Favorite Excursions in the Ocho Rios Area

[futuremrsp]

I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right place, but I was wondering if anyone who has already gone could recommend their favourite excursions in the Ocho Rios area. I want to have an idea of what is fun before we go. Last time, in the Dominican, we booked 3 excursions and only 1 out of 3 ended up being enjoyable! I don't want that to happen on our Honeymoon, so I'd appreciate any input! We're generally up for anything. We are definitely doing Dunn's River Fall's, but I'd like to try 1 or 2 more as we are staying 10 days. We are staying at SGOR.

 

Thanks!

 

Sarah

[Anna83]

I booked a private tour to Dunn's River Falls, Shaw Botanical Gardens, Margaritaville and a shopping area through Lee's Tours. It was pretty much an all day trip, and everyone loved it. It was $45 per person ane Lee's Tours was great to work with.

 

We also did a river tubing trip which was a lot of fun.

 

Some of our guests did the blue mountain bike tour, and had mixed reviews of it. Most said they could have skipped it.

[pugmomjenn]

I was wondering the same thing...I'll be waiting to see what everyone has to say. Has anyone went on the Appleton Rum Tour?

[Lindzg1984]

FutureMrsP what resort are you staying at? My husband and I have stayed at Sandals and we did the Catamaran to Dunn's River Falls and it was amazing. We have also done the Horse Back Riding through Lee's tour, which was very reasonable and fun. On our last trip to Jamaica we did the YS falls, but that will be an all day tour from Ocho Rios and it isn't as good as Dunn's River.

[Jamaica0619]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pugmomjenn I was wondering the same thing...I'll be waiting to see what everyone has to say. Has anyone went on the Appleton Rum Tour?

When I did my site visit in January, we did a tour that included the Black River, YS Falls and Appleton Rum. The Appleton Rum tour was interesting - it reminded me of tours I've done of wineries. They give you an overview of the company's history, a tour of the process and then there is a tasting at the end. The tasting is fun, especially if you like rum...

They place 8 bottles of different types of rum and give you a description of each, and place small plastic tasting cups on the table... then they basically let you try each as much as you would like. The tour guide actually told the group to let him know if we finished any of the bottles. No one drank that much but it was nice that we could really try the rums we were thinking about buying.

However, if I had driven/rode all the way from Montego Bay to the factory for just the factory, I think I would have been disappointed - it is a 90 minute drive. But, it was totally worth doing as part of a tour that hits one or two other stops.

[Jamaica0619]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pugmomjenn I was wondering the same thing...I'll be waiting to see what everyone has to say. Has anyone went on the Appleton Rum Tour?

When I did my site visit in January, we did a tour that included the Black River, YS Falls and Appleton Rum. The Appleton Rum tour was interesting - it reminded me of tours I've done of wineries. They give you an overview of the company's history, a tour of the process and then there is a tasting at the end. The tasting is fun, especially if you like rum...

They place 8 bottles of different types of rum and give you a description of each, and place small plastic tasting cups on the table... then they basically let you try each as much as you would like. The tour guide actually told the group to let him know if we finished any of the bottles. No one drank that much but it was nice that we could really try the rums we were thinking about buying.

However, if I had driven/rode all the way from Montego Bay to the factory for just the factory, I think I would have been disappointed - it is a 90 minute drive. But, it was totally worth doing as part of a tour that hits one or two other stops.

[futuremrsp]

thanks for the great suggestions!

 

We are staying at Sandals Grande Ocho Rios.

 

We were thinking the kayak tour might be fun; has anyone done it? It doesn't say which company does it, but it's the one in the Sandals list.

[futuremrsp]

Anna did you do the river tubing through Sandals? I didn't see it on my list and it sounds like fun!

[Anna83]

We signed up for the river tubing at our resort. We booked our trip through Apple Vacations, and on the second day of our trip, we had a meeting with our Apple representative where they offered us different tours. I would think it would be offered at all of the resorts, but I'm not sure.

[krista]

Thanks for the info Jamaica0619, I was wondering about the Appleton Rum tour as well. Who did you book that tour through? How was the other part, the YS Falls and Black River? Was it a full day tour? Do you remember how much it cost? Do they pick everyone up at the hotel?

Thanks.