Wah Gwaan? Negril, A Jamaican Paradise

Wah gwaan? You hear this phrase a lot in the beautiful country of Jamaica. This trip was to celebrate my 40 years of life here on Earth. The months prior to this trip had been rough so being able to spend 3.5 days in paradise was welcoming. My sister accompanied me on this trip. She needed this break from reality as much as I did. Now I must warn you! This trip is not like my others where I am constantly on the go. This one was mainly filled with relaxation and reflection, but I still have things to share (smile).

The Monday morning started off at 2am because we had an early 6:45am flight from BWI airport. Although slightly tired from the birthday festivities from the days before, the excitement and anticipation of relaxing by the beach overshadowed that. After doing a connecting flight in Orlando, we arrive safely in Montego Bay around 1:30pm Jamaican time. Fun Fact: Jamaica does not follow daylight savings time so during this time of year, Jamaica follows US Central Standard time.

Shoutout to my favorite airline Southwest for getting us there safely!

After going through customs, my sister and I made our way through the airport to the meeting point. Because I did not want to have to think about anything once on vacation, I had booked an all-inclusive Swim up Beachfront One Bedroom Butler Suite at Sandals Negril.

In the airport, Sandals has a special lounge for their visitors. In the lounge, there were snacks such as plantain chips, mixed nuts, soft drinks and of course, Red Stripe. We did not wait long in the lounge before my sister and I were escorted to our private transportation to Negril. Negril is about an hour and a half from Sangar International Airport, Montego Bay. Let me tell you!! I thought Washington, DC and New Jersey roads were bad, but Jamaican roads are in the top ten of bad roads! Lol Between the roads being bumpy and the driver swerving to do his best to avoid the deep pot holes, the 1.5-hour trip seemed so much longer! Fun Fact: Because Jamaica was under British rule, they drive on the left-hand side of the road and use the metric system. Jamaica gained their independence on August 6, 1962. (National Library of Jamaica)

Driving through Montego Bay, Hopewell and other towns, I felt a sense of guilt. Guilt because here I was about to go to this beautiful resort (according to the pictures) and the residents here are living impoverished in many areas. I mean I do my part in helping back at home through community service, but I made a mental note to figure out how to help in Jamaica.

As we approached the resort, my heart lightened with happiness (and relief because of the drive). My first impression of the Sandals Resort was it was nice but needed a facelift. I must say if you are looking for perfection Sandals is not for you. Outside of the resort is full of construction so maybe they are working on it. All I know was my sister and I were greeted by a man handing us a cool rolled up towel and warm Jamaican greetings. Another man took our luggage, and we were escorted upstairs to check in. This was the first of many alcoholic drinks my sister and I were offered throughout our stay.

A hostess escorted us from the Concierge area to our room explaining all the resort amenities and activities. Everything is within about a 5–10-minute walking distance of our suite. The room was set up very nicely. Disclaimer: When the room was booked, it was for me and my male travel buddy, but he was unable to make it, so I asked my sister to come with me, so I did not have to go by myself hence the reason for the way the room is set up.

I was happy to see birthday decorations and flowers all around the room. I loved the fact that there was a swim up pool right outside the room but still just steps away from the beach. Our butler, Theta (pronounced Thee -tuh), greeted us with two glasses of champagne and vacation for me officially started.

My sister and I quickly changed into our bathing suits and took a dip in the swim up pool. The interesting thing about the swim up pool is at about 4ft depth, it is the connection to all the rooms in the row and leads to a bigger 5ft pool. Each room has its own pocket of the pool that leads out to a larger section. So essentially you can just swim right past your neighboring rooms and be all up in their business Lol

Once we got to the larger 5 ft pool, Theda greeted us with the cocktail of the day, Piña Colada. Sandals is an adults only resort so there was plenty of alcohol around and the resort definitely makes sure you get your money’s worth of alcohol Lol Theda was always a phone call away with a special cellphone linked directly to her, but I never felt I needed to call because she many times anticipated our needs. She reminded me of Emilio, the butler from Mr. Deeds with Adam Sandler. I would turn around and she was there Lol It wasn’t as creepy as Emilio, but her presence was similar.

