When we got back from that trip, I started thinking about the possibility of making Negril our new Jamaican travel destination as I loved the idea of pub crawling up and down the beach and having the constant feel of the sand between my toes. If you have ever been to Sunset Beach in Montego Bay, the “beach” is not exactly the best part of the hotel. It was then that I stumbled upon Negril.com and quite frankly my life has never been the same. I spent hours and hours reading trip reports, looking at pictures, etc in preparation for our first stay in Negril. The idea was that we would take a little longer trip and stay for two nights in Montego Bay at Sunset (and spend New Year’s Eve with our friends there) and then head to Negril for five nights before heading back to Sunset for another two nights prior to heading back to the states. Like I said I did tons of research, and I really thought I knew what I was getting myself in to. We were going to go to Miss Sonia’s one night, we were going to go to the Roundabout and get some groceries to stock the room with snacks, rum, Red Stripe, etc. We were going to spend a week on the fabulous beach.


What follows is what we like to refer to as the “Jamiaca Mis-stake-a.” After a fabulous New Year’s Eve at Sunset, followed by a chill-out New Year’s Day, we checked out of Sunset on January 2nd and prepared to head to Negril. As we were saying our goodbyes one of our friends pulled Melo aside and gave her a piece of paper. She said “Melo, this is my phone number, if you get over to Negril and don’t like it, call me and I will see what I can do about getting your room back here for the rest of your stay.” I thought to myself, are you kidding me….this is going to be the most epic trip ever!!!!


The drive to Negril was uneventful and our taxi driver dropped us off at our Negril Beach non-AI, fend for yourself hotel. I won’t mention the name of the hotel, but I will let you know it was near the Roundabout end of the beach and is pretty popular with folks on this board. We checked in (the lobby was beautiful). We were escorted to our room and immediately our outlook on this “Negril thing” changed. The view out the side of the hotel was awful, overlooking a run-down hotel that was situated next door. The bathroom door would not quite open all the way as the door would bang into the toilet when you tried to open it all the way. The furniture in the room looked very old (and I like antiques!!!) and the whole room had a vibe that said “I was nice 20 years ago but now I am a run-down old room now.” Unshaken by all of that, I said, “come on, we won’t be in the room that much anyway,” and we ventured out to the bar and the beach. “Two Red Stripe, Mon,” I quipped to the barkeep. “250 J,” he says opening two frosty ones and presenting them in front of us. OK….this is more like it. We are on the beach, a beach that extends as far as you can see in each direction, we have a cold bottle of Red Stripe in our hands (I always hated that AI draft Red Stripe stuff!!!). Come on honey, let’s walk up the beach and drink a few beers. So off we head. We probably take 10 steps and here they come!!! Farmer this, farmer that, “you need some smoke mon?”, “how bout some mushrooms?”, “some hash?” Wow this is different, I expected to be offered, but we couldn’t go ten steps without someone in our faces trying to sell us pot, hash, shrooms, etc. It’s like we were walking around with a big sign on our forehead that said “NEWBIE!!!” After a few minutes we decided to return to the hotel bar and drink in there for a while. After about an hour, we decided to head down to the roundabout to get some supplies and eat lunch at Juicy Js. OK grab a beer and off we do, walking out on the road. Whoa!!!! Fast cars everywhere, wizzing by, honking at us, stopping us offering us rides, pot, hash, shrooms, etc. Jesus Christ people we are just trying to walk downtown!!! After crossing the bridge and heading around the shopping center to Juicy Js a Jamaican quickly approached us, “You headed to Juicy J’s, come on mon, I will walk you there!!” “We don’t need an escort mon, we know where we are going,” I replied. Despite my constant declining, he walked us all the way to Juicy’s and took us in the front door and then proceeded to tell the waitress that he “brought” us to them (I assume he got some sort of “finders fee”). While the food was quite good, the place was dark, we were the only tourist in the place and when I looked across the table at Melo, I could tell she was about to burst out in tears. So I said, “well this isn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be.” She looked at me like, “well no ShXX Sherlock!!!” I told her, let’s just hang in, we’ll go get some rum and some beers and get back to the room, go to bed early, get up tomorrow and everything will be great. She said OK, but I could tell that this was going to be a much shorter stay in Negril than I thought.


After lunch we headed to the Valu-Master, bought 12 Red Stripes and a bottle of Appletons. We also got some plantain chips and some Ting and we found a couple of cups that we could use in the room to mix drinks in. OK…back to our hotel. As soon as we walked out of the store, we got attacked again, by guys wanting to give us taxi rides, sell us smoke, etc. We declined ALL offers and walked through the roundabout and up to the hotel. We spent a few minutes unpacking our supplies and Melo all of a sudden said, “I’m going to call Montego Bay and see if there are any rooms available at Sunset, just in case we don’t end up being able to handle this.” I said, “OK, always good to keep our options open.” I thought we were keeping our options open, but in the back of my mind I figured we would be back in Montego Bay in less than 24 hours. Ends up there was room for us and our friend said she would hold a room for us “just in case.”


After another trip down to the bar/beach, we came back to the room to get ready for dinner. I decided we would walk down to Miss Sonia’s and I thought it would be a quick walk, out to the road we go. It is dark, there are cars wizzing by in all directions, lots of honking, cars stopping to offer us rides, etc. After walking what I thought was plenty of time to get to Miss Sonia’s, a car pulled over and asked us where we were going. “Miss Sonia’s mon,” I proclaim. Driver said, “it’s down the beach a ways mon, get in, I will take you, 500J.” I thought, Ok, that is not too bad (route fare back then was 80J, but I knew I wasn’t brave enough for that yet), so we jumped in the car. After about what seemed like 30 seconds, the cab stopped, “Miss Sonia’s” the driver proclaimed, I thought “Wow, that was the shorted $7.00 taxi ride I have ever taken!!”


We sat down at Miss Sonia’s and had a meal, it wasn’t the greatest as they were out of most things that we wanted to order, so I was disappointed. All of the research that I did and the plans that I had made for this great Negril vacation were turning out to all go wrong. I was having a miserable time, and Melo, even though she wasn’t saying it would have left Negril that moment for the familiarity and the comfort of Montego Bay. Once we were back in the room, I mixed up a Rum and Ting and Melo was getting ready for bed. I piped up and said, “Confirm the room at Sunset, I will call our driver and you figure out how to get our money back for the room that we have paid for here (Melo has always been the negotiator in our family!!!).” She said, “Really, you want to go back to Montego Bay?” I simply said, “look, I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought this was going to be great, but we can’t walk 10 steps without being offered “stuff” and I can tell you are miserable, and it just isn’t worth it.” Needless to say, she was on the phone, quickly, confirmed the room and we got our driver and told him to pick us up tomorrow at 10am for the drive back to MoBay. (One more background post and then the October Trip Report, I promise)