Trip Report: Blue Mountains, Boston Bay, Kingston

[mwenvlay]

my thoughts on strawberry hill:

i love it there. it's expensive and the lack of food options can be annoying, but it's incredibly beautiful up there, the accommodations are comfortable, the cocktails are top notch (the best i've ever had at any hotel, bar or restaurant in jamaica) and the staff is there to make sure you are happy and comfortable and doing what you want to be doing. also, during the week it seems very quiet and peaceful even when it's pretty full up.

on our first full day there, we went to the pool with a small cooler bag full of beers and sodas and a bottle of hennessey that we brought with us and they gave us glasses and told us to enjoy ourselves. we asked them if it was okay for us to rearrange the furniture so we could play dominoes comfortably and they said yes, of course and that they'd do it for us. "all you need to do is relax and enjoy yourselves." we told them not to bother and we moved it ourselves, but i'm sure they would've completely rearranged everything to our specifications had we let them.

our cottage was definitely on the much higher end of our normal hotel room budget, but it was totally worth it. we spent a lot of time hanging out there- it was designed for relaxation, and with so many open windows and porches and whatnot, we never really felt like we were locked up inside.

on the negative side, our cottage was located right next to one of the studio rooms, gong, and privacy could've been an issue.

studio rooms are the second tier of room, basically a slightly larger single unit (we stayed in the entry level room for our honeymoon and the studio rooms are really not much bigger).

the day we got there there was a couple with a baby- the baby whined and cried nonstop and the couple talked really loudly. i mentioned it to one of the security guards and he told me i should talk to the front desk, but i didn't feel like being a dick the second i got onto the property. they checked out the next afternoon, thankfully. the baby started screaming at 4am, so i think i would've had to say something if they hadn't left. also, the porch at gong is so close to the bedroom porch of bamboo cottage. it would've been weird if there was someone there and we all were just sitting on our porches watching each other. but if you're traveling with a larger group, it would be cool to rent bamboo and gong and have all that space for your people. the two units share a really nice, large poured concrete patio that could be used as a place to have a nice outdoor dinner.

another negative is that the hotel gets a LOT of daytrippers and all of them are obsessed with taking a million and one photos at the pool. it's kind of funny, but can be jarring. both times i've stayed there (that's a 7 year gap between visits), a crew of asian camera people with professional equipment descended on the pool area and did what looked to be an almost formal photo shoot. i say almost formal because they didn't bring any lighting or a make-up artist with them, but aside from that, they looked like they were doing something for a legit media outlet.





taken during our 2012 honeymoon





and i also haven't been there for sunday brunch, but i can imagine that's another time it can get busy with non-guests.

an unavoidable big negative during our stay was that the internet was COMPLETELY out of commission all 3 days that we were there. we were told there was a fire that knocked out all service in the area. i had a lot of work to do and i had no choice but to burn through my data, using my cellphone's hotspot to connect my laptop to the internet. i wound up having to use an additional $30 of data on top of the $10 a day for my at&t caribbean package.

husband really likes strawberry hill too, for all the same reasons as me. it's just a great place to be for a few days- just go there to do nothing but relax, recharge, unwind, regroup and all those other "mindful" things you head up to the mountains to do.

ti boss, our 12 year old son, who has the fortune/misfortune of being an only child, told me he LOVED strawberry hill. 3 days there was "perfection!" i was surprised that he felt that way, since he spent 3 days without any interaction with people his age, there was no tv and no internet. still and all, he loved it.

here are the things i would do i were to do this trip again...

strawberry hill's rates decrease significantly during the low season, plus they run "pay for 2/stay for 3" or "pay for 3/stay for 4" specials all the time.

i would plan our next visit for some time after may, when the rates go down.

i'd want to stay in bamboo cottage again. they have a 2-bedroom villa (which is bigger and obvs. more expensive than bamboo cottage) called highgate- it's really pretty, but it's located at the back of the property and really only has views of the mountains. we don't need anything so grand, and it's really the view of kingston that does it for me.

i'd aim for the free night's stay special- if we could get the 3 for 2 i'd book for 3 days but if we could get the 4 for 3, i'd probably book for 4 days.

if we stayed 4 days, i'd call someone and arrange a full day trip to holywell park.

i'd also like to spend 2 days at the coffee farm that we bought coffee beans from. the guy's name is duggy. he said rooms start at around $25 a night. we could hang out there for 2 days and swim in the river. they have a restaurant, so we could get decent, inexpensive food.

so, if we ever take another trip to jamaica i'd like to start out with 2 to 4 days at strawberry hill, followed by 2 days in the blue mountains at duggy's coffee farm. a total of 4 to 6 days in the mountains.