Reflection on Jamaica

If I never visit Jamaica again, I’d be ok with that.  I’m not one to go to the same place over and over again.  There are only a few places I like to visit again and again namely London and Vegas. The water was beautiful and the climate was nice.

Hagglers and Ganja

I was warned about this but it really didn’t prepare me for the vast annoyance. The ganja (marijuana) was always in the air and the hagglers on the beach were very annoying.  By the seventh day I was so pissed off at being constantly harassed to buy drugs, get my hair braided and the other various things that I just got plan old rude with them. I even flipped off the one guy. It is very annoying to walk down the beach to a restaurant that was less than 100 yards away and being approached to buy drugs 4 times. Seriously!  I was standing inside the resort fence, watching the waves crash on the beach and some guy was harassing me to by ganja.  I told him over and over no but he wouldn’t leave me alone. I was so upset I had to leave the beach area. I couldn’t even enjoy the crashing waves. Everybody was smoking ganja, we couldn’t escape it.  We went on a sunset cruise and the other 7 people on the tour and the boat captain were smoking it. You can’t escape it when you are trapped on a boat with them.

Service and Food

I will never complain about slow service again. Nothing will be as slow a Jamaica.  They have this thing called Jamaican time.  It is annoying, especially for me.  You have to plan ahead for your meals and go when you aren’t hungry because by the time you get the food you will be starving. If you wait until you are hungry it is too late. A cheeseburger…a simple cheeseburger…took over an hour.  Yes AN HOUR! ARGH!  The only meal that we got fast was our breakfast but seriously how long does it take to toast bread?  As far as the food I concerned there was some really good food and some terrible food. Mostly it was terrible. Breakfast every morning was great, fresh fruit, toast and some sort of pastry.  One day we ordered pancakes/French toast and that was even delicious (but took over 30 minutes to get). The cheeseburger mentioned above was terrible…it tasted like a slice of meatloaf with cheese on top. It was gross. Thankfully the fries were good.  I had a jerk chicken Caesar wrap…it was disgusting. I couldn’t eat it. We ate Jerk Chicken many times.  The most delicious was at the jungle river tubing place. It was a chicken breast (which is unusual, it usually was dark meat) and it was juicy and wonderful.  I think that Jerk Chicken was my favorite meal, unfortunately Eric and I shared it. My favorite thing in the world was the various juices I drank.  I didn’t realize I love pineapple juice. Also there were these blended juices called Tropical Rhythms. My favorites were Fruit Punch, Mango Carrot and the Reggae Blend (Banana, pineapple, papaya, guava and passion fruit). 

Hotel and Staff

The hotel was adequate.  Our room had a view of the water so that was nice. The room was clean and the AC worked (very important for me, I hate being hot). The Wi-Fi didn’t work in the room so we had to go by the pool every time we wanted to use the internet…and it cost us $90 for the week. ROBBERY! The toilet didn’t like to flush and shower had hot water but no pressure. The last day before we left for the airport we couldn’t even use the shower! The bed was comfy and the TV had all of our favorite channels and some new channels. The pool area was nice and there was a friendly family of cats that were all over. They were so cute and some were friendly. The staff of the place was great, very helpful. I would stay there again because it was nice considering the price.

Overall
Overall I had a great vacation.  There were some things like the ganja that made it unbearable at times. But I have been there and I’ve done that. Next time I’m going to try another island.