Key Largo, Montego, Baby Why Don’t We Go (Or, a Week on The World’s Largest Cruise Ship): Part Elevenfeatured
Day four began with blue seas, clear skies and an 8:00 am wake up call.
The ship hadn’t yet docked in Jamaica and we had time for a leisurely breakfast since our excursion didn’t meet until 11:45 am. The dining board said that Johnny Rockets was yellow and bordering on red, and it was busy when we arrived, but we were seated right away.
Breakfast at Johnny Rockets was pretty standard fare. Everything was decent and nothing was remarkable.
Milk for me, Diet Cokes for them
Eggs “My Way”
Breakfast Sandwich
French Toast
We still hadn’t docked after breakfast, so we strolled along the promenade.
As we approached Falmouth, we headed out to the jogging track to watch the ship pull into dock.
In all of our travels and, what, 13 or 14 cruises, we’d never visited Jamaica before. We hadn’t heard such great things from friends and there seem to be constant safety concerns. But you know…Jamaica has a prominent place in the lyrics to Kokomo and I was going to have to visit to check it off at some point. And our first glimpses of Falmouth was encouraging. The port area looked nicely developed from our vantage point on the ship. It almost reminded me of Havensight in St. Thomas.
We headed off the ship to meet our tour at 11:20 for our 11:45 call time and noon departure. We left a bit too early. The dock isn’t long and we were waiting a long time. We purchased our tour (1700’s Great House and Plantation Tour) through the ship and it seemed most of the ship’s tours were organized through Chukka. Chukka also offers tours for purchase at the pier. The problem is that they offer numerous different tours and try to organize all of them in a small tent, which meant hundreds of people going on different tours were herded under a small tent as they attempted to organize everyone and lead them onto different busses going to different locations. It was incredibly chaotic and disorganized. That said, if you want to try to save some money on booking with the company directly, you can book your Falmouth tours directly through Chukka or at the pier and you’ll be on the same tours as the people who purchase through the ship.
We handed over our tour tickets in exchange for wristbands and we stood in a crowded line for a good 20 minutes before we were led to our bus. Our tour guide for the day was Lydia and she was truly fantastic. We had a 30 minute drive to the Good Hope Estate and Lydia filled it with island history, personal anecdotes and teaching us how to speak like native Jamaicans. Oh, and pointing out random peacocks in the middle of the road.
The Good Hope Estate is a restored 18th century plantation. Chukka runs most of the tours through there (we saw Chukka branding frequently throughout our tour), but it has quite a bit of historical significance to the island. We saw a large school field trip there while we were touring.
When we landed at the Good Hope Estate, we were given a few minutes to use the restrooms and (predictably) visit the gift shop they have set up right at the entrance. We were then herded onto 4×4’s for a tour of the grounds. Our tour group was bigger than the 4×4, so Stephanie got to ride up front and got a personalized tour from the 4×4 driver while Lydia led our tour from the cab.
We were driven around the grounds as Lydia pointed out all of the significant or interesting sights. We made two stops: one for the driver to pick ugly oranges for us (that’s what they called them!) and another at the water wheel at the Martha Brae River.
After our tour of the grounds, we were driven up to the estate and a guided tour of the grounds started out there. I wandered a bit just because I like to explore more than I like to stand still and listen. There was so much to see and photograph.
One thing of note – though this isn’t considered an active tour and as such isn’t marketed as one, there is some climbing (into and out of the 4×4, steps, etc) and a fair bit of walking involved. Two older women fell on our tour (one getting out of the 4×4 and one climbing the steps into the estate) and while Chukka was quick to take care of them and ensure they were okay, I don’t think they realized that there was a decent amount of activity involved.
After our orientation outside the estate, we were led on a guided tour inside. Lydia led us through each room, explaining the artifacts, history and significance of everything we saw.
The estate isn’t air conditioned and it was extraordinarily hot and muggy. I wished we’d worn bug spray because we were getting bitten up throughout our tour. Once we’d seen all of the estate, we were taken back to our bus and led to a small restaurant/bar on the grounds for lunch. We were each served a platter of jerk chicken and hush puppies, and a cup of fruit punch. I don’t really do the whole chicken on the bone thing, but Mom and Stephanie gave the chicken high marks, and we all thought the hush puppies were out of this world.
