An Unsuccessful Trip to Jamaica
En route to Jamaica from the US
Sometimes trips to a foreign country do not always go as planned. If I am being totally honest, I have been extremely lucky in the sense that a vast majority of my trips all over the world have been without any significant issues or problems. However, even though I do as much preparation as possible to make sure no unpleasant surprises occur, sometimes they do happen. This was unfortunately the case when I went to Jamaica.
It literally seemed that the problems that I rarely if ever experienced on travels all decided to happen during this trip. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. While I know there are many people who enjoy Jamaica and love going there for holiday, it just did not work out for me this time. I partly attribute this lackluster trip to maybe the time of year that I went since tourist season had just ended along with just genuine bad luck.
Shortly before I was scheduled to go back to my home in the Middle East, I wanted to do one more trip. Typically, when I am back in the US, I usually travel to countries that are in the same general geographic location (i.e. Central and South America and the Caribbean). Even though I had previously been to all of Central America and almost all of South America with the exception of Venezuela, I decided to explore more of the Caribbean since not much of that had been explored. After going back and forth on whether to stay in Kingston or Montego Bay, I opted to visit Montego Bay. By all accounts, I figured that Jamaica would be a pretty easy place to visit, so there should have been no significant problems that I could not handle.
My first issue arose before I left the country. I had booked a hotel that said very specifically that they provide free transportation from the airport. Once the flight and hotel were booked, I contacted the hotel to schedule a pickup only to be told that the transportation service was no longer available. This was strange since the hotel's website said very clearly it was available, and it even gave a current schedule for that month. I raised this issue with the hotel, and then they had no problem scheduling the transportation.
That seemed to be a simple misunderstanding, and I did not think much of it. The flight to Jamaica from the US was easy and actually playful since the cabin crew were very chatty with passengers. One of the flight attendants even gave me and the person sitting next to me small bottles of liquor for free (I don't drink anymore, but I accepted them nonetheless). Immigration at Sangster International Airport was somewhat slow, but that was not an issue. Once I got out of the airport terminal, I was told that the transportation would be waiting for me, but it was not. Ultimately, I was waiting for almost an hour and was about to take a taxi until the car showed up at the last minute. When I got to the hotel and brought up the lateness, the hotel said they had been trying to reach me but could not. Since I had been having trouble getting my eSim to work, this did not surprise me, so I did not let it bother me.
The hotel itself was fine and comfortable, but it had a problem with bees. For a couple nights, I kept finding bees in my room. One morning, I opened the door, and there were bees everywhere and all over the door and other doors even though there was no hive nearby. I brought this issue up with the hotel, and they said they would take of it. However, I still kept finding bees in the room during the remainder of my stay.
During my stay in Montego Bay, I had a few tours scheduled, but only one actually went as planned.
Rose Hall Great House in Montego Bay
The first tour I had planned was supposed to have been to show me around Montego Bay and take me to Rose Hall Great House, which was a plantation house that is now supposedly haunted by the ghost of a white plantation owner known as the “White Witch of Rose Hall.”
Being very honest, the "guide" for the day was absolutely awful. If anything, he was simply a driver that the tour company probably just assigned to drive me around. He did not know anything about Montego Bay's history, and the only sites he showed me were of little interest to a visitor. For example, he made it a point to show me some fast-food joints and a couple gas stations and completely skipped over the old jail that was built in 1806 or the Samuel Sharpe monument. While the driver waited in the car, I spent a bit of time in the Montego Bay Cultural Centre, where I was harangued by an employee who kept bugging me for “lunch money.” Because the employee was an old woman, I reluctantly gave her a small amount of money, but she scoffed at the small amount at which time I told her to “take it or leave it.” She reluctantly accepted it and left me alone. After spending a little bit of time in the Cultural Centre, the driver continued showing me around Montego Bay, but he was not aware that he was supposed to take me to Rose Hall. He initially wanted to charge me more to take me there, but I refused and told him transportation there was already included. It was only after he called the tour company to confirm this that he did actually take me there.
