but that was okay since there were so many places nearby.Attachment 35814

I live for trip reports!

Coco La Palm is one of my favorite hotel accomodations in Negril. The staff have always been very attentive!

Very nice start!

More please!

Thanks,

VVHT

Tell us more!

Yeah, :cool:what they said:)

Need More;)

One of our first stops after getting settled in was at Sun Beach, just 2 spots up from CoCoLaPalm. The $2 Red Stripes caught our attention :) We met Dennis the Menace - who is a great, super friendly guy. We had a few cold drinks, walked the beach some, and stopped at Country Country for some drinks (loved the bar there, and the bartenders/waitresses Opal and Angie were very friendly, also met a nice couple from Texas, who filled us in on different places to check out). Country Country would also be on my list of places to stay if we ever make it back. Eventually, we ended up at Chances for pizza, which was pretty good. Waitress made a comment about the amount of our tip, which irritated me, because we tip very good, here at home and when we were in Jamaica. We ended up there for pizza the next night too, and she was there again, and made another comment. But, it was the only place open, and we were hungry! I did notice a lot of the restaurants closed earlier than we were expecting....but we also have a bad habit of waiting until right before bed to eat.

Sunday we did the One Love Pub Crawl. We had an absolute blast! Lenbert picked us up at 2:30, and to be honest, I’m not really sure what time we got back (we had started quite early that morning, long before the pub crawl started). Our stops were Negril Palm Court (just okay, not my favorite), Canoe Bar (loved it there, service was great, view was beautiful), Sky Bar (really cool view from the top, and they had really pretty blue toilets LOL), Negril Escape (couple of the guys from the bus dove from the lighthouse), Xtabi (went down in the caves and got some neat pictures), Home Sweet Home (more beautiful views), Seastar Inn (loved the atmosphere here). I think I got them all. Very impressed with the trip, and we met some great people. Lenbert played some great dance music, and by the end, the majority of us were dancing. The bus was full, but not crazy overcrowded. Overall, a great day, and I would highly recommend this trip.
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View from Sky Bar

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View from Canoe

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Caves at Xtabi

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Originally Posted by drenee

Eventually, we ended up at Chances for pizza, which was pretty good. Waitress made a comment about the amount of our tip, which irritated me, because we tip very good, here at home and when we were in Jamaica. We ended up there for pizza the next night too, and she was there again, and made another comment. But, it was the only place open, and we were hungry!

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Sorry to read this part...that waitress seems to have an issue...did the same to us the other night...told off a friend of ours (Jamaican) for not leaving a $20us tip on a tab that was just over $20us....wth! But, was surprised how good the pizza was...hadn't been in years.
Thanks for the fabulous trip report!

Great report so far! Love reading these!

Nice shots and report. Keep it coming

I'm enjoying the trip report as well and looking forward to more :D

please continue............................

Love the crawl. Thanks for the photos. Keep it up !

We just got back from CCLP and had a grrreat time! Enjoying your report so far.

Monday was a chill on the beach/walk the beach day. Ended up at Kuyaba for lunch. We had a good lunch, it was slightly pricey, but the setting was nice. I know we probably shouldn’t have...but we did feed the kitty’s some of our lunch...just a little bit! As we were walking back to CocoLaPalm, I really needed some liquid nourishment and a break from the hot sun when before my eyes appeared Tony’s Red Stripe Hut. Milton was the bartender, and is a friendly, fun guy. This was one of our favorite places, and we returned there several times throughout our week long stay. He had several games sitting around to play (Connect 4, Trivial Pursuit, cards, dominoes), and we discovered a new favorite game called “Shut the Box”. I actually found it on Amazon, and it arrived a few days ago :) None of us had ever heard of this game before...kind of funny we had to go to Jamaica to discover it!