It started raining as we were leaving, and they mixed our groups as they herded all of us onto busses back to the pier. Some of the tours were from ships that were docked in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, so I thought the haphazard rushing of everyone onto busses was a careless and potentially confusing procedure. A family touring from a Carnival ship in Ocho Rios easily could have been put on a bus back to the cruise terminal at Falmouth and vice versa.
The rain let up by the time we got back to the pier. I took my obligatory I’m-in-Jamaica-this-is-crossed-off-my-list picture before we all split up.
Mom and Stephanie headed back to the ship and I hung back to do some shopping. After all, everyone told me I couldn’t come back from Jamaica without coffee. I found the port area to be nicely developed. There are dozens of shops, plenty of bars and many places to get wi-fi (which I did NOT use! I was so proud of myself!!!). Many of the shops were the kinds of shops where the shop keepers will follow you around the store and try to barter with you every time you look at something or pick it up, so I went shop to shop until I found one where I could peruse the merchandise in peace. I purchased some coffee and some shirts and keychains before the skies darkened and the afternoon showers came back.
Once back on the ship (with my hands thoroughly sanitized upon check in…again), I headed back to the room to change and then met up with Mom and Stephanie on the Boardwalk. Since we all just kind of picked at our lunches, we decided to grab some hot dogs at the Boardwalk Dog House.
We all headed back to the room to shower and relax for the afternoon. I headed out for some quality balcony time.
By the time we were recharged from our tour, the ship was preparing to leave port and we were off to dinner. Nothing from dinner was a real stand out (except for the chicken, per Stephanie. It was one of her favorite dishes from the entire week). The beef shoulder was undercooked. The Rum Baba was too heavy on the rum. That said, though, we still though the food was excellent on the overall and the service continued to be top notch.
Crab Cake
Summer Fruit Medley
Chilled Honeydew Melon Soup
Arugula and Bosc Pear Salad
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Braised Beef Duo
Jaffa Cake
Cherries Jubilee
Rum Baba
And then, right as we thought our meal was over, our servers appeared with a special dessert for Mom – a gift from the head waiter for her birthday. I really can’t say enough about the dining room staff on the Allure. The level of service they provided all week was just on another level.
After dinner, we strolled along the promenade and noticed an incredibly large crowd of people. The event? Watches. On sale. I don’t get the appeal since lower prices can be had by most daily deals sites on these brands, but throughout the week, anytime watches went out, the masses came to buy them.
We made our way to the ice rink for the How to Train Your Dragon ice show. It’s not a show you get tickets for, but that’s probably because it’s the weakest show they have onboard. The kids in the audience loved it (and rightly so – what’s not to love about characters from movies figure skating on a cruise ship?!), but it wasn’t particularly engaging for us.
After the show, we headed out to the Aquatheater to watch the NBA Finals. We left because we were surrounded by Miami fans (the Heat had just eliminated the Bulls and they were now beating the Pacers).
From there, we hit up Dazzles for Finish the Lyric, but Dazzles was standing room only (and it’s a BIG space), so we didn’t stay for long.
Our next stop ended up being the hidden gem find of our trip: the Champagne and Martini bar. We didn’t read much about it before our trip, but it’s off the promenade and we passed by it many times a day. We like champagne, and it never looked busy, so I don’t know why it took us so long to go there, but it was up there on our favorite parts of the boat. The drinks were fantastic, the bartenders and servers were incredibly friendly…AND THEY GIVE YOU CHOCOLATE WITH YOUR DRINKS!!!! No one told me there was a place on the ship where they give you chocolate covered strawberries and treats with your champagne, so I’m telling you – THEY GIVE YOU CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES AND TREATS WITH YOUR CHAMPAGNE!!! It was so good!
While we were finishing our drinks, there was an announcement on the PA system that there was a medical emergency and we were diverting to Montego Bay. First thoughts? Of course there was a medical emergency. I don’t know if they’re that frequent or if we just have a lot of bad luck, but there’s at least one medevac on every cruise we’re on. First thoughts are always with the passenger and their family. Second thought? MONTEGO IS IN KOKOMO. ANOTHER ONE CROSSED OFF THE LIST!
Stephanie and I stopped by the headliner show (we had tickets for the late show), but it was borderline awful and we left after two songs. We walked around the ship a bit before heading back to the room to watch some Jerseylicious .
And then – bed! Is it just me or are port days just incredibly draining? Thankfully, we had a day at sea before our next port day so we could recharge for our Cozumel adventures.
