RCCL excursion Reggae Hill

As promised here I am to tell you all about Reggae Hill. My family(2 adults and 2 kids ages 14 & 11) loved it! It was a little over an hour bus ride to Reggae Hill. Our tour guide Chavel was wonderful. Chavel would also be our waitress once at Reggae Hill. When you arrive you are offered a champagne beverage. Chavel then seated us at table around the river. She then brought us our first Tapas, salt fish and ackee. We were also served curried lobster, a chicken type egg roll, jerk chicken(my favorite!) mahi tar tar and a dessert sundae(yellow rum cake with strawberries, chocolate syrup and ice cream(yum!). We were also offered many beverages(pepsi, beer, lemonade and watermelon lemonade(Yum!). We were allowed to explore the river and swim. The water is a little chilly but nice once you are in. We took our snorkel gear and saw many guppies with long colorful tails, freshwater shrimp and crayfish. We also had fun finding colorful snail shells all over the bottom of the pools. While we were swimming Chavel would bring food and drinks to us at the rivers edge. They do a little show of dancing and acrobatics which was good. I will say that the picture on RCCL's website is not accurate. The area is beautiful but the water is in no way blue like the photo. It is very clean and clear but the river/pools look brown. If you walk to the top of the hill you can jump off a cliff into the water which my 14 year old son did and said it was the highlight of the tour for him. It was great. We asked and this place has only been open for 4 months so it is brand new. The people were so nice and it was a relaxing day.

The only things we did not like were that they offered massages by the river for an additional cost and we were asked several times if we would want one. The same lady probably asked us 6 times. I saw no one take her up on a massage. The other thing was that on the way back our bus made a stop at a store called the rainbow store. The sales people were pretty pushy, we went in to use the bathroom and got back on the bus but I heard others from our tour talking about how they kept putting things into your basket as you shopped, not things the people wanted they would just walk by and drop something in or say it went with something they already had. One lady was quite upset as she had picked up 2 t-shirts and a sales lady put 2 fridge magnets in her basket, when she said she didn't want them the sales lady said they went with the t-shirts so the lady thought they were free. When the cashier rang them up and the lady said she was not paying for them they acted like she was trying to steal the magnets. The lady said you can keep it all now I don't want anything, I am not a criminal!

So there you have it folks! Very nice place, relaxing, they feed you a lot and you can ask for more of anything you liked, beautiful clean river but definitely not blue like in the photo. I will try to figure out how to post a few of our pics here in a bit.

Thanks. Please post this if you can to the Rccl excursion page. I have a bunch of friends that aren't on CC.

You have to know how to say, "NO!" in a convincing way...you give and inch, they take a mile!

If anyone puts something in your basket or hand, simply put it on a shelf.

Was this out of Fallmouth? I know some Royal ships still occasionally hit Ocho Rios, and prehaps Mobay? Just asking in regard to the hour ride.

Out of Falmouth

Great review.

There's a “Dunn's River Falls and Reggae Hill (Royal Caribbean)” excursion. Would you happen to know how close they are to each other (if it's something you checked out). I'm wondering how much travelling is involved. Thanks.

Thank you for the review TimetoPackVacations. This must be very close to Dunns because the Royal excursion is a combination of the two. Dunns and Reggae Hill. I didn't see Reggae Hill as a single excursion.

Dunn's River Falls was pretty close. We passed it on our way to Reggae Hill. We did just Reggae Hill though without the Dunn's River Falls.

Thank you for your review, I have been looking for one online with no luck. We have this tour booked next week and I think we will keep it based on your review. Was it crowded? I've done Dunn's River Falls in the past but hated how crowded it was. Looking forward to seeing the pictures of Raggae Hill soon!

:)

It was not crowded at all. We maybe had 25 in our bus. There was 1 bus there when we arrived and maybe 2 more buses came at staggered times.

Thank you for the review TimetoPackVacations. This must be very close to Dunns because the Royal excursion is a combination of the two. Dunns and Reggae Hill. I didn't see Reggae Hill as a single excursion.

Royal does offer this as a single excursion for $64 pp if I recall. It's still up on the website.

Thank you so much for coming back and posting a review TimetoPackVacations. I was very interested in this excursion. Your information is very helpful!

Just out of curiosity, did you happen to notice if any other food was offered for a younger child? Both of my kids are pretty open to trying new foods. They will always try something before they say they don't like it. It is a longer excursion, so should they not like some of the offerings you mentioned above I worry they may be a bit hungry by the end if they do not find something more familiar or to their liking - do you recall if there was anything else offered for kiddos?

Thanks again,

Holly

The only different offerings for kids was due to alcohol. When we arrived they were given plain orange juice instead of the champagne/fruit drink and their dessert had plain cake in it instead of the rum cake. My kids try everything and like most things. The only thing my son did not like was the cod fish and ackee dish. My daughter ate everything. The jerk chicken was wonderful and a large piece of chicken given on the plate so I would think almost every kid would at least be satisfied with it.

Where do you all upload pictures to post them here?

I think you can by opening up a thread, choosing the attachment option to the right of the "size" option.

The only different offerings for kids was due to alcohol. When we arrived they were given plain orange juice instead of the champagne/fruit drink and their dessert had plain cake in it instead of the rum cake. My kids try everything and like most things. The only thing my son did not like was the cod fish and ackee dish. My daughter ate everything. The jerk chicken was wonderful and a large piece of chicken given on the plate so I would think almost every kid would at least be satisfied with it.

Sounds great. Thanks again.

I created a shutterfly share page and uploaded some Reggae Hill pics there

https://timetopackvacations.shutterfly.com/

Thank you very much! It looks great, I do wish the water was blue just like the excursion picture though.

So, if I understand correctly, this tour is a bus trip to a river where you get food and drink and swim/play in the river. Is that all there is to it? I thought I had read there was a zip line as well.

Correct - this tour is a bus trip to a river where you get food and drink and swim/play in the river.

There is no zipline.

We did however see a rope swing but no one used it that we saw.

Thank you so much for your detailed review.

I saw this excursion and it is on my short list of possibilities.

One question I have that I did not see addressed was security of personal belongings. Are there lockers?

No, there weren't any lockers. We left our belongings on our chairs but we didn't take much with us(a back pack with our snorkeling gear in it, sunscreen and a little cash, and our towels from the ship. No one bothered our stuff but we also weren't far from it. The area really isn't that big so you can see it from almost anywhere except if you go all the way up the hill to jump off the cliff.

No, there weren't any lockers. We left our belongings on our chairs but we didn't take much with us(a back pack with our snorkeling gear in it, sunscreen and a little cash, and our towels from the ship. No one bothered our stuff but we also weren't far from it. The area really isn't that big so you can see it from almost anywhere except if you go all the way up the hill to jump off the cliff.

Thanks for much for your help. I saw this excursion last week and I was very interested, but the lack of reviews caused me pause.

One last question... How high it the cliff your son jumped?!

Not really sure. I wish I had the camera with me when we walked up that way but I would say 15 feet maybe. It's wasn't a huge cliff but to me it wasn't small either LOL!