Ocho Rios, Jamaica Port Reviews

7 mile beach breathtaking locals were helpful

Visited: Sep 15, 2019

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Went to Mystic Mountain Jamaica 🇯🇲 the Sky explorer lift was worth the price of admission. The views are so beautiful. When you get to the top, there is a pool you can go in, there is a restaurant and bar area. The Jamaican bobsled is there too and you pay extra to do that. Today the line was really long and my back was not good today, so I skipped it, but it did look really fun!! It’s hot, remember to wear sunscreen and bug spray too.

Near ship/dock option- Margaritaville. Easy five minute walk. Friendly service but DREADFULLY slow. Beautiful view of ship, small accessible beach with chairs and umbrellas for rent. Pool access.

Beautiful place !! We did the dun’s falls and zip line. It was fantastic !! One of the best excursion I’ve done. The zip line was fun but the falls ... it was amazing. Climbing the falls is easier than it looks, the guide was great very attentive to everyone, they also have someone filming the whole time and the dvd is 40$. Take your camera if is water proof we took so many amazing pictures and videos. I highly recommend

Jamaica was my favorite place!! Had a tour,that wasnt through carnival, but it was awesome!! Jamaica is a beautiful place, everyone should see!!

Visited: Mar 03, 2018

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Only port I didn't like .very aggressive,lots of people trying to sell you drugs..stayed on island 10 minutes and returned to ship

Visited: Mar 17, 2018

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We had so much fun in Jamaica. We did the bobsled excursion, the views were breathtaking.

Visited: Nov 26, 2017

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Know Jamaica Tours was a great choice to show us the sites and take our group to Dunns River Falls. The driver met us at the dock with an air conditioned van. The falls climb took about three hours, then we were taken to a local restaurant for lunch. A quick trip after at a small shop for souvenirs. Then back to the port in plenty of time to board the ship prior to sailing. We reserved our tour with Know Jamaica prior to leaving home. Communication was via email with payment due the day of the tour. We were very pleased as red with the service we received. The driver, Glen Roy, was amazing. We all felt safe and informed.

I loved this port!! We booked an excursion through carnival that went to a tour of an old plantation and then went to Dunn’s river falls which was so much fun and so beautiful! Our tour guides were all wonderful and super friendly. We even got to stop and have some Jamaican jerk chicken!

We docked early morning in Ocho Rios at the Reynolds Pier (aka James Bond pier). Apparently scenes from one of the James Bond movies were filmed here. There are two piers in Ocho Rios--a really nice pier called Turtle Bay with multiple restaurants, beach front area and shopping opportunities and Reynold's Pier, our "secondary cruise berth" about a 15-minute walk away from that which was dumpy and sketchy. It is a former bauxite export facility now used for lime and sugar shipments. It does not look very cruise-ship friendly. I felt like we had "lost the toss" or something or were being sneaked into the country the back way or something. Reynolds Pier was supposed to get a $230 million dollar upgrade in 2016, but we saw no evidence of that ever happening. In all fairness, perhaps the bigger ships HAVE to dock at the nicer pier because of their bulk. The Island Princess has about 2,300 passengers which makes her small compared to the newer, mega ships. At any rate, I think we would have had a better experience in Ochos Rios if we had berthed at the other pier. My kids had a combo excursion that day organized by Princess that lasted 5 hours and cost $104.95: (1) Dunn's River Falls, a magnificent 600-foot thundering cascade with swimmable natural pools and (2) VIP Bamboo Beach Club, a private beach club whose motto is "taking it cool" where they were supposed to laze on the beach, swim in the crystal blue ocean, be entertained by native dancers and be served unlimited food and drink (alcoholic or non). In theory that sounded like heaven. In reality and execution, it was very lacking (more about that later). They loved climbing the Falls to the top, hand in hand and, at some points, holding hands with strangers to keep their balance. It was very picturesque, great fun and a bit tricky in spots because the rocks were so slippery. It was lovely and green everywhere they looked. They were happy to reach the top and proud of themselves for getting there! That part of the excursion took about 3 hours. Because I am older, I passed on that part. They left the Falls and headed by bus to VIP Bamboo Beach where I had already been for several hours. I took the "VIP Bamboo Beach Club" shore excursion, too, ($79.95 for 4 hours) with the general plan that we could be on the beach together for a few hours at least. However, we discovered quickly that once you get off your bus, you have to stay in the same area as your bus people the whole time. The beach is invisibly cordoned off--with various busloads in various spots--and you cannot roam around, find a better spot or, in our case, get together with friends or family. Quite bizarre. As I sat on the beach on a comfy padded beach lounge, underneath the shade of a large coconut palm tree close to the shore, with an ice-cold virgin tropical punch in hand, you would think I would be in my happy place. I was except that every few minutes my server--my person in charge from the bus or whatever she was called--came by to see if I wanted anything else to drink or eat, if I wanted a massage, if I wanted my hair braided, if I wanted to buy a whole coconut to drink, etc., etc. Talk about up selling. She brought me several "small plates," a main entree (a grilled whole fish with tons of tiny bones which made it inedible) and a dessert, plus you could have more if you wanted. The food was very ordinary. I had better Jerk chicken on the ship. She drove the Canadian couple in the lounge chairs next to me "nuts" when she followed them into the surf and asked them to come out and eat what she had brought them before it got cold. They were already upset because they were told they could not leave our area and walk to the end of the beach by some rocks and take a picture like they wanted to do. They complained loudly to management, there was a flutter of people at their lounge chairs and I don't know how it was resolved. I don't drink, so the novelty of free liquor was lost on me, but I guess that was the BIG attraction for a lot of people there. Then as I was relaxing with my head back and my eyes closed, a bus boy suddenly appeared next to me to pick up a dirty plate, leaned over and said "a generous tip would be nice." I was so surprised that the only thing I could think of to say was "yes, that would be nice." I am a good tipper, but I decide when. When my kids arrived at the Beach, we tried very hard to convince the servers to let us sit together, but they wouldn't budge. Guess we should have been loud like the unhappy Canadian couple. Anyway, I went back to my area and they stayed in theirs and we did our own thing for the rest of the time we were there except for a few visits back and forth. As I mentioned before, the location was absolutely beautiful, but the excursion was totally micro-managed and incredibly stifling. Nothing "chill" about it whatsoever. I would not take this excursion again nor recommend it to friends. On the way back to the ship, we stopped at a 2-story cement building (looked like a military bunker) in a residential area and were "held hostage" at a souvenir shop for over half an hour. I do not like being herded to one store--a collection of stores maybe but not just one. When we returned to the ship area, we had to show our ship ID at the locked gate again (we had to show it to get OUT of the yard). There must either be a lot of people trying to get INTO Ocho Rios illegally or trying to get OUT. My guess would be OUT. I tried to like Jamaica, but it just didn't happen.

Visited: Mar 30, 2019

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