Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Woke up to the view of the ship entering the Ocho Rios area. From my balcony I could see a jungle covered mountainous coastline and a quaint town hugging the coast. Notice too, in the pic above, the houses perched all along the mountainside. Cool.
Made my way to the buffet for breakfast but as usual it was full so I decided to have a sweet breakfast of pancakes and waffles, sticky buns and sugar donuts from the pizza grill which becomes a pancake and waffle bar in the morning. More seating here because it's outdoors. I'm finding that's virtually all I can find.
Watched CNN and sat a bit on my balcony through the morning then disembarked just before noon and headed to Margaritaville. Luckily I had scoped out the port in Google maps last week so I knew where it was because the signage was hard to see what with all the eyeball-assaulting vividly-colored beachwear hung in each straw market stall all along the walking path in the dock area. And, of course, the hawkers, buscars and pretty much just beggars wanting my pretty, green US money.
Sat at the bar at Margaritaville sipping on Red Stripes I ordered by the bucket listening to a hodgepodge of Country, Hip Hop, Reggae and some Jimmy Buffet, of course. Ours was the only cruise ship in town so the dock area in general, including this venue, was sparsly patroned. Fine by me. After my 6 beers I made my way towards my ship stopping at a small gift shop for my obigatory magent souvenier.
Hot as balls today, announcement on the ship said it was over 100 degrees, so, yeah. Grabbed a burger up at the buffet grill for lunch and continued to explore the ship. Had a Lagunitas IPA draft at the White Lion Pub, like yesterday, then I followed it by a drink of the day...Jamaica ****. This had about 5 different liquors in it. And after all the beers, it put me over into partial blackout zone. I remember attending the 3:30 pm trivia in Duomo Bar (got 10 out of 17, pretty good score), having another two Heineken drafts and then it fades to black. I may have eaten again up in the buffet, I may have gone back to my cabin, I don't know. I do know I went to the 7:15 pm presentation in the theater: a song and dance show based on The Addams Family. Pretty good costuming and make-up. The guy playing Gomez looked okay but the dancer playing Morticia was too young. And I say dancer rather than actress since, like the Dirty Dancing show, no one really acted. There were no speaking parts. Just singing, dances and pantomime. And acrobatic feats. Overall it was okay and, amazingly, I kinda remember most of it since I was quite drunk. After the show...it's all blacked out. I woke half clothed in bed in the middle of the night for the start of my hourly pee-a-thon and felt awful.