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view looking out from Tony's Red Stripe Hut

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Tuesday was Pelican Bar day! Kingsley picked us up around 10:30 am. Really enjoyed the drive there, Kingsley was a good tour guide. Stopped on the way at a place called Princes for a bathroom/cold drink break. What an amazing view from there! Arrived at Basil’s Bar at Parrotee Bay to meet our boat. Had a drink while waiting for our boat. Another great place, friendly bartender. The boat ride over was smooth, and only took about 10 minutes. There weren’t many people there when we first got there, but by the time we left, a lot of people had arrived. The place is just amazing to look at. I spent most of the time out in the water drinking some Red Stripes! What a one of a kind place to visit! Check that off the bucket list!

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View from Prince's bar on the way to the Pelican Bar

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Pelican Bar!

We stopped at Juicy Patties on the way back, as we were all “starving”, but didn’t want to stop for a sit down meal. That was the first pattie I had ever had, and to be honest, I didn’t think it was that great. There really was no chicken in it, just like a chicken bouillon flavor. The coco bread was amazing though!

The ride back to Negril seemed so long! Between the sun and the Red Stripes, we were all tired out. If I was to do a trip to the Pelican Bar again, I think I would combine it with something else, as it seemed like a long haul just for that.

great t.r., we got married right there on the small beach across from Princes bar in Belmont 6 years ago, soon come

I'm enjoying the trip report!

thanks for the encouragement everyone! Gosh, I just want to go back!!! It's been raining....and raining....and raining some more at home :( Guess it's better than snow, but we need some sunshine!

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Originally Posted by jamaicarob

great t.r., we got married right there on the small beach across from Princes bar in Belmont 6 years ago, soon come

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what an absolutely beautiful place to get married. The colors of the sky and the sea were just so vivid there.....I bet you have some beautiful wedding pictures!

Love this report! I got married on the cliffs almost 5 years ago and there is just something magical about exchanging vows with that beautiful sea behind you.

ya mon, i can post them, soon come

keep writing ;)

Love the Pelican bar. It is a long haul, we combined it with YS Falls for a fabulous (but long) day :)

More please...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drenee

We stopped at Juicy Patties on the way back, as we were all “starving”, but didn’t want to stop for a sit down meal. That was the first pattie I had ever had, and to be honest, I didn’t think it was that great. There really was no chicken in it, just like a chicken bouillon flavor.

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I'm not a big fan of the Juicy Chicken Patties. It's OK but like you said it mostly has a chicken bouillon flavor. The beef patties are much better..IMO.

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Originally Posted by Kevin, PA

I'm not a big fan of the Juicy Chicken Patties. It's OK but like you said it mostly has a chicken bouillon flavor. The beef patties are much better..IMO.

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Out-of-town pastry on the cliffs I think is one of the top patties & fish loaf places right up on the cliffs.. BTW I'm loving this trip report keep on writing :)

Wednesday was a relax/walk the beach day again. We did venture across the road to Best in the West for some jerk chicken. Everyone loved it! It was fresh off the cooker, and was so good! We ended up at Tony’s Red Stripe Hut and Sun Beach....again! Poor Milton – think we drank him out of almost all of his brands of Vodka that day! We did venture up to Margaritaville later in the evening and had a good time - there was a catamaran there, so several people were on the beach dancing to the DJ (and maybe a few of us as well).

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Best in the West

Thursday morning we had to meet a boat at 6am. Dennis the Menace had hooked us up with one of his friends to go fishing. That was a little rough as we had stayed out pretty late the night before. We went “fishing” from 6 until 10. Not one bite....Nothing! Not that our guide (Marshall) wasn’t trying, there just wasn’t anything biting, but we still enjoyed being out on the water. Really enjoyed seeing the island from the water!

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view from our fishing boat - definitely authentic Jamaican fishing!

