Trip Report

[SoloTraveller]

Every year in the months and weeks before our trip to Negril I find myself regularly checking in on the Board, Facebook groups, etc. to the point of obsession. I love seeing everyone’s pictures, reading the gossip, restaurant reviews, trip reports, etc. It fires me up for our trip!
And every year I pledge to myself to write a follow-up report for others, but then I never do. IN thinking on our way home on Tuesday about why this is, I realized that all the stuff that got me excited about going on the Board is different than what actually makes Negril so great. It’s a state of mind! Negril for me, like most of you, is my happy place. I get lost there. No worries, mon. No trip report can capture that.
So the idea of documenting everything I did becomes a chore. Each day tends to unfold without a plan. Lots of rum and the occasional edible certainly contributes, but it’s more about just letting go and not keeping track of where I ate, what I ate, who I saw, etc. It’s all one big blur in the end. One that makes me smile. No chores.
Having said that, here’s some highlights from our (me, my wife, sister in law and 8 year old son) trip of Feb 19-27. It was my 7th visit and 4th for the others.
• Flight down: The boy developed an eye infection somewhere over the East Coast between Boston and Miami. The sister in law and wife were bumped to FIRST CLASS so I was alone with the boy in the back of the plane. He was great, but quite uncomfortable. We arrived in MBJ at 8 p.m. and he (and I were) exhausted. Checked into the Wexford late and found a doctor (with the help of the board and front desk) to visit at 430 a.m. when he woke up with his eye sealed shut from puss. A minor medical issue has unfortunately become part of our Jamaican tradition. By 11 a.m. however we were on the road to Negril (thanks Dudley) with a bottle of prescription antibiotic eye drops.
• We arrived at Firefly early afternoon. Our 2-bedroom apartment was GREAT!. Could have slept 8, and was more than enough for 4 of us. We got the room due to a glitch on the Firefly website. They charged us ½ price ($130 a night). It would have been out of our budget to pay full price, but they honored the deal after some help from Rob (thanks Rob). We tipped very generously all week and I think everyone was OK with us being there in the end
• Saw a beautiful sunset after a NASTY downpour (I think it rained hard every day for at least 30 min each day). Ate a fantastic meal of curried shrimp, fish and veggies next door at Sun Beach. Early to bed, as usual for us, and up at dawn the next morning
• Made fresh blue-mountain coffee in the room in the dark on day 2. There was no coffee maker, but I was able to hack something together using a fine mesh pasta strainer. I had to run the coffee through 4 times, but it ended up being very good.
• Breakfast at Canoe!
• Walked to Hi-Low for supplies (Beer, rum, eggs salt/pepper, etc)
• Tues and Wed were virtually identical: After breakfast a slow stroll down the beach. Stopping along the way to swim, eat, drink. White Sands, Yellow Bird, Boat Bar (they were kind of rude to us this year for some reason – waitress didn’t want to walk upstairs and made us come down to get our stuff), and several others that either don’t have names or I didn’t see the name.
• ON Thursday our trip shifted to make White Sands our home base. That’s because the Boy has a friend there who he has seen and played with every year for 4 years! Her name is Jordan and she and her Jamaican/Bulgarian parents live in Brooklyn. The boy and Jordan have a wonderful friendship, which has evolved into her pointing her finger and Jacob jumping! This year she asked him to marry her 2x – he turned down both proposals (smart boy). It was a blast watching them have fun.
• We had a very disappointing dinner at Quality’s Sea food. Curried shrimp was great, but the two red snapper meals we ordered were not snapper. It was something very fishy, oily and dark. Like mackerel. We complained, and the man who said he was “Mr. Quality” held up a whole red snapper as proof that what we were eating was snapper. Uh huh. Disappointing, but what can you do?
At some point we went to Tensing Pen
• On Friday we did the Red Stripe sunset snorkeling trip. 3rd time for me doing this. 2nd time for the boy and wife. First time for sister in law. I wasn’t sure if he would do it, but the boy loved snorkeling. At least until we left the reef and headed to the cliffs. It POURED most of the rest of the trip. BRRR. It was warm in the water, at least.
• Last full day in Negril was Sunday. That was more of the same at White Sands until mid afternoon, when we walked back in the downpour, packed and then had a another great dinner at Sun Beach
• Dudley’s was right on time Sunday morning. He took my wife and sis in law to MBJ where they flew out. The boy and I had another night in Montego Bay. We stayed at Tobys, walked to Margaritaville (much better option than the one in Negril), where we slid down the giant water slide, ate lunch and people watched.
• Dinner at the Pelican (meh) before bed
• Flew home on Tuesday!

That’s our trip!
I’ll attempt to add some photos to this post as well.

[OUV11112]

Thanks for sharing.

[Jaherring]

Very nice trip report and photos! Thanks for sharing

[jojo p]

I'm glad everything worked out for you at firefly and you liked it .....thanks for pics of WS, ahhhh....my second home !!

[JamaicanCurrys]

Nice photo's and trip report. Thanks....

[Jenn]

Thanks for taking the time to post the highlights and pictures! I'm almost to single digits....and this sure helps pass the days!

[Miss Honey]

Beautiful pictures . Always wanted to stay at Firefly.

[Maryann]

Sweet photos and great trip report. Nice info about Firefly. Thanks!

[dash]

Keep us updated on the "relationship". I hope they are still friends 25 years from now!

[Ever72]

I agree about not wanting to keep a daily diary while in Negril. I did try in Jan while we were there but gave up after day 3. Then the week sped up and before we knew it we were headed home - and thinking back on the trip, it was one happy weeklong blur. That’s def part of the magic of going to Negril.

i love your photos - esp the ones of your son and his friend!