From the land of snow and ice to the land of wood and water

[Maralunatic]

There's an old saying "It's always darkest before the dawn".
I call BS on that. No matter how you look at it, 2:00 am is always dark. That's the time we had to leave our house to get to the airport to arrive in time for our flight. Ugh!
We usually fly non-stop, but this year we chose to fly Southwest. Mainly because our usual carrier doesn't start flights to Jamaica until mid December. So we had a layover in Baltimore.
Not so bad, right?
Until you have a medical emergency on board and get diverted to Detroit. Thankfully, the person was okay, but we were cutting our connection close. Real close...as in having the attendants say "Run!!"
Thankfully they held the plane for us.
I apologize to anyone on the flight for having to wait for us....
Four hours later, we landed in our happy place..
I love the smell of diesel fuel, jerk chicken, ganja and ocean that hits you as soon as you get out of the airport.
Our driver was waiting for us with cold Red Stripes and away we went.
Only to be stopped shortly down the road by the worst traffic jam I've seen in Jamaica. An hour and a half later we were finally out of MoBay and flying down to the road to Negril.

[rooster]

I can't agree more with all those smells when you get out in the open air.. there's just nothing like it.... as far as the traffic jam that's exactly why I choose to fly to Negril via Tim Air or AirLink Express....need to get the Negril asap...but i get a driver when it's time to go home.. I'm in no hurry to get to Mobay and leave The Rock for another year

[Markospoon]

Leave at 2:00 AM??
Wow, I thought I had it bad getting up at 3:AM.

Enjoy Maralunatic!!!

[jamaicabnd]

We always fly out early and have a 1.5 hour drive to the airport. No direct flights. We have found, Park, Sleep and Fly the way to go. Stay close to the airport the night before, 14 days of free parking and shuttle to the airport. By time you calculate the cost of parking at the airport the night stay is very minimal. But I have to admit, I am usually up way before I need to be in anticipation of getting to Negril, but no fear of a traffic accident or weather causing us to miss our flight.

[Maralunatic]

Rooster
Tim Air sounds great..what does a flight cost? May be an option for the next trip.

Markospoon,
Haha...2:00 am does sound bad, but the truth of the matter is that I normally have to get up at 3:30 every day for work..

Jamaicabnd,
We've actually talked about doing something similar..

[rooster]

Both air taxi's charge $350.00 a couple..12 min. flight at about 1700 ft above the coastline...

[Maralunatic]

Since we got stuck in traffic and detoured with beer stops, we missed our first sunset of the trip..No worries though! We finally arrived. Checked into Negril Palms, threw our luggage into the room and ran to the beach. Okay, maybe running is an slight exaggeration. How about a fast saunter?
There is nothing like feeling the soft sand under your feet and feeling that warm ocean breeze....

[Maralunatic]

Up early the next day in dire need of coffee, which lucky for us the girls at the Palms had it waiting. Only thing missing was my normal rum cream to add to it.
We normally go to Jamaica Feb/March, so this was our first time in December. A different vibe (in a good way) and not many people out on the beach, which was kind of nice. The beach vendors seemed to have more time to sit and visit.

[Maralunatic]

First time at the Palms.

Very nice place.

[VVHT]

Good suff!

More please!

Enjoy,

VVHT