A week at Beaches Ocho Rios

At the risk of sounding monotonous, Dunns River Falls is definitely a MUST do. It was the best part of our vacation. Shopping was fun and halfway entertaining -- stick to the touristy shopping in the Taj Mahal, etc. Their Jerk Chicken is yummy -- the Jerk sauce is VERY spicy, so just try a little when you try it for the first time.

Quick Tips:

DO NOT accept weed/hash/etc. from anyone. It is illegal. It is up to you if you want to have your hair braided, but you might want to stick to someone in the resort. Don't bother changing US Dollars into Jamaican dollars.

Outlets are 110V. Everyone speaks English. Things are actually pretty expensive in Jamaica. Gas is (Jamaican) per liter, which is roughly US.40 per gallon. Tours are pretty pricy.

When you go shopping, you can haggle with just about anyone. Be careful of the salesmen -- they may tell you a different price than they told the person before you!

If there is something you want to do specifically and you know ahead of time, CALL AHEAD and make sure you don't need doctor's releases (i.e. for scuba), and that your activity will be available and feasible. For instance, I looked into a clay sculpting class two days before I left the island and found out that the pottery takes four days to dry!

MOST importantly, visit the Beaches website for LOTS of information about the resort. You can even download the medical release form for scuba diving.

Best Way To Get Around:

DO NOT rent a car if you are used to driving on the right side -- they drive on the left. Best way to get around, especially at a resort, is to take a bus. The resort will also help you call a legitimate taxi service, but DO NOT accept a taxi ride from just anybody off the street.

Expect a two-hour bus ride from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios, NOT 45 minutes as some guide may try to lead you to believe! The roads are under construction and can be pretty bumpy in the gravel areas.

Best Things Nearby:
Sandals beach (you are allowed to use other Sandals/Beaches resort amenities). We found out that water skiing is only available at Sandals Dunns River. There are numerous off-site excursions available through the tour desk. We highly recommend the party boat cruise to Dunn's River Falls!

Best Things About the Resort:
Orchid's restaurant provided fantastic food. The buffet at the Marketplace provided sufficient variety to appease just about everyone. Each villa (of four units) had a semi-private (although very small) four ft. pool. The landscaping was very well-kept and beautiful.

Beaches Grande Sport was recently bought by the Sandals chain and was previously known as Club Ortanique.

The staff was very friendly. You also never had to carry money (you can even charge gift shop items to your room).

Resort Experience:
Be sure to visit the Beaches.com web site for LOTS of information about this resort. The photo used in the RCI resort directory is a photo of the studio unit.

This resort has a lot of very nice features and also a lot of disappointments. This is now part of the Beaches ultra-inclusive resort chain, which means all your food, drinks, watersports, and even tips are included. There is a buffet and three sit-down restaurants, plus a pool grill and swim-up bar at both the beach pool and the Great House pool. Unfortunately the quality was inconsistent . . . one restaurant (Orchid's) was exquisite while another (Manor) was a major disappointment, and the others were average or above average. The service was attentive at times, but just as often was excrutiatingly slow.

The resort includes all sorts of activities such as tennis, aerobics, mountain biking, volleyball, sailing, a rock climing wall, and much more. Or you can be lazy and lounge on the beach all day like we did.

The entertainment was disappointing for an all-inclusive resort. We felt like they were trying to sell us even more things with their "fashion show" on Friday ("you can get everything here at our gift shop!") and the tour desk person, Dexter, who kept trying to "hook you up" and convince you to buy more tours. They have an in-house band that was pretty good, but it was a bit too much to see them every night. The best show was the high-energy steel drum band who came out for Caribbean night (Friday). We had to sit through an hour of the "fashion show" before we got the good stuff!

The resort layout itself is also a mix of pros and cons. Timeshare accommodations are in the villas, built on the side of a mountain with little or no view Each villa (normally four units) has its own small pool, but on the negative side it is quite a hike to get to the villas. The resort has carts to shuttle people up and down the hill, and you can call for a pick-up but we typically walked down from our room and rode back up. The rooms are Caribbean-style "open air" design, with only wooden shutters to close the windows, making for inefficient air conditioning.

The resort has a private beach, located about a half mile down the hill. A shuttle bus runs regularly and was only a minor inconvenience. However, combined with the overall resort layout, it could easily take 20-30 minutes from leaving your villa until arriving at the beach.

Because this is a Beaches resort, a majority of the guests are not timeshare owners and guests arrive and depart daily. A majority of guests during our stay (mid-July) were couples in their early 20's, lots of honeymooners and on-site weddings taking place almost every day. There was a much smaller number of older couples and families with high-school age children.

• Unit Type: Studio
• Activities: Good
• Amenities: Very Good
• Unit Satisfaction: Fair
• Family Friendliness: Not Available
• Service: Excellent

The beach itself had rocky, hard sand and, as you entered the azure blue ocean, there were more rocks. I would recommend using water socks or sandals to walk around. There were guides to help you use the catamarans and snorkeling was available. The beach chairs were made of hard plastic, so people hoarded the yellow pool floats for some cushioning. The pool water was almost hot from the direct sunlight. Be sure to wear lots of sunscreen!

Almost all of the shops offered T-shirts, rum, souvenirs, cigars, and Jamaican coffee. The merchants are like auto salesmen -- they REALLY want you to buy something, but they are not mean about it.

The shop we were recommended by Beaches is called Payless and we did find that they had the best prices (although it was probably still possible to haggle a bit). It's located on the top floor of the strip mall.

We took the Dunns River Cruise on the Cool Jazz catamaran from Beaches Grande Sport, Ocho Rios and enjoyed the Red Stripe Beer, rum punch, fruit punch, and water as we headed out to Dunns River Falls. The cruise included snorkeling, and they provided the gear and basic lessons for those who had never snorkeled before. At $55 per person (including $10 for park admission), it was a bargain and the highlight of our vacation.

Once we docked at Dunns River Falls, the crew hooked us up with a guide -- there were only six of us to be taken up the Falls. We held hands (the guide insisted on boy-girl-boy-girl) to help each other up on difficult climbs but did not feel forced to hold hands if we didn't want to. We also stopped in sections of the Falls for our guide to take pictures of us with our waterproof cameras. It was a long climb (estimate an hour), but our guide sped us past some other lines (almost to the point that we were out of breath). Once we got to the top of the first falls, we had to duck under a bridge and we thought we were done. Little did we know that there was ANOTHER one to climb!

We had been warned that we would get soaked, and we did! Boy, was it refreshing! Be sure to bring your water shoes (you can get them cheap and in your size at Walmart), waterproof camera, and something to put your money in (fanny pack that you won't mind if it gets soaked) so you can tip your guide.

Although Dunns River Falls has become such a heavy tourist attraction (there were MANY people there), I would still HIGHLY recommend doing it.

Our boat trip back was entertaining -- they taught us some reggae dance moves so we would enter our port dancing. Some people also climbed onto the mesh area of the catamaran and got quite soaked after a couple of dips in the waves.

One of the crew members video taped the whole thing (the climb and the boat ride) and was selling copies for $30.

Great excursion and would do it again if given the opportunity.