Friday 17 December 2010

OCHO RIOS SHOPPING TRIP, COST, AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The hotel is known as The Jewell, locally, or 'the new one'. Actually it had been a holiday building here for many years, since the 1950s, and was a casino at first, so I was told by Leabert, the garden guide. It has just been refurbished throughout recently. Its last incarnation was as Sandals, Dunn's River.

Staff here excellent, very well trained, and obviously chosen for their friendly personalities, attractive appearance and ability to remember people's names! They have one day off a week, I believe, and work really hard. After being there some time, they have 2 weeks holiday.

Went to Ocho Rios on a 'Shopping Tour', this cost 20$ for two- cheaper than the taxi fare which is quoted as $30 - it is only about 3 miles away. The Tour vehicel was a small bus, and we were told to come back to the same spot two hours later, in the Craft mall, full of Bob Marley sourvenirs.

I wanted to buy a sim card for phone, so we walked to the Digicel shop, where the credit card machine was out of order. We also had to provide proof of identity which could have been a problem, as we did not know about this prior to our visit. Lucily I had a photocopy of my passport. We managed to pay with the few US dollars we had (we had not planned to buy anything much). You pay for minutes of calls with this service, not by the cost.

Afterwards stopped at very nice coffee shop in another mall, and got information about a driver who could take us to Wassi Arts the next day.

Met a couple of Yanks who invited us to have a drink with them the next day, at their hotel which is the neighbour of ours at Dunn's River, called Rui I think. (Its so big it looks like a small town)

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