We have just returned from the most amazing two weeks away. The weather was hot, food was nice, unlimited cocktails all day and you can't go wrong with Caribbean beaches! Not to mention the people both inside and outside the resort were lovely!
We flew on 1st June from London Stansted to Montego Bay and then got our hotel transfer over to Riu Ocho Rios. We always say the holiday starts from the moment you get to the airport so decided to upgrade to premium club. We got to skip the queue at the check in desk, skip past the massive security queue via fast track (with out this it looked as though we would have easily been queuing to get through security for a couple of hours) and have access to the Escape lounge where we had a sausage bap and prosecco for breakfast. Once the gates were open, we had priority boarding where we could chill on the plane with a snack and a glass of both sparking wine and orange juice whilst the rest of the plane boarded. We had much more leg room than economy and had a surprisingly enjoyable 3 course meal for dinner (you even get metal cutlery, glass cups and a mug for your tea).
The hotel was the biggest in Ocho Rios - I'd never stayed at anywhere like it before! The rooms were nice (a little dated but done the job) with a free minibar and optics, air conditioning, fan, balcony - all the usual. There were 2 pools we could use, one which was where the entertainment team played games and music and the other one had an infinity pool and was much more relaxed. There was a lot of choice for food with the main buffet for breakfast in the morning, 2 buffet areas, an Italian and jerk chicken on the beach for lunch and the choice of a steakhouse, Chinese, Italian, buffet or a la carte restaurant for dinner. The jerk chicken is a must try (I hate spicy food but the chicken itself isn't spicy, it all depends what sauce you put on it - the sweet BBQ sauce was tasty). I also loved the corn on the cob out there as it was very sweet.
On our first evening we went to the steakhouse for dinner. We were sat overlooking the beach and the view was beautiful. I had a filet steak which was cooked perfectly with a jacket potato and veg and Lee enjoyed his mixed grill! We were pretty knackered from the flight so went straight to bed after dinner ready for a full day at the pool in the morning.
On our first day around the pool we made friends with two other couples who we ended up spending the rest of the holiday with. We would meet down the pool in the morning, go to lunch and dinner together and even went on excursions together. It made our holiday really fun!
Top tip - we saved an absolute fortune on excursions by hiring a private cab driver for the day to take us to them and then paying entrance fees once we got there and not going with Thomson. For example - for Bob Marley's nine miles tour and Dunns river falls Thomson wanted over $100 each per excursion but the taxi driver was $150 to hire for the day (split with the other couple this cost us $75) and we paid $25 each entrance fee at both excursions, so all in all our whole day came to $175 instead of over $400.
Nine mile was brilliant. Our guide was so high he kept laughing after every sentence which made us all chuckle. It was very interesting seeing where Bob Marley lived with his family growing up and also seeing his tombstone. What made this excursion good was the fact you had to drive through security gates to get inside and all of the local sellers were kept outside so that they didn't bombard you.
After we came out of Bob Marley we drove down to Dunn's river falls - experiencing the new Highway (which no one really uses in Jamaica as it costs too much money). This excursion was superb! You climb up a 55 meter high waterfall. We chose not to go with the guide as it looked as though you'd get stuck behind a load of people who may have been slower than us and we wanted to climb more daring points and get some nice photos without loads of people in the background. There's a section where you can slide down the water fall and lots of opportunities to climb up gushing water! (I have uploaded a couple of videos if you wanted to see).
My favorite excursion of the holiday (happened to be the cheapest as well) was the Blue hole. I would recommend this trip to anybody visiting Jamaica. It is not massively known to tourists so it is a lot quieter and you get longer to stay in the water and can do as many jumps as you wish. It cost $10 per person for your guide to take you to the safe spots for jumping in the water plus the cost of the taxi. There were so many different jumps to try, each with varying heights, and also rope swings (although my upper body strength was rather pathetic when it came to holding onto the rope). The water temperature was 'refreshing' but it wasn't unbearable especially in the 32 degree heat! You will need to be able to swim to do this excursion (even if you have a life jacket on) as you have the swim against a waterfall to get to the rocks beside it to climb up for some of the jumps. If you are not strong enough to make the swim, you can skip this section and just do the other half of the excursion.
