Jamaica T-Shirt Trip Report

[Monty&Melo]

week flies by so quickly while my work week moves at a snail’s pace.

Monty took his walk and I sat on the balcony reading a book. We got ready and headed to breakfast. We are quite boring…I think all week we have eaten the exact same thing, breakfast sandwich for me and ackee and saltfish for Monty. We enjoyed our beach time under our favorite almond tree and swimming in the sea. The weather we had this week was wonderful. Thank goodness we missed the previous two weeks of solid rain.

We made our regular stops to Tony’s and Sunnyside, then walked down to Firefly to meet Rob and Lisa for happy hour. The beers were cold, and the company was great!! We ended up having to leave in a hurry though, so we could get back to Rondel for our Covid test for our return to reality. Rondel scheduled to have them come to the hotel lobby for the tests so we didn’t have to go anywhere else. This made it so much more convenient…and they even picked up the fee. Just one more reason to love Rondel!

We decided to get cleaned up for dinner and headed out early enough to make a pre-dinner stop to see Collette. After our visit, we went to one of our long-time favorites…Catcha! At least once every trip, we go to Catcha for dinner…starting with a cocktail at the bar. Monty usually gets the Category 5 Hurricane and this night was no exception. I tried the Hawaiian Sea Breeze which was delicious.




We started with Firecracker Shrimp for the appetizer and…Wow! It was terrific! For dinner, we had the Jerk Chicken Pasta…another amazing dish. The view was as spectacular as the food. I could sit there all night and just stare out at the sea, moon and stars!! Back at Rondel, we paid a visit to Delroy at the bar. One of the good things about curfew was that we ate dinner earlier which allowed time to get back before the bar closed.

Friday, our last full day on the beach was filled with more of the same. This was another NSD (no shoe day) since we weren’t leaving the beach! I get terrible sand gravity in Negril…at least once per trip, I need a full day with only the beach! Friday, also, happens to be one of Rondel’s happy hour days (Friday, Sunday and Wednesday) ... 2 for 1 drinks and discounts on food. For those of you who know Delroy, you know how much fun it is watching him in his element! He gets so excited and happy to be serving everyone. If you don’t know Delroy…do yourself a big favor and show up for happy hour. His drinks are fabulous, and he is famous for his Delroy Special.

We had dinner at Rondel with special friends to celebrate a birthday and the food and company couldn’t have been better. In typical fashion, it was back to the bar after dinner. Saying goodbye to Delroy is always tough, but at the end of the night we said good night and headed for bed with a tear in my eye.

Saturday, we had Bryan pick us up around 10:45 but since we had a later flight we had the chance to make pit stops. First stop was Red Dragon. I’ve never been there so early that it wasn’t even open yet. Gardo was inside setting up so he let us in. This was our first real chance to talk with Gardo. He usually leaves before we show up for the day. Rob and Lisa met us there. The four of us had a discussion about whether it was too early to start drinking or not. It was decided that it’s never too early! We were lucky and got to see Osheba before we moved on.

Collette’s was our next stop. We, obviously, had to enjoy beverages there as well. Wink, wink!! After spending about an hour, the time had come for us to leave. This is so hard to do…you would think it would get easier every time, but I think it only gets worse. Business was so slow at Collette’s, that she and her daughter decided to ride with us to the airport just for something to do. It was so sweet to have that extra time with her before we had to leave.