Sandals Ochi Rios, Jamaica

 
So, there’s Jamaica, and there’s Sandals.  They are worlds apart… third world vs. first world, specifically.  Sandals is a little microcosm of the US on Jamaican soil.  It’s elegant and well organized and pretty much everything you’d expect from a four or five star US resort.  Which is remarkable, when you think about it.  I remember Belize, where the workers at the resort told us they didn’t have “wine” but they had something called “Merlot” that was pretty good.  And they offered Dramamine to Brie when she was running a fever (which is because that stuff is rare in the outback and local help is local help).  Flash forward to Sandals, and everything was great.  From the food to the water sports to the night clubs, it was all … maybe not flawless, but four star.  Oh, except for the coffee, which was five star Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.  With sixteen restaurants, all themed (Italian, French, Seafood, Tapas, Jerk spiced meat, etc) so they stood out from one another, and from the cooks to the waiters to the cleanup crew, everyone could have passed for their equivalent in the US.  Minus the accent and the insistence on teaching the Jamaican way to say “groovy” (Ya, Mon!).
 
But let’s start with Jamaica, the island.  We had a long ride to the resort (Montego Bay airport is almost on the other side of the island from Ochi Rios) so parts of it then.  And during our visit, we also did a couple of day trips into the countryside, which was enough to see a lot of the shoreline and some of the mountains. 
 
Did I say mountains?  Yes, I did.  Jamaica, with a little over 4000 square miles of land, is about fifty times larger than most of the Caribbean islands I’ve been to, which gives it fresh water, terrain… like, 5,000 foot tall mountain type terrain… and trees.  Jungle, in fact.  You get off the coast and it pretty quickly turns into a Romancing The Stone style hack through the underbrush with a machete - I’m pretty sure I heard something large with teeth in those bushes - jungle.   Which lead to the question of why so much of what we ate at Sandals was imported?  As far as I could tell, other than Ackee and Salt Fish (Ackee is a fruit that is considered poisonous in most countries, making it the national dish for Jamaica) and papaya, it seemed like everything was brought in from … well, elsewhere.  Maybe not the US, but mainland something.  Seems like you could do sustainable farming on Jamaica. 
 
But Jamaica seems to follow the practice of most Caribbean nations.  Which means the local population is generally in grinding-poverty level conditions.  There are shacks that are nothing but a frame with plywood hammered to it and corrugated metal sheets held down by cinder blocks as a roof directly across the street from pristine, sparkling clean stucco resorts with pools and lover’s nooks with swings and elegant wooden tables with crisp white napkins and gleaming silverware on the patio.  It makes income inequality in the US seem trivial in comparison.   


 
The people seemed generally friendly; there were a lot of smiles, the island tradition of honking your horn to say hi (and to announce yourself at curves and just because it’s fun to honk the horn).  But we didn’t intact with anyone outside the guided tours much (one exception, which I’ll get into later), so it’s a little hard to tell. 
 
I will put in a bit about the reefs here, rather than compare and contrast in the detail section below, because it belongs in the overview.  Jamaica, like everywhere I’ve dived, is a little different.  There’s a lot of pretty spectacular coral, and some interesting sea life if you can spot it.  But the weird thing is there’s very little fish.  I can’t think of a place I’ve snorkeled or dived that wasn’t crawling with colorful fish, frequently travelling in schools of dozens or hundreds.  Here, they were around, but in ones and twos.  I’m not sure if that’s something to do with man’s influence on the reefs, or if it’s natural, but it was a little strange.  Having said that, while it wasn’t my favorite place to dive/snorkel, it wasn’t bad, and I did see a few things that were pretty awesome.
 
And that’s Jamaica.
 
Sandals was split into three sections, the Ochi Beach Club, the lower section, and the upper section, which probably had names as well but I never learned them.  The upper section was more pools and lawns and night clubs; the bottom section water sports and dramatic ocean views.  The beach club was a beach, a pretty nice beach, with an amphitheater in the back that was continuously showing kids cartoons (but Sandals Ochi Rios is a couples resort, so there were no kids, which made that a little confusing).   I have the feeling they were added at different times because it’s surprising maze-like to get from one area to another. 
 
That wasn’t a big deal because there was a shuttle bus that ran like clockwork every ten minutes to scoot you from one section to the other.  We spent the majority of our time in the lower section, where our room on the fourth floor had a patio looking out over the emerald-green and turquoise blue waters of Ochi.
 
It’s an all-inclusive resort, with high end spirits and a lot of alcohol poisoning from people that are trying to get their money’s worth out of the place.  There are sixteen restaurants across all three locations, some of which required reservations ahead of time (and which booked pretty quickly, which we got around by reserving one later in the week and accidently thinking it was for Wednesday night).  There are shows every night, where they brought in local groups to perform (including some where the people where all caucasian… which made me wonder if they have a show circuit where they shift from resort to resort each night).  The shows are a little amateurish, but fun, and you can’t beat free.  There’s also some activity every night; a beach party, a chocolate … soiree, I guess you’d call it, a sunset cruise.  Being old, we tended to go to bed about the time they were starting.  But I have to say they did a great job of noise control, and we never had a problem with a noisy party keeping us awake.   And they did a great job of making each one look glamorous with colored lights and laser shows and outrageous outfits.  I will say there was an odd sense of sameness to the events despite the different colored lights and the costume changing, but that might be psychological, knowing it was all the same people, just dressed differently.