Our friends were heading home today, so we saw them off and headed down the beach to Times Square for some souvenirs. It was a very hot, humid day! Thankfully several of the shops had A/C! Got some good deals on souvenirs here. Went to Margaritaville for some dinner and some t-shirts to take home. Food was kind of expensive, and just okay. Not bad, just okay. We did like the atmosphere though....they are very good at providing entertainment. A catamaran had shown up, and Margaritaville had it set up so there were teams competing to build a hut with materials they provided....was quite comical to watch! Think there was also a stop for a drink or two at Sun Beach on our way back to CCLP.....it was on the way, ya know :) The bartenders there were all always very friendly, and it was just a cool place to sit and take a break!

I'm enjoying your report. In all my years of visiting Negril I have never been to Tony's Hut but its now on my list for June.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drenee

As we were walking back to CocoLaPalm, I really needed some liquid nourishment and a break from the hot sun when before my eyes appeared Tony’s Red Stripe Hut. Milton was the bartender, and is a friendly, fun guy. This was one of our favorite places, and we returned there several times throughout our week long stay. He had several games sitting around to play (Connect 4, Trivial Pursuit, cards, dominoes), and we discovered a new favorite game called “Shut the Box”. I actually found it on Amazon, and it arrived a few days ago :) None of us had ever heard of this game before...kind of funny we had to go to Jamaica to discover it!

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I'd never seen it before either, when we were there in April a young lad (maybe 8-10?) actually shut the box. It was awesome, he gave him a sharpie and let him write his name where ever he wanted. It was fun, I know we'll be back :)

Ditto justchuck on Tony's.

Thanks for a nice report.

Happy Travels

Skb

Great report and pictures,looking forward to more.Thanks for sharing!

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Originally Posted by Kevin, PA

I'm not a big fan of the Juicy Chicken Patties. It's OK but like you said it mostly has a chicken bouillon flavor. The beef patties are much better..IMO.

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You could try Hammonds at the round about...they sell Tastee Patties...my fav. The chicken patty has a light curry flavour.

thanks for the patty tip....

Friday was our last full day here, so we decided to chill out on the beach for awhile, then headed up to Country Country for breakfast. The banana pancakes were SO good! My step daughter had the honey french toast, and she loved that as well. Hubby and son stuck with eggs & toast. Opal and Angie were working again, and remembered us from earlier in the week. They are just truly nice people, and huge assets to Country Country.

We found Niah’s patties for a light lunch. We had met him a couple times at Tony’s Hut earlier in the week, so we just had to try one of his famous patties! He even told us to go wait at Tony’s while he made our patties, and he delivered them to us! We all got the Italian - cheese, tomatoes, onions. It was excellent! Definitely better than the Juici Patty I had earlier in the week. Niah is a really cool guy, and shared some of his life stories with us. We really enjoyed meeting him.

That afternoon, we hired a cab (directly from the hotel) and had him drop us off at Rick’s Café. We got there early before it got too crazy, and had a good time watching people jump. We did get to see Bird Man dive from his crazy platform! There were a lot of kids here climbing the cliffs, trying to get people to pay to watch them do backflips. That did get annoying after awhile. We skipped out of there just as a bunch of catamarans were pulling up, as it was starting to get too busy for our tastes.

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view from Rick's Cafe

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another view from Rick's

We had heard good things about Ivan’s Restaurant at Catch A Falling Star, so we walked there for dinner (not gonna lie....the walk was a little scary with the way they drive there!) We got there just as they were about to open their gates for dinner. What an amazing place! Everyone was so friendly, from the bartender to our waitress. We all had excellent dinners (coconut shrimp, mushroom chicken and a jerk sampler with fish, shrimp and chicken). Our dinner and drinks came to $1 more than what we had payed at Margaritaville for 4 cheeseburgers and a couple drinks the night before! What a beautiful place to watch the sunset from! If we ever do make it back to Negril, I think I might like to stay a couple nights at a place like Catch A Falling Star.

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sunset from Ivan's at Catch A Falling Star

We headed back to CCLP to begin packing :( We were all dreading the trip home the next day, but hopeful it would be as easy as arrival was.