Tensing Pen has an amazing vibe as soon as you walk in through the gate. Running into as many staff as guests is always a good sign. We ran into Georgia who said we looked like we were primed for messages (she was 100% on point) and said she’d see us later? After unpacking and getting settled in I headed to the gift shop to grab a lighter. When I walked into the store there wasn’t anyone around. I went next door to the front desk where they told me the shop keeper was setting up merchandise by the pool in preparation for the weekly welcome party. Despite all my research we were being surprised by a welcome party with open bar and passed hors d’oeuvre’s. Sweet! Georgia gave my wife an amazing chair massage within the first few minutes of the cocktail party starting and signed us up for a couple’s massage in the morning.
Tensing Pen encompasses a total of 26 rooms, and being in shoulder season this is a fairly intimate gathering. We end up meeting Bill and Robin, a couple 30 years our senior yet at the same time soul siblings in a sense. After hanging out for a while at their amazing Cove Cottage digs we retired to our Garden Cabin.
Our room was close to the road, yet underneath the owner’s quarters and buried half underground, so the road noise and heat were minimized. Jumping right into my review of the room I noted these points: I didn’t realize there’d be an extra middle room with a day bed. This is where the fridge and shelves for your day to day living existed. That was a huge plus. The room overall, not knowing how it’d be as the cheapest room on site, was far beyond what I expected. Although it’s the only room at the resort with a tiny space in the foliage rather than a lush patio, we made the most of our limited space. When we were in residence the owners were not present. I’ve read that their presence can add a lot of noise from above so booker beware.
The next morning we enjoyed the views and conversation with our continental breakfast and headed down to the super secluded massage hut for outstanding massages. What an amazing start to a trip! After alternating the rest of the morning between our sun platform and the rolling aqua sea, we made our way to the restaurant to enjoy lunch. The smoked marlin salad was pretty awesome with a sushi texture that paired amazingly with e few drops of Pickapeppa sauce.
We relaxed more on the cliffs in the afternoon before walking down to Catcha to Ivan’s for dinner. I had booked the 100 Candles Dinner unbeknownst to the wife! Now in hindsight truth be told I misplayed the dinner slightly… We arrived a little before sunset and got drinks at the bar. We headed out in front of the bar at Ivan’s to the cliffside to watch the sunset. Once I realized how many other people would be joining us in that vicinity I decided we’d be better off heading over to the 100 Candles location.
The 100 Candles Dinner location actually has a slightly obstructed view of the sunset. You have an extra bench that faces out towards the sunset but you kind of need to peek around the fence on the end of the property for a clear view. The right way to play it is to watch the whole sunset from over near the bar, and then ask to be seated. If you wait long enough they’ll already have all the candles lit along the path to your table. On this night the breeze was stiff at times, so our waitress was only able to get all the candles lit for a short time later during dinner. All 5 courses of the dinner were really good, although the soup and salads were filling so we had to take the cake to go. I really liked the lobster thermidor and my wife said the jerk lobster was also good. The service was decent. Our waitress was also assigned to other tables across the cove, so a few times it was easier to refill our own champagnes from the nearby bucket than to wait for her to come back. If money is no object and you want the coolest seat in the house, book the Bird’s Nest location for the dinner. This costs even more but that way you are perched up above everyone at the restaurant and you don’t have a fence in your sightline. Otherwise, I’d save the money and just go to Ivan’s for a normal dinner. I think we paid $250 after tip and I don't think the premium is worth it just to sit across the cove and get the extra courses and champagne.
We only spent 30 minutes or so on the grounds of Catcha before dinner but we did walk around a little by the rooms on the North side of the property and checked out the cliffside sunning/swimming platforms. If we hadn’t just come from Tensing Pen then I’d probably be more impressed. Both hotels seem to deliver top notch food and good service, but the amount of space and seclusion at Tensing Pen is not present at Catcha. They each have a similar number of rooms, but TP has two to three times as much shoreline, which means that many more places to swim, sun and hide away from the world. The few sun platforms that are anywhere near each other at Tensing Pen are seperated by enough foliage that you feel alone. The fact that so many people from around town go to Ivan’s for dinner means an influx of people around sunset wheras very few outsiders come to Tensing Pen for dinner so the daytime exclusivity remains intact.
The last image below I screenshoted from http://wikimapia.org/ It's a pretty amazing resource especially for Negril with so many establishments and not much web presence.
