December 2022. Marks our 20 years of marriage. We knew we wanted to go somewhere warm and tropical for our anniversary. And this year seems to be the year of crossing off bucket list items so why not check off another! I've always wanted to stay on an island in the Caribbean. Our 20th anniversary seemed like the perfect time for it! Brian and Summer were going to be celebrating their 15th anniversary in December as well. So the four of us decided to go on a trip together. Turns out traveling to a tropical country in December is very expensive! We ended up going November 9-13 instead because it was half the cost! We decided to go to Montego Bay, Jamaica. I'm so glad we did! It's such a beautiful place. We had so much fun.
Day 1: We traveled with Brian and Summer from Vegas to Jamaica. We had so much fun together. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort called Jewel Grande. It was very well kept and had a friendly staff, gorgeous beach, and excellent food. We stayed on the 8th floor and had a beautiful view of lush green on one side and the bay off of our balcony.
This was a fun read as we walked in to the buffet restaurant. This is definitely what we did.
Our suite was beautiful.
Large living area for us to play games in the evening.
Room service brought up this sweet treat.
Our view!
Stunning.
We kicked off our first night with a beach party; a yummy BBQ and fun entertainment of steel drums and a Micheal Jackson impersonator singing and dancing group.
It was a real fun show.
We walked along the beach after dinner. A moonlit walk on the beach!
Such a beautiful resort.
We were so excited for this week. Relaxation and fun.
Day 2: We went on the Rastasafari excursion where we drove ATV’s all around the town of Roaring River, with stops to learn about their culture. Our tour guides, Richie & Spence, taught us all about their food, plants, and religion. We jumped into the Roaring River (hence, the town’s name), took in beautiful scenery, and ate a traditional vegan meal (which was really good). Our driver Chris was so cool and taught us so much on our drives to and from the town.
Learning about bananas was intriguing. Each tree grows only one limb of bananas like this from the main pod that grows down. Takes 9 months for the tree to grow the bananas, that's why they call the purple pod at the end of the limb of bananas the womb.
This is a native fruit. It looks like scrambled eggs when it's on the plate at the hotel.
Ready to cruise!
Their cows are so skinny!
These African looking trees actually were originally brought here from Africa!
Bridge jumping into Roaring river.
Another banana tree we could see the "womb" up close with the small flowers that grows into bananas.
Even after falling this palm tree was able to continue to grow and turn upwards.
The food was really good. Vegetarian dish. The Rastafa are all vegetarians.
In Jamaica we drink "wata" not water.
I loved learning about the Jamaican people and found everyone we met to be so happy and kind. It was fascinating to drive through towns learning about how they build their homes, looking at their brightly painted houses and shops, seeing kids in a various colored uniforms waiting for taxis after school, stopping for fresh sugar cane and honey bananas.
The end of the tour they took us to see their marijauna crop. lol They were surprised we weren't too interested and turned down our free sample.
Ritchie and Spence were good tour guides.
While driving around we noticed many buildings and houses still had rebar sticking out. Our driver, Christopher, told us that people don't have to pay taxes on the building. So they just build what they can and leave it available to add on when they get more money. Sometimes it's the next generation of kids that end jump finishing the house and live upstairs while their parents live downstairs.
I learned they burn sugar cane fields to kill insects before harvesting.
Christopher stopped at this road side stand to buy us sugar cane and golden (mini) bananas.
The roof of the inside of our car was this fun Rastafarian lion.
The golden bananas were so good!
More houses with rebar out the top.
Our driver Christopher did a great job. He was able to tell us so much about Jamaica during our drives to and from the rastasafari.
The view from the front of the hotel.
After dinner we walked out to the gazebo over the water.
Took some cute "prom" pictures. :)
That moonlight!
Day 3: We rented a car and Brian bravely drove on the right side of the car on the left side of the road. We went to Dunn’s River Falls in Ocho Rios, by far the coolest, most beautiful experience. I love waterfalls and hiking from the beach up the falls for about forty five minutes was incredible. We totally lucked out going on the one day cruise ships don’t port there, so after the tour buses left we had the place to ourselves. We had so much fun and the scenery was absolutely stunning.
Where Dunn's River meets the ocean
Just flows down a hill of rocks...
that we climbed up!
It was so beautiful and so much fun.
I could do this again.
The "water slide"
It was about 1.5 miles walking/hiking up the rocks but it didn't seem like it was that far as we took our time looking around and walking slowly and taking pictures.
A beautiful place to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
After all the tour buses left we practically had the place to ourselves. We were told it was a good day to go to Dunn's river because no cruise ships were coming for people to do excursions that day.
Looking down river. Yep, we walked up that. The rocks were not slippery. The guide said green means not slippery, brown means it is slippery.
The beauty all to ourselves!
We had fun laughing and goofing off.
Love Summer's sense of humor as she did her swimsuit photo shoot. 😂
Driving back to the resort. Brian did a great job...Jaime only had to say "left side" a couple times. lol
We'd see tiny little geckos every now and then.
When we got back to the resort we showered and went to dinner.
Then walked around in the beautiful sunset.
Day 4: We slept in, spent the morning relaxing on the beach, swimming, kayaking, and sipping pina coladas. In the afternoon we got massages at the spa and came out to pouring rain. After a yummy dinner at the Asian restaurant we packed and unwound in our rooms.
Brian fun this shell that was still being inhabited.
Our time at the spa was luxurious. They gave Jaime and I a complimentary session to sit in the Himalayan salt room because our massage therapists were still with other guests. It was very relaxing with the reclining, heated salt beds and mood lighting with music.
We were given heated neck wraps as we waited in the waiting room.
Day 5: We had a beautiful sunrise view from the balcony. We ate breakfast and soaked up some sun on the beach for a little while before we packed up and checked out. We played card games and ate lunch while we waited for our shuttle to the airport.
Love that sun 🌞
Brian took his drone out to fly and check out the view. This is a bird's eye view of our resort...
and us. 😁
pano shot.
Our last picture before taking the elevator down to leave the resort.
Our bobsled team
We found a bobsled and matching shirts at the airport and made it home safely to Vegas. We stayed two nights before flying home to Pasco so Jaime could work on some computers in Brian's dental office. We enjoyed having a couple more days to be able to visit and talk about our fun trip before flying home. It was definitely a trip to remember!
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