Blue Cave Castle is owned by a woman named Susan, from New York City (just like us until 5 years ago when we moved to Ohio). She got married two weeks ago to Patrick, a businessman in JA. Both live in the castle. Susan built the castle with (I think) her ex. She told me they bought the property in 1974 and built the castle gradually from then. She still has plans to expand certain areas - the penthouse where we stayed will grow, the restaurant may re-open, etc. More funny "small world" things with Susan - even my mom's hairdresser in Ohio turned out to be a friend of hers!

There were so many things we liked about Blue Cave - the view from the grounds is gorgeous but when we climbed the (three flights of) stairs up to our room - the view became absolutely incredible. We had four deck/patios of our own (we wondered aloud often where the other 50 people we should be sharing the space with were!) and the one on top of our room offered awesome views of Negril beach, the cliffs, the sea and the hills - it's a completely 360 degree panoramic view obstructed only by the hills to the east. We just walked around with our mouths open the first few days. The castle is the highest point around there and we stayed in the highest part...it's also not so far up the cliffs that the view of the beach is lost (as it is further along) and we really enjoyed looking out at night - the lights on the beach were like a long necklace glittering on the white sand. That room is made for honeymooners - totally private up there. We had a kitchen but other than the fridge and sink, we didn't really use it.

The room is not like any we'd stayed in here or in JA. It's not fancy in the sense that the towels and sheets don't always match and there's a crack or two in the ceiling but everything says "castle" and it's so over the top, it's cool. The wooden bed and wardrobe and every other piece of furniture had castle touches - the top of the bed and the tops of most everything is cut like a castle top.

The bedspreads were castle-ey, the walls are castle-ey - to get the idea you almost have to go, or at least check out the pictures on the web site (links to everything are at the end of the report on the next page). The price was really cheap for what we got.

Susan puts out coffee every morning and we grew to love "coffee hour". Everyone ("everyone" meant about 15 people when we were there - this is a relatively small place) comes down to the tables by the sea and has coffee and conversation - the other guests when we were there included a group of ten staying at Blue Cave for their 13th time and assorted friends of Susan and people like us. One couple was there with their two 20ish kids and they came up to one of our balconies to hang out for a little while after we got in. A very cool group of people.

There isn't a restaurant at Blue Cave at the moment though there may be when you get there. No matter anyway, we grew to love our little neighborhood on the cliffs - lots of food and drink within an easy walk. We found a place called Just Natural early on and had breakfast there several times. It's a little way up the cliffs, close to Xtabi and Three Dives, on the land side of the road. The few tables (6?) are in a beautiful garden that blocks the road and to an extent, the other tables. I never learned the waitress' name and I'm sorry because she was so friendly - perfect attitude for first thing in the morning - always happy and smiling . The Jamaica breakfast of ackee and saltfish was delicious and came with several different kinds of fresh fruit, a dumpling (like a heavy biscuit), callaloo - all for about $6. P enjoyed the french toast w/ fruit. We highly recommend a stop by.

Anyway...that first night. I knew that it was Rasta John's 50th birthday (from e-mail with him before we left) and had posted on the negril.com board that we'd be at the Negril Yacht Club that night to celebrate. After we got settled in our room, we headed out for a night out. A word about transportation here. Just step out of your hotel and if you don't see a cab, start walking. We never walked for more than a minute or two before one came along. We knew vaguely that cabs should cost $1 or $2 US to get most places in Negril, per person. We never had trouble getting good fares - occasionally a cab would ask for more (then come down) but very often they just OK'ed what we offered. A few ex-pats told me we could have gotten around for less. We usually offered a bit more than we knew it should be and most cabs just said OK - haggling over $0.50 is not what I like to do on vacation and we felt the cabbies needed that money more than we did. Do always settle the price before you get in the car and remember cabs you catch on the road almost always charge by the person - we'd say "$50J for both of us, OK?". We didn't take cabs in Negril for long though, as I'll explain later. If you take gypsy cabs in New York like I did growing up, you know this routine.

We got to the NYC around 9 or 10 and met Rasta John. Another New Yorker! (this trip was really like that - RJ went to high school in Brooklyn right near my high school in Brooklyn...). Pretty soon, Blondie, Fred (ff), Cindy, Lucky Lady and quite a few other boardies showed up (I *knew* I should've written names down while I was still at the bar - I apologize to the folks I talked to and whose handles I still managed to forget!). For all of you going down for Feb 4th - you'll appreciate this - every introduction was "Hi! My name is so-and-so and I post as so-and-so" followed by "Oh! YOU'RE so-and-so! How's this thing or that thing?". It was a hoot. Consider dual name tags for the board party or just go with the Negril flow and have fun figuring out who everyone is We had a lot of fun that night. My husband's not a net person but he thought it was really neat how we all "knew" each other when we met.

Back at Blue Cave by midnight we relaxed and enjoyed the view.

The next day we went to rent a motorcycle. I was glad P is very comfortable on a bike and used driving/riding in Jamaica. Lloydie from 3 Dives has a brother named Eddie. Eddie rented us a Honda Interceptor for $40US per day, deposit only $100US, cash or credit for the deposit, cash for the rental itself. The bike was great to have, it let us travel where and when we pleased and we took a couple of really nice rides into the hills. We called those rides to Sheffield and around the "wave rides" because of the one-hand wave greeting we shared with everyone we passed.

P popped the clutch cable the second day so we drove the bike to Three Dives and Lloydie took it. Eddie gave us a brand new dirt bike the next day and some extra time with it for our (very minimal) inconvenience. I highly recommend Eddie - good bikes, honest guy, he took care of us. Scooters should be much less there, I forgot to check. He's on the beach road at Alfred's right between the sign (on the beach side of the road) and the Cambio. He doesn't have a sign yet but he's NOT Taurus rentals, they're next door.

We were going to rent a car instead originally but the high cost, the very high deposit ($1000US!) and assurances that we didn't need it convinced us not to. It was the right decision. The bike was perfect and cabs were easy.

We passed through roadblocks on the west end road on several occasions. We never got stopped but there were plenty of worried-looking tourists getting their cars searched. Once the block is up it's hard to see until you're right there so TRAVEL LIGHT.

Some travel details:

Yes you can use credit cards but I don't recommend it. All the places we liked only took cash and the places we did use the card were generally overpriced. Next time I'll leave the card for emergencies and bring more cash. The ATM card worked fine but we had trouble doing a credit card cash advance.