Royal Caribbean "A Place in the Sun" Excursion

[spelican]

I thought I'd share the actual details of this Royal Caribbean excursion that unfortunately I couldn't find online before taking it.

 

Just for fun, here is the Royal Caribbean description of this excursion:

Depart the cruise ship pier in Falmouth in your air-conditioned coach and enjoy the scenic drive to Montego Bay, passing Great Houses, hotels and golf courses.  Upon arrival at the famous Hip Strip in Montego Bay, browse along the row of shops; shopping for souvenir items. Stop in at Margaritaville to enjoy one of their notable concoctions on your own.  Next, visit Doctor’s Cave Bathing Beach and stroll  the world`s most famous white sand beach; the warm Caribbean waters beckons for a relaxing 3 hours. Let the sand trickle through your toes at the water`s edge, relax, take a swim or have an optional lunch at one of the 3 restaurants located on the beach.
 

We were able to find the loading zone for the bus without any major problems.  Just follow the signs in the cruise village.  It was a long walk to the excursion area, and a bit of a mad house once we arrived to the departure area, but nothing we couldn't handle.  The bus left on schedule at 8:35 AM, but had the strong smell of cigarette smoke throughout it.  After an unremarkable drive of about 35 minutes we were dropped at an awful strip center for a "shopping opportunity".  We stepped over trash exiting the bus, and were directed through a dirty parking lot to a strip mall containing some sort of tourist shop located between a grocery store and an off track/sports betting parlor.  This was not near the Hip Strip or Doctor's Cave Beach as advertised by Royal Caribbean.  The local police car with emergency lights on that pulled into the parking lot while we there was a nice touch that kind of completed the whole crime scene feel of the location.  I don't know what caused the police to come, and I really didn't want to know.  It was a TERRIBLE stop.  Why on earth they would make us burn 45 minutes of valuable beach time on this hell hole of a place is beyond me.  I'm assuming the tour operator gets paid by the store owner to stop there, but it is just an educated guess.

 

After the 45 minute strip mall from hell stop it was another 10 minutes or so to the drop off point at Doctor's Cave.  We arrived a little after 10:00 AM to the beach club.  The $6 per person admission fee was covered.  It costs $6 per chair and $6 for an umbrella.  The beach club was very clean and pretty.  Chairs and umbrellas were in very good condition.  Food and beverage service wasn't too outrageous. ($5 Red Stripe, $2 bottled water, mixed drinks $7-$9).  The only negative to be aware of is that when arriving with a large group on a bus, there will be a long line waiting to rent umbrellas and chairs.  We were fortunate to helped quickly, but many others waited in a fairly slow moving and lengthy line.  The bus loads up outside the beach club entrance at 1:00 PM sharp for the return trip.

 

Conclusion:  We'd have been much better arranging our own transportation to Doctor's Cave.  Had I known about the shopping stop far from the Hip Strip and Doctor's Cave I'd have never done this excursion.  We had been led to believe any shopping stop would be within walking distance of the beach club so we could skip it.  This was an absolute waste of time.  We would definitely do Doctor's Cave Beach again, but I would caution to check out the number of ships on the island before committing.  The beach is much smaller than I expected.  On Thursday, April 11, 2019 there was only one cruise ship on the entire island of Jamaica.  I'm not sure this would be a good spot if several ships were around.

 

Hopefully this review will help others not make the mistake we made.

 

 

 

 

[vacationlover_mn]

Thanks for the review!  I had thought about this excursion, but now I’ll skip it 🙂