After the realization we had not really eaten any real food only snacks all day. We waded back to our room and got dressed for dinner. There were 8 restaurants to choose from on Sandals Negril. Some required reservations. It is all included and unlimited. We decided to try out Barefoot by the Sea, a seafood restaurant right outside our suite. I’m a vegetarian for the most part but will occasionally eat seafood. I found myself to be quite hungry, so I don’t remember what I ate that night besides the dessert. It could have been the alcohol too to make my memory fuzzy Lol The dessert was a fudge brownie with a caramel and toffee topping.

It was really good. Full as a tick, we went back to the room and prepared for bed. We turned in kinda early because we were tired after the long day of travel. I drank a glass of wine and went to sleep.

The next morning, we got up and went to the breakfast buffet available at Bayside Restaurant. The buffet had the typical fruit, pastries, eggs, waffles etc. The most memorable thing about this restaurant is the birds! The birds hovered near by for scraps of food. If you left your food on the table, you might as well have said goodbye to your food because they would fly up on the table top and eat it. The poor wait staff did the best they could to shoo them away from the leftover food they had removed from the tables, but the birds were overwhelming. If you are the type to be OCD about things like that, then I would not recommend eating at Bayside Restaurant.

After breakfast we headed back to the suite, but not before making a pitstop at one of the few bars spread across the resort. Shantel, the bartender made me the cocktail of the day and handed me a bag of popcorn.

My sister and I changed into our bathing suits and lounged out on the beach in our reserved lounge area. The reserved area consists of two beach chairs, a beach umbrella, and a cooler full of ice, botted water and Red Stripe. Theta would come by every so often and hand us the cocktail of the day or anything else we asked for.

At noon, we went on the glass bottom boat tour. It is included in the stay as one of the activities you can choose to do. A funny moment was as my sister and I were walking down the beach, we heard someone call her name. It was confusing because who knew us here. It ended up being Theta. She was bringing us the cocktail of the day and she was trying to catch us Lol We got our Purple rain and continued to the meeting spot for the boat tour.

Leo was our tour guide. My favorite joke of his was when we first started out to sea, he said the seaweed was called hydro and was placed in the sea so the feds could not find it Lol We saw various of species of fish and sea plants and a special visit by a few dolphins. I didn't get any pictures because I was afraid I was going to drop my phone in the water so I left it in the room. The most memorable moment of this tour was a small water rescue. One of the attendees of the resort had his catamaran flip over with a wind change. We took him aboard while a couple of the staff flipped it back over. After that he was able to get back on and safely continue with his day.

We went back to the beach. We ate veggie nachos and mango cake for lunch while continuing to lounge by the beach.

For dinner that night we had reservations for Kimonos, a hibachi style restaurant. Theta escorted us there even though it was right outside our suite on the other side not facing the beach. We were handed a drink menu and I decided on a Dragon something or another. I didn’t think to jot it down because I was in the moment of the atmosphere. My sister and I said our goodbyes because we were getting a new butler for the rest of the week due to her having to complete a new butler training. The group we were seated with (a total of 8 of us) were really nice and we had a couple of laughs later on about the fact that many of us had a hard time using chopsticks, so the server was nice enough to bring us forks. As my appetizer I chose the Miso Shiru Special which consisted of tofu and scallions. My sister had the Gyoza consisting of Asian dumplings filled with vegetables and ponzu dipping sauce. Our Chef serenaded us with his versions of popular songs such as Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me and Bob Marley & the Wailers’ Three Little Birds. He was very entertaining as he prepared the main courses of fried rice, vegetables, shrimp, chicken and beef. Everyone got to sample everything, and I was grateful he prepared the rice and vegetables first before he made everything else.

I was served first because I was only eating the rice and vegetables with tofu, but I waited until everyone else got their food before I begin to eat. It was a lot of food, and I couldn’t finish it all. For dessert, we were moved to a different room. We had the choice of Mango Lassi, a pudding and Emperor's Chocolate Cake. I had the Mango Lassi. I was not impressed with the serving size at first glance, but I ended up not liking it anyway. It was just mango tapioca pudding that was very tart. The nice thing was the couple we met were very entertaining. I believe they were there celebrating their anniversary. We parted ways and my sister and I headed back to the room. We watched the Castle marathon while sipping wine for a little while before turning in for the night.

Wednesday morning, we went back to the Bayside Restaurant for the breakfast buffet then back to lounge by the beach. Around 10:30-11am, we walked down the beach and headed to the water trikes. This was included in our stay at Sandals. It was definitely a workout, but nothing more than a paddle boat shaped like a tricycle. It was nice being out on the beautiful blue green water with a gentle breeze blowing. My sister and I decided to only stay out there for about 10-15 minutes before we headed back to shore because it was starting to get hot and our legs were getting tired.