We took an evening trip to the Luminous lagoon. During the day the micro-organisms store up the sunlight, and when disturbed at night they glow creating a glistening blue light which is really cool to see. The water has a very soft and squishy silk mud at the bottom and is only about 4 foot deep. It's better to use the life jacket to float and not stand in the mud as the mud makes the water murky and makes the glow not as strong. The water is warm in parts and then you can swim into some cold parts but its not freezing. I would also say to take your towel onto the boat with you for the journey back. We took the go pro with us but due to the darkness and lack of flash we were unable to get any photos of the glow and we didn't take our phones so missed out, although I have a photo from the official website to show you what it looks like.
Tip - if you decide to go on this trip, wear dark coloured swim wear as the mud will stain your swimwear. (I wore a white bikini - big mistake!)
![Photo Credit - http://www.glisteningwaters.com/gallery.html#prettyPhoto[gallery2]/2/](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/b3f981_0fe486ffb8b545faacf614b00386505b~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_741,h_543,al_c,q_85,enc_auto/b3f981_0fe486ffb8b545faacf614b00386505b~mv2.jpg)
The final excursion we done was mystic mountain. This was very expensive at $137 per person to get in plus a taxi fee and it definitely wasn't worth that much money. You get a cable car ride up the mountains which lasts about 15 minutes and you do get a pretty spectacular view (this is the only way up the mountain so you have to pay for this part of the excursion). Once we reached the top of the mountain we went on the bobsled ride which was really fun (it just didn't last long - about 2 minutes going fast and 3 minutes being pulled back up the hill). We hired a locker to keep our stuff in as we didn't realise you could take your stuff in the bobsled with you - so we wasted $5 but it wasn't the end of the world. They also have an infinity pool with a water slide up the top but it was closed for maintenance when we went. After the bobsled we done the zip lining. If you have done zip lining before I wouldn't bother - there were 4 very small, short zips and one slightly longer zip line but you don't get to go very fast unlike the one we done in Cancun. It was very poorly organised as you had to wait before you started to get kitted up in groups (which took about an hour) and then once ready your instructors took the groups down to the zip lines where one goes first to catch you at the other end and the other clips you on before you go. Once you got to the bottom of the line you had to wait for everyone else to come down in the group before you could move onto the next one whereas when we done it before they had people standing at each post so you could just go in your own time and not have to spend loads of time waiting around.
The Jamaican beaches are so pretty - white sand, clear sea. At the hotel we had a private beach you could use so you didn't have loads of sellers bugging you when you were trying to relax (I'm not a mad lover of sand, especially when it gets stuck to your skin when you are wet so didn't spend too much time actually on the beach, but it was nice to admire from afar). We also had free use of pedalos, paddle boards and kayaks so thought it would be fun to go out on a pedalo one afternoon (until we realised how much hard work it is to keep peddling one so the current doesn't take you away).
I could not recommend Riu Ocho Rios enough! The hotel was perfect and the entertainment team made the holiday, especially Sheldon, Bird Man, Squidward, Bruno Mars, Kelly, Jamie and Spice - they were fantastic. We always had something to do, from playing darts round the pool in the day, aqua aerobics, pool games, music round the pool, a casino in the lobby one evening, a weekly beach party and a show every night. Whilst we were there we had a reggae band one evening which was chilled and loads of different themed dance shows including a Michael Jackson tribute one evening which was outstanding! The hotel even provided a mojito bar a few days a week whilst we stayed - I'd definitely recommend the citrus mojito (although a little dangerous as you couldn't taste the massive amount of rum they put in your drink).
I would love to go back to Jamaica one day - the only thing I would say is you have to be open to the smell of cannabis as it has been decriminalised out there so you do find people smoking it all day long and you can smell it, but if that doesn't bother you - definitely give Jamaica a try!