I am famous for my long reviews… here is another one!

My husband and I left for Negril on November 10th, for 5 nights. The flight was from Buffalo with an hour-long connection in Baltimore. The flight was great and everything was on time, arriving ahead of our 2:00 p.m. schedule.

Customs in Montego Bay took a while. I think approx. 1 hour. However that was partly to do with the fact that we were seated so far back on the plane, so over a hundred people were ahead of us. But no worries, we were in paradise! We ended up buying 2 six-packs of Red Stripe at duty free for $6.00, with no tax. It ended up being a good deal and so much more convenient than having to stop at a grocery store on the way.

We booked Kingsley James to drive us to Negril. He was there waiting for us as planned. He drove a few kms to a store and bought us a couple nice, cold Red Stripes. They went down nicely as we enjoyed the scenery. Kingsley got us to our accommodations (Country Country) in just under 1.5 hours.

When we entered the Country Country office, Monique was there to greet us and gave me a big hug. We had corresponded a number of times and she was always fantastic! We were shown to our room (#511) and we immediately got ready for a walk on the beach. We bought a couple rum punches ($7 each at Country Country… yikes! That was the last time we bought drinks from their bar.) We walked towards the AI resorts and were so thankful that we did not go AI. It is so nice to have the freedom to eat where we want and to really get to know the wonderful people “working” the beach. My husband had a black “cast” on his arm so we got lots of attention and had some great conversations with people.

We watched a great sunset and took a few photos. Now back to our room to get ready for dinner. Our package included breakfast and dinner and I wasn’t sure if I would want to eat dinner there every night and we were prepared to skip a couple dinners. In the end we didn’t want to… more to come about food later.

The next morning we walked the other way, toward town. In fact we just kept on walking, stopping every 15 minutes or so for a dip in the ocean as it was incredibly hot and sunny. We walked into town and loved it there! I had read not to bother going there, but we loved it! There were lots of people to talk to and a great pharmacy and grocery store. My husband wanted ear buds so he got a set at the pharmacy. We continued walking all the way to Canoe and shared a Lionfish and Chips for lunch and a great Pina Colada or two. We then walked back to town and picked up some wine. They had a pretty good selection and pretty good prices. We love our wine and after the horrible glass of wine at dinner the night before, we knew we would need to buy some wine for the room. My husband also got some scotch for his after dinner drink. We stopped at a “duty free” store in town and also bought 3 small bottles of rum cream, rum and coco mania. We then grabbed a taxi back to Country Country for $2.40. That night we also walked past the AIs to the park. All together we did approx. 15km of walking, drinking Red Stripe and taking dips in the ocean.

After the first day, I can’t remember what we exactly did each day, so here is a summary of the trip.

Country Country Food: The breakfasts at Country Country are amazing!!!! I can’t say enough about them. The dinners were also amazing, with our favourite meal of the entire trip being the Curry Crusted Snapper in rum-infused coconut cream sauce. We both ordered this and it was unreal! Beat our dinner at Ivan’s hands-down! We had one lunch at Country Country and I ordered the jerk chicken club sandwich with side salad. It was so delicious! The dressing on the salad was great and I heard others talking about it. Give it a try!

Ivan’s Dinner: I booked us a table at Ivan’s almost 2 months before our trip as I wanted to make sure we got a great table. And we did!!!! We were all alone looking over the cliff with flowers on the table and 4 candles. Very romantic! The wine selection wasn’t bad so we had a bottle of bubbly while we enjoyed some crab cakes, then switched to red as we had our meal. I ordered the seafood pasta and it was very good although I know I could have made the same dish at home, so not special, but still delicious. My husband ordered Chicken Curry but it was a bit bland. He added some hot sauce and it helped a bit. Nothing special. We ordered the banana flambé for dessert and it was very large and delicious! Ivan’s was very busy the night we were there and most people had not reserved. In fact there was a group of 20 people who just showed up. Therefore, Ivan’s was not staffed appropriately and service was VERY slow. It took over an hour from when dinner ended until we got our bill (had dessert in between). Our waitress was fantastic and it was not her fault, but it was insane to have over 50 guests but staffed for 20. Again, it must be difficult for them to decide how many wait staff to schedule when people aren’t making reservations but unfortunately it really put a damper on our dinner.

One Love Bus Bar Crawl: I am not sure where to begin… haha! We started the crawl at the house of a Justice of the Peace and past President of the Kiwanis. She was lovely but it was a slow start to the afternoon. The other bars we stopped at were: No Limits, Sunset After Dark, Negril Escape, Seastar, Xtabi and 1 other bar I think. The people on our bus were mainly from Couples Swept Away, a few from Hedonism and a couple from Coco La Palm. By the end of the ride, there were some very drunk people, although nobody was obnoxious. It was a fun afternoon, which ended with people dancing to loud music as the bus dropped everyone off. Got to meet GregandKelly from the board, which was nice! I recommend it!

Niah’s Patties: Yum! We had to hunt Niah down and ask a number of people on the beach where to find him. It is slow season so his window was closed, but he told us he would make us something special if we came back in 30 minutes. So we went to Tony’s and had a beer (great place with a very friendly bartender) and the dip in the ocean that we seemed to need every 15 minutes or so. Niah made us vegetarian patties. We love meat so I wasn’t expecting much. YUM! It was basically cabbage and carrots but it was so great! And I don't even like cabbage. We then ordered a couple chicken for the next day. Not spicy enough for us, but still great. Not cheap either, but they are huge and so delicious.

Cheap Beer: Myrna’s store! Just a little further down the beach you will see Myrna’s. $140 JA for a very cold Red Stripe. Had drinks there a few times… and more dips in the ocean. On our last full day we hung there for a while and met some great people. Michael ran across the street for us and got us some jerk chicken. Very good!

The Jerk Pork Man: YUM! While we were at Myrna’s one day, a guy came by with a big pot of jerk pork. We decided to give it a try and it was awesome! We first tried the regular but it wasn’t spicy enough, so went hot and it was great! Lots of flavour. We are finding it to be a pattern that the food is not spicy enough for us. Not sure if they see us Canadians and think we can’t handle it so they tone it down? The Jamaica food in Toronto is much spicier than anything we had down in Jamaica (except the spicy jerk pork which was so great! Did I mention that?!?!)

Other: We decided to head down the beach after dinner on our final night, to listen to some jazz/blues/reggae at Charela’s. It was a very nice setting and the singer was very good. My husband felt it was a bit slow and boring but I enjoyed it. People were letting Chinese lanterns go on the beach and it was nice to sit and have a drink, staring at the ocean and the almost full moon while listening to live music.

Last Day: One last walk down the beach to Cosmo’s. We bought some jerk chicken to eat in our room as we packed up. Finished off the last 2 Red Stripes and got ready for our 12:00 pick-up. I had to have one last float in the ocean and say bye to a few people that we met.

Flight home was good and now back to reality. Thanks to everyone who helped us with advise before we left. Thanks Melody, I hope you enjoy your trip!