You can’t tell me this crab didn’t pose for me to take its picture Lol

Later that day we headed to the Perla Restaurant to eat. While waiting for our food, we had a Bob Marley. Unfortunately, due to some kitchen issues, we ended up not eating at Perla and ended up instead eating at the Bella Napoli Pizzeria. Initially when I had got to Negril I said I wasn’t going to eat pizza because I can eat pizza at home, but it was close by and we were hungry. Additionally, we wanted to make sure we got to eat at all the restaurants and we had reservations already for the other ones later that day.

The vegetarian pizzas we chose took about twenty minutes as they were made in a brick oven. I forgot to tell them no olives so I plucked them off, but other than that it was good.

One thing about Jamaica this time of year, it can be bright and sunny in the morning, in the afternoon it will pour down raining for at least twenty minutes, then bright and sunny again. That afternoon though it rained for quite a while. We ended having to walk to Brava for dinner in the rain. Basil, the butler that took over for Theta escorted us to the restaurant and sat us at the table. Brava is supposed to be Spanish inspired but I did not get that impression by the food. How it works is you choose a dish from each of the four categories: starters, vegetables, seafood and meat.

I decided to have seafood since it was our last night in Negril. For my starter, I had the Pan con Tomate with Manchego cheese. Basically, Texas toast with tomato sauce and cheese. My vegetable choice was Island escalivada (roast peppers, pineapple and onion). My seafood dish I got the Gambas Al ajillo (garlic shrimp with parsley, scotch bonnet and brandy). I did not eat anything from the meat category.

My sister had the Patatas bravas (potatoes with tomato sauce) from the Starters category, espinacas a la catalana (spinach, raisins, apple and pine nuts) from the Vegetable category and Calamares Fritos (calamari, pickled onions and aioli) from the seafood category. To me, everything was underwhelming and the only things memorable were the very spicy shrimp and the annoyance of the cats who kept trying to get our food.

Speaking of cats, it seemed like the cats were really attracted to our suite. My sister is allergic so I did my best to keep them away as much as possible, but they kept coming back so I assume previous visitors would feed them so they just made their home there.

Anyway, my sister and I chalked Brava up as an appetizer and moved on to the next reservation we had at the Sundowner restaurant. The rain had stopped so it was a nice breeze blowing as we headed to the restaurant. This one was much better. For my appetizer, I had the coconut infused pumpkin bisque and island style meatballs for my entrée. The pumpkin bisque was so good. I need to find a recipe to make my own. The island style meatballs were vegan meatballs with coconut sauce, sweet potato and vegetables. My sister had the pepper shrimp and grilled mahi mahi.

We ended up taking our dessert, pineapple upside down cake, back to the room so we could pack up and prepare for the trip home the next day.

The next morning, I got up early to reflect on the whole week. I am very grateful for the opportunity to see such a beautiful place and ended up booking a trip to the sister resort Beaches in Ocho Rios to include my sister, nephew and son next year in August before I left. They came to get our luggage from the room and we were escorted to the lobby to wait for the bus back. The trip back to Montego Bay was way better and the driver highlighted some of the key sites on the way back.

Despite some of the mediocre food and signs of wear and tear of the buildings, this trip served its purpose-to relax and celebrate my 40th solar return.

The following are my recommendations if you decide to visit Sandals Negril:

·       Book for 4 days or longer. I felt like the first day we missed a lot because we were too exhausted to participate in many of the activities. Also, on the day you check out, you leave pretty early because they adhere to the three-hour airport arrival so you won’t have time to really do anything but maybe eat breakfast.

·       Get the butler suite. They make your reservations; ensure you eat and drink your money’s worth and pays attention to small details.

·       Try all the restaurants at least once.

·       Be prepared to be bombarded with the locals trying to sell things to you and don’t tell them maybe later because they will definitely seek you out later Lol

·       Get cash out of the ATM before you arrive in Jamaica. The ATM I used on the resort to give a tip to the butlers charged me a $7 fee.

·       Do the excursions to get away from the resort and explore.

·       Take lots of pictures!!

Do you plan to visit Sandals Negril? Have you been to another Sandals before? What about Jamaica? Comment below.

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