Rose Hall Great House was actually quite impressive, and the guide for the house was actually knowledgeable and quite informative. However, there was a cringe-worthy moment when she took me to the grave of the "White Witch of Rose Hall," which is the grave of one of the white plantation owners, Annie Palmer. She told me the story about her which I found fanciful and somewhat interesting, and then she started to sing a song about it to an audience of one (i.e. me). She probably had to do it as part of her job, but it was definitely somewhat cringe, especially since I was forced to listen to it and could not rely on anyone else to play the role of the captive audience.
Was the first tour a complete washout? Not entirely, Rose Hall was interesting, the guide for the house was knowledgeable, and I was glad to have had the opportunity to see it. However, the "guide" for that day was absolutely awful and should have been seen as more of a driver since he did not do anything except for drive.
Nine Mile Entrance
The second tour I had scheduled was to see Nine Mile, which is where Bob Marley was born and later buried along with his mother. This tour was definitely the high point of the whole Jamaica trip. The guide was super knowledgeable and friendly, the ride to Nine Mile was very pleasant, and the site itself was amazing. In Nine Mile, it is 100% no problem to smoke marijuana openly since the local guides do it. I was not the only one on the tour. There was a wedding party from Australia that were also on the tour, and during the tour through Nine Mile, many people on the tour were smoking multiple joints of marijuana with no problem. As a result, my clothing ended up smelling heavily like marijuana. You're probably wondering whether I partook in smoking...I’ll simply say this…I'm not a prude or puritanical about things, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
I genuinely enjoyed Nine Mile since it was interesting learning about the life of Bob Marley and seeing his mausoleum. This was actually the only tour that I took in Jamaica in which everything went according to plan.
The third tour that I had scheduled never actually happened. I was scheduled to visit the Blue Mountains near Kingston, which is the capital. This required an early pickup at 6am from a different hotel from the one I was staying in. The tour company had previously confirmed the day and time with me in advance, and I had responded to confirm everything.
On the morning of the tour, I arrived at the pickup location about 45 minutes early to make sure everything went smoothly. At the assigned time, the driver still did not show. At 6:15am, I sent the company a message telling them the driver still had not arrived but never received a response. I ultimately waited until 8am and had sent several messages demanding a full refund since a service was never provided. I even reached out to Viator, which is the company I booked the tour through, and they eventually got in touch with the company. While I never heard from the company directly, they did refund me 100% of the money, so I cannot complain about that too much.
Since the tour to the Blue Mountains had fallen through, I headed back to the hotel and tried to figure out what to do. I attempted to book some other tours, but because it was slightly out of tourist season, there was not much available. I was not upset about this because I deliberately chose to come to Jamaica during this time, so I knew that options would likely be limited. Instead, after resting in the hotel, I got something to eat, and this is when another thing went wrong.
Departing Jamaica
I ended up getting terrible food poisoning and spent a good portion of the night and early morning of my last day in Jamaica with a messed-up stomach. I went from needing to lay down to going to the bathroom constantly. I would lay down and then have to run to the bathroom a couple minutes later. Since this was my last full day in Montego Bay, by this time, I had had enough. Very little about this trip had gone right. I literally did not want to do anything more than just to leave. Therefore, I spent my last day in Jamaica in the hotel room trying to recover since I did not want to feel like this on the plane.
Was the Jamaica trip successful? By most standards, no it was not. Issues with the hotel to lackluster tours to tour companies not responding to food poisoning just did not make this trip particularly pleasant. Would I return to Jamaica? As a single traveler, probably not. However, if I were with a partner, and she wanted to go, I would be willing to give it another try. Ultimately, even though Jamaica was not a successful trip by any stretch of the imagination, I am glad that I got there and knocked it off my list.
Have you been to Jamaica? What was your experience like?
