Day Seven (Tuesday) – Negril
Well I finally slept in…must be in Party land aka Negril :). When I finally got up and walked out to the beach, I couldn’t believe it. The storm that was so fascinating to watch last night is gone but there is tons and tons of seaweed on the beach! This will not be a beach day, I don’t think…but I see some activity further up that suggests cleanup is under way.
We (there are 10 of us now) decide to walk up the road and visit old friends at Jah B’s. I’d actually never eaten there before but many in our group spent time there last year and I was game. "John Wayne" greeted us enthusiastically and set us up for breakfast as only he can. We had a great meal and took a walk back by the cottages there. Very nice, and if you walk all the way back, there is an amazing view of the morass and mountains that I could definitely get used to waking up to.
We decided to head over to Fun Holiday, where many in the group stayed last year. Wow, what a change. There’s now a new and bigger restaurant, a huge pool, a Jacuzzi, a swim-up bar and a whole other block of rooms. We all wished that had been there last year when the 300 of us were there…the Jacuzzi holds 15 easy. We decided to hang out here for a while, as the beach was already pretty clean here. I guess the seaweed washes DOWN the beach so the upper parts were already in pretty good shape. We enjoyed seeing Marlene behind the bar; she took great care of us last year, and Steve and everyone.
P and I had kept the car an extra day but it was time to return it now. This made us a little nervous as we had the tire thing to deal with. We found Vernon’s (in Valuemaster Plaza but all the way around back and upstairs) and did our paperwork. We showed them the tire and receipt for the new one we’d bought in Port Antonio and they actually gave us back the $ we’d spent on it! We were very happy with Vernon’s and said we’d be back for another car in 6 days when we were to leave Negril and head to Treasure Beach.
We spent a day just catching up with friends and hanging out at the villa and beach bar. That night we walked up to the Boat Bar to see Spencer. The food there is still excellent, as are the vibe, company and prices. I think I had fish but everyone was happy with their dinner. The Boat Bar got a little redo (all good…just nicer and bigger) but they still have the swings that my daughter loved so much.
Day Eight, Wednesday (Negril)
The Negril part of our trip is a bit of a blur. Due to the social occasion this part of the trip was, I took very few notes. I’ve written trip reports on Negril before and frankly, not much has changed. I had zero hassle from anyone this time…don’t know if they know me now or I have an attitude or people are just mellow, but even if someone called me over to look at whatever they were selling, they never got up from their chair to follow…I just waved them off if not interested and that was that.
We ate at Selina’s for breakfast…that was nice, the Overtakers (reggae hand-instruments band) played for us and we caught up with Selina and things that were going on.
Our friends had met a couple on their flight that were on their first JA trip and staying at Samsara. The couple came by our place a few times to hang out and told us that tonight at Samsara had a $10 dinner with unlimited rum punch…so we went up to meet them there. It was a good meal and we had a lot of fun. I’m not a huge drinker and rum punch goes right to my head so I had a short albeit fun night…we wound up at 3 Dives after dinner for awhile and ended the night there.
Day Nine, Thursday (Negril)
My notes say "Hung over. Sleep. Beach.". Nuff said, I think.
