Just Thinkin' of Home

[Shonda518]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

Day 3

Starts off the same, I’m always the first one up, so I head out to the patio to catch my first glimpse of the sun, wake the ladies, and head to breakfast. Over breakfast we decided to do the Sunset Catamaran cruise to Ricks. We finish breakfast and head to beach to soak up some sun. After a while, I walk down Wild Things office and sign us up. When I came back, I stopped by For Real bar and grabbed a red stripe-ahhhh- Ice Cold and refreshing. We then go parasailing. I love parasailing its sooo relaxing, and you get such a wonderful view of the coast. Once done with that, you guessed it, back to lie out on the beach! LOL. As we were people watching, guess who I see…The Pattie Man!!! (I was happy to finally try em’ as I have been reading they are a must do and must have) Grabbed some patties and coco bread, Fantastic! Flaky, well seasoned and the coco bread was awesome too. Even though Jazzy said it was just “seasoned hamburger helper” –gotta love an immature palate of a 20yr old. LOL… After chillin’ out for a while, we walk down the beach to catch the sunset cruise to Ricks. On board they have an open bar, and they feed you pizza. It was a very nice and smooth ride over to Ricks. Once at Ricks, if you wanted to “Jump” or just get over there for a visit, you have to get off the Catamaran and swim over. They give you little floatie thingy to tie around your body which is a good thing because the current is pretty strong over by the cliffs. Once at Ricks we roam around for a while and Of course we go over and jump, but only from the 1st level. At least I can say been there done that! After jumping, we needed a drink, but we definitely were not going to pay Ricks prices, so we swim back over to the catamaran, drank lots of Vodka Tings, and watched people jump until it was time to go. By the way, the sunset was beautiful. OK, back to the room get showered, ready to go eat, but wait…Theresa is a lil’ tipsy (too many vodka tings) she lays on the bed and lights out , she’s a goner’! Well, we tuck her in and head across the street to Best in the West. Hmm Hmm Hmm. Now that’s the Jerk I’ve been missin’. Right amount of spice and it was soo juicy. After we finished, we went back to the room to check on T. She’s out like a light. Jazzy stays with her the rest of the night, and me and LaShunda head to the Negril Summer Heat concert. Yep, found out that Movado and Bounty Killa were performing. Now THAT was an experience, until the police pulled the plug at about 1:30 promptly. No warning, no announcement, no nothing. The music just stopped, performers left the stage and we had to exit. No Problem though, our taxi driver was not far away (coincidentally, he was attending the concert too-lol) and he made sure we safely got back to the hotel

[Shonda518]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

day 4Day 4- Part 1 -Bye Coco

Today is a sad day. We leave Coco La Palm to check into Merrils II. I get up, didn’t even step out on the patio-too bummed out. I pack my bags, wake the ladies up and tell them I’m going to go to breakfast. I wanted a moment to myself to absorb some of the wonderful memories that were created from my stay at Coco La Palm. Great staff, AWESOME security, and lovely grounds. I grabbed a table and ordered toast and coffee. Soon after, the girls joined me. Once done, we walked the beach a bit, and come back to our beach and just relaxed. Why do I love Coco so much? Well, the staff is great, friendly, courteous and always there if you need anything. From the guys who run the water activities to the ladies at the front desk(Hi Misha) and the to the Assistant Manager Derrick who always made sure we were always taken care of. Another key factor for me was their security. I love the fact that you can people watch or purchase things from the vendors and security makes sure you are not harassed or “bothered”-for lack of a better term by anyone. I really don’t know how to explain it but you just felt safe at Coco. That was extremely important since my niece was with us, and even though she is 20yrs old, she is only 4’9 and she looks 12yrs and I still feel the need to protect her (I’m still in Mommy-mode even though I left my kids at home). Even at night, I would take a walk by the beach to do some star gazing and security was ALWAYS present. No matter if it was 9pm or 2am, they were there and always asked if everything was alright. Okay, so with all that said, I’m going to miss Coco La Palm, and hope Merrils II can live up to it!

[Shonda518]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

Day 4 part 2

A bit long.....

Arrive at Merrils II. Went to the front desk and they did not have a reservation for one of our rooms. No problem. Since it was only 12:30pm, told us check back around 2pm and our room should be ready. In the mean time, gave us our wrist bands (All Inclusive) so that we could explore property and enjoy the bar and have lunch. We head to T.’s room and drop all of our bags-since my room was not ready. Once we got to her room, we noticed it was dark, and gloomy. It was clean, but just kinda blah. Anyway time to explore the grounds. While walking towards the beach/restaurant, we noticed that the property lay out seems a bit “tight”. We see some people working on the grounds and some housekeepers, we speak and they barely say hello-it was like pulling teeth- Ok, maybe they’re having a bad day or in a bad mood. We’re all human, it’s cool. Just not what I was use to. As we approach the kiddie pool, oops I mean the main pool, we noticed that it seems to be a little on the murky side-not very clean looking. There was a man on a float and I kid you not- he and his float took up half the pool. He was not a large man, it’s just that the pool was small. At this point, we are just ready for lunch, we go to the restaurant and it is a very small tight area. At the buffet they had maybe 4 lunch selections- I will not lie, the best part of being at Merrils so far was the brown stew chicken I ate that was pretty damn good!. Anyway, after lunch, we grab a drink, and head to the beach. Here is where my major concern was. We get to beach and grab seat to just get a feel for the hotel. We noticed the beach was pretty bare, not much people watching, no security around (even thought they said they had security), and not a large beach area seemed pretty small. As we sat there for a while, this guy walks buy and just stops in front of us and just stares at us for about 5-10 minutes. This really annoyed the hell out of me. I told him we did not want anything and we were OK. He did not move, just kept staring. Ladies, that’s when that “creepy guy feeling” went through my bones,. I had to get out of vacation mode, and put my “Chicago city girl” hat on. I finally stood up, and told him (with much attitude) that it would best if he would keep it moving, and that I did not appreciate him being disrespectful when we already asked him to leave. This time, I was staring at him square in the face, with hands on hips. He just nodded and left. [censored]? We all just looked at each other like, .Really… Is this what we have to deal with for the next 4 days? From there, all of us just kinda had this gloomy mood going, we were so bummed about not deciding to stay the whole time at Coco La Palm. Now don’t get me wrong, Merrils II is NOT a bad resort, it just did not have the same vibe, and maybe if we had stayed there FIRST and then Coco, things would have been different. It’s just that TO ME, they had big shoes to fill- just my opinion. After some sulking, and a little pouting (lol) T. and Jazzy go back to the room. Me and LaShunda decide to walk the beach a bit to figure out what to do from here. After maybe a 5 minute discussion, we head back to the room. We had 2 choices. Stick it out, be unhappy and regret the decision to stay there, or cut our losses and head back to Coco La Palm where we KNOW we will enjoy the rest of our stay. Without hesitation, we grab our bags, back to the front desk, check out and call a cab, and back to Coco we go!

