Last Minute Trip

Talk about last minute trip.. found out Friday evening, booked and here by Saturday afternoon. Last trip was our first try not having a driver lined up before we landed. This trip - no driver, no Hotel! We figured low season, no problem. The driver we negotiated with at the airport kept asking us - where am I dropping you? We kept telling him we weren't sure.. head to the west end!

Stopped at Rockhouse.. last room gone 5 minutes prior. Moved up the road, Mirage had a great deal and plenty of rooms. If they didn't work out, we would have moved to Catcha, I think there was still a room or two there.

So, book for the next few nights.. rest of trip still open, including our return date.

No word on any shows.. still aching that we missed I Octane at Rockhouse a few weeks back. Anyone with show info for the next week or two, give us a holler.

Ben & Cheryl

u guys are gonna have so much fun!!! Thats awesome take pics! Hows the weather there?

You are a true traveller! I would be an utter mess with no plans. I hope you have a great trip. This is one that has to have a trip report.

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Originally Posted by NashvilleNegril

u guys are gonna have so much fun!!! Thats awesome take pics! Hows the weather there?

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It is Hot.. very hot.. but all good.. the water feels so great.. will try to take some more pics.. Attachment 37914

Sounds great:D

Wonderful!! Have a fantastic time!

How is Le Mirage? I was looking at a possibly staying there in October. Are they bringing you a Continental B-fast from Charelas? Clean? Cold A/C? etc Thanks in advance for your feedback

It is nice! We stayed here last holiday. Great value if you can handle no bar\restaurant. Very clean. AC new/cold. Nice privacy, good cover - pouring down rain now and all dry on the balcony with their awnings. Pool is very nice and clean. Good ladder to go in/out of the ocean. very quiet - low season now but even when full at high season felt like we had the place to ourselves. Lots of close by shops and bars to visit.

Txraider, did you book some sort of open end ticket? Or just a one way to Jamaica? Am trying to figure out how to arrange either, would love to do so for my next trip but thought both were out of the question with Immigration.

that's the way to do it --- no countdown . . . book, pack, go

Thank you, We greatly appreciate your feedback. Enjoy your reach and we look forward to additional trip reports. We have stayed in private villas the last few reaches so the No Bar no restaurant is not an issue for us, in fact we prefer it. We are choosing to scale back on our expenses for future trips, Le Mirage seems to be a great West End fit.

Awesome! Enjoy your trip - sounds like you are in for an adventure. We are big fans of the Mirage, as well. Be sure to stop by Jamaican Style Restaurant across the street and say "hi" to Rohan and Shauna.

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Originally Posted by Mike_D

Awesome! Enjoy your trip - sounds like you are in for an adventure. We are big fans of the Mirage, as well. Be sure to stop by Jamaican Style Restaurant across the street and say "hi" to Rohan and Shauna.

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Hi All - Mirage was great.. West end wonderful as always. We tore ourselves away to the beach for few nights at Charela.. eaten there many times, but never stayed - really nice so far.

We were creative on our way into the country - told them our guestimated flight back (didn't tell them we were guestimating)

AC rooms are must this time of year if anyone had any question..

Couple nights at Eddie's (De Bar) and last night a great dinner at Erica's.

our new room view.. the color of the sea today was amazing.. Attachment 37992

Great show at Charela Thursday night.. new female lead singer is awesome (Sasanya Johnson)

Service and availability of food tonight was poor at Charela.. too bad.. even some of the food served was overcooked..

Nice view raider, have you gotten good room rates just walking in and asking? I may have a solo trip coming up this year and would like to do it the way you are.

if it is low season, you are all good to go, plenty of rooms almost everywhere. Just make sure to get an AC room wherever you are (some places have a mix of AC and non AC rooms). Non AC can be fine in high season if there is a breeze.. but not in low season at all.

We seemed to get a 10-15% discount walking in off the street, would vary from place to place...

Since Charela and Mirage are sister resorts, we had Mirage help us get the rates and reservations going for this last move.

Back to the cliffs tomorrow - gotta say this is one of the nicest stays we have had on the beach in some time - Charela is a nice property. They lost a lot of beach - but had so much that they are still fine.

Nice to see Treehouse with some beach between their bar and the ocean...

Attachment 37997

Perfect! Thanks :)

last stop in Negril.. Catcha.. Attachment 38074

Wrap up.. in ATL now waiting for last leg home. Spent last night in MoBay - wanted to check out the hip strip. It did not seem hip. Several folks I talked to at different bars said that Margaritaville was the middle of the strip.. really kind of seemed like the end, I walked past it for 10-15 minutes and the stuff waterside died out quickly.

Here is what I don't get - how can so much of the "hip strip" be feet from the ocean, but not water view? Stayed at Toby's based on many good reviews.. nice pool, but other than that kind of a dive. And a bit of a walk to anything on the strip! course this time of year it is so hot, but still...

Montego Bay did what it was best at - reminding us how great Negril is. Try to think of the worst high season beach day for higglers/scammers - it is like this in Montego Bay all the time. Good reminder of how chill Negril is and how blessed a place it is.

I looked for live music in MoBay.. but could not find any.. granted just one night, and a Monday night, but still. Was looking forward to Blue Beat, but it was DJ only. Did not realize it was actually part of Margaritaville, would not have had my hopes up if that was the case.

Other Negril notes:
-Still wishing Hungry Lion was open in low season
-Condolences to Ahhh Bee on his father - visited with him at De Bar on our last night in Negril. His place will be open again starting this Thursday he said.
-Props to Eddie and Trevor as always.
-We will be staying at Charela again - but may avoid the restaurant after debacles this trip.
-Found the beach jerk pork guy - he does not walk every day in low season, maybe 3 days a week. So good and spicy\tender..
-Also went to Red Dragon to pick up pork one day, guys doing good there
-Good jerk chicken outside of White Sands on the road, small pit with colorful paint on it
-Tried to see fireworks on July 4th at Cayenne beach.. the rain killed the show - rain was over by evening, but seemed to keep everyone away. We did the veteran route of going down and getting a drink next door to scope it first.. hung for a couple hours, could see DJ's playing to zero people inside the plastic, so we went back up to the cliffs. Had a good time chilling with folks on the beach for a few hours, but would have been pissed if we would have payed cover for the show and then no one inside and no fireworks. Card said fireworks at 10:30, but none at midnight when we took off.. maybe they saved them and put them off the next day or something. Later we heard the Caves had some, but did not hear ahead of time.
-For some reason change was REALLY hard to come by this trip. Very first cab ride I took in town involved a detour trying to break a 1000j into 2 fives... 3-4 tries, no one could break it (not even my $, previous rider). ATM's in the past gave out some 500's with the 1000's.. Zero 500's given this trip from any ATM visit. Guy on the beach walked 10 minutes to try and give us $4 change... came back with $2, said that was all he could find - we were cool.. he gave us a spliff for the rest of the change.. that happened several times, I don't remember it in the past
-Stray dogs all looking healthy (minutes some broken bones here and there) this trip. None on the beach or cliffs were skin and bones.
-Saw Starfish and actual fish when we were staying at the beach. Usually the bay is dead, sand water that is it - bunch of starfish in shallow water one day, and walking back to the shore, some decent sized fish (not sure what kind - torpedo shaped, bulbous head, maybe a foot long or so, maybe 2-3 lbs each) were swimming very close to shore.

Nice report. Thanks for re-enforcing the reasons we go to Negril and not Montego Bay.
Your writing is making us miss the West End.

Thanks for the report Txraider,always good to hear fresh news from Negril!

Thanks Brother, greatly appreciate the trip report, living life through others right now unfortunatly