Matthew F. Carr

We chose Dunn’s River Falls, which is located on the outskirts of Ocho Rios. Getting off of the ship was not fun at all. There were two doors to leave from and 3000+ people heading for them is not an ideal situation. It took about 35 minutes of waiting before we actually started moving in line then another 20 minutes to get off the tender. There will be plenty of people standing at the port to direct you to the appropriate shore excursion so that went fine.

Expect to be funneled through some shopping right at every port. We got loaded onto a bus with about 20 people total to venture out to Dunn’s. First of all, everything you have heard about Jamaican drivers is 110% true! If you don’t trust your husband or wife to drive a car then you don’t want to drive with a Jamaican guy for more than 15 minutes. Jamaican roads as well as the drivers are insane (most respectfully, of course) and from Montego Bay, Ocho Rios is about 2 hours (Negril is 1.75 hours).

We did very much enjoy the Falls since it was fun and challenging at the same time although the drive was sort of frustrating because we felt like we wasted a lot of time driving instead of actually doing things in Jamaica. The tour guides are very informative though and it was nice to at least have that. We stopped for Jerk Chicken and some Red Stripe Beer on the way back from the falls, which was nice.

Further on the way home, we stopped for 30 minutes to do some shopping. The prices in Jamaica are marked up to factor in people haggling so haggle even more. The locals will be pushy but be firm yet polite when saying no. I saw several stores selling fake Cuban cigars so be on the look out. A good, but not fool proof method I use is to only buy a couple of good brands and keep it in the back of your mind that Cubans are almost never in plastic wrappers, always metal, glass, or just wrapped in a wooden sheath.

I recommend that you do your shopping in Mexico (unless you are looking for something authentic Jamaican) as the prices are very good and the quality of merchandise seemed to be better than Jamaica. Grand Cayman is expensive even for Duty Free stuff so don’t bank on finding good shopping there. I have a friend that job transferred there and this was also his recommendation.

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