We are not prudish, nor do we have money to burn. I just feel like we are on vacation and I work too hard on a day to day basis not to enjoy myself. I do not want to have any regrets. The loss we took a Merrils II, was money that was spent months ago. Theoretically, we didn’t miss it, and yes we did have to pay for the extra nights at Coco, but we just cut out an excursion-problem solved.

Arrive back at Coco, and Misha (Front desk) asked us why we were back, and what happened. We explained and she said it was no problem and glad that we came back. Even upgraded us to an ocean view room(at no charge) Just love her, she affectionately told us we were all just too spoiled, and I said yep, it’s her and all the great staff’s fault. After a few laughs, we head to the room, change and back to beach. We sit out for awhile then go back get showered and changed. Once we were ready for dinner, we headed to Sweet spice. Now that is some of the best fried chicken that I’ve had in a long time! Good food. After dinner we head back to the hotel, it was such a long day we get back in suites for late night dip in the pool. Grabbed a few dinks from the bar, in the pool we go. After awhile we call it a night

[Shonda518]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

Day 5

Routine back in place, step out on patio, wake the ladies, and head to breakfast. After breakfast, absorb some sun for a while and wait for the guys who run Coco’s water sports to get in. Today we plan the glass bottom boat ride/snorkel/booby cay island outing.
We go out to snorkel first. We see the reef, the cannon and anchor, I also saw rather large jelly fish- I Made sure to stay away from and keep my eye on. Also some really small jellies. Our guide picked it up and said that particular jelly was not poisonous, and handed it to me, it felt warm and slithery. He also grabbed a sea urchin, a star fish and a sea cucumber for us to hold. Lots of fun. Afterward we went to Booby Cay, which was cool too. Not a lot to see, but we got a chance to pick our own fresh lobster or fish, and they cook it right there for you. Cool experience. After leaving there, headed back to the resort. Not a very eventful day, just chilled. Later on we grabbed a patty, coco bread, and a red stripe from For real bar, Chilled some more. Back to the room showered, for dinner went across the street to Best in the West. After ward, went to Bourbon Beach for a bit,listened to the band for a while and called it a night

[Shonda518]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

Day 6

Today we did the YS Falls/Black River tour. The ride was a very nice and scenic ride along the mountains. We went to the Black River first and saw about 3 crocodiles, very relaxing boat ride-damn near boring. After ward we went to lunch and then headed to YSFalls. The Falls were gorgeous, the water was cold, but it was a lot of fun. We jumped off the ropes into water, and zip-lined. We would have gone river tubing, but they said the water was too low. There were tons of horses and cows on the grounds. Once we left the falls, our driver stopped along the road where there were tons of vendors selling fish (don’t remember the name of the area) All we had to do was open the door, and it seemed liked every last one of them swarmed the van. We did end up getting a plate of pan-fried snapper with some sort of sour dough type bread, and we HAD to eat it with the bread, cuz I think they cooked the fish with them scotch bonnet peppers! LOL It was fabulous. We finally arrived back at the hotel around 6pm, Just in time for the 2 for one special-I luvs me some drink specials!lol.. After that we just cooled out at the bar, then by the beach, then pool side once night fell. We pretty much just re capped our whole trip as tonight was our final night

[Shonda518]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

Day 7-

Not a chance to do much today- All of us are in a doom n gloom mood. We wake early, lie out in the sun and frolic in the ocean one last time. After ward we go back to the room, and get our bags ready. We confirm that our ride will be here at noon to carry us to Mobay. We hurry and get a taxi so that we can do some last minute souvenir shopping. Once done, we stop and get patties from juicy patties, and prepare for our ride to the airport.

I will say this, I LOVE NEGRIL, and I will be back. I don’t know if I can compare the vibe, the people, the whole I dunno to anywhere else I’ve been or read about. I enjoy Jamaica so much, that it really does feel like “Home” and I look forward to coming back. Hope my report wasn’t too blah.. LOL

[Laurel]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

I know I read it over there ... but - fun to breeze thru it again.

glad you had a great time -

fun sharing -

[Bizzy]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

Ahhhhhh, YS Falls

[Seveen]

Re: Just Thinkin' of Home

hey honey - the reread was just as good as the first time pi never get tired of trip reports

glad you found us