Cruise Ship Diaries Part 17

Good god did Jamaica live up to its stereotypes and within seconds of stepping off the ship you are accosted by vendors, street sellers, drug dealers and pimps. 'Hey mon, what d'you need weed...pussy?' would greet us every time we walked the ship! These guys would start following you and trying to be nice by starting up a conversation before being very unpleasent once they realised you were not going to give them any money.

The main attraction for the guests was Dunsriver Falls in Ocho Rios which was a series of impressive waterfalls that you spend a few hours trekking through. Back in 2008 Go Pro's didn't exist so it was difficult to film the falls properly without drenching the camera. The other main draws were the hundreds of snorkelling and rum (of course) catamaran tours which gave me a chance to work on my frankly shit underwater filming.

The other popular attraction was a walking tour through the Prospect Plantation, which had previously sold coffee and every type of fruit and vegtable you could think of.

Bar weed what is Jamaica most well known for? Bob Marley and rum! So a crew trip was organised between a few different deparments and we organised a mini bus trip for the few hours drive to Bob Marleys house in Nine Miles, not to be confused with his museum in Kingston.

We'd barely been in the minibus for 10 miuntes when our driver /guide said he had to make a quick stop, the alarm bells start ringing and sure enough he had stopped at a friends to load up the van with alcohol. Fair enough we thought and we wondered how much more on top of what we paid for the tour the booze would cost us.

'No mon, its all good' our tour guide assured us as he put the crate of red stripe beer and countless bottles of rum into the minibus, 'its all included in what you paid for the tour' Fucking A! Needless to say we got on it and were pretty smashed by the time we arrived which will definitely happen when you put a bunch of English and Aussies in a confined space with alcohol.

Honestly I can't remember much of the tour and what little I can is put together from these pictures.

It was a great trip and one of the best days of the contract with a good group of people from the ship, as we all staggered back and pretended to not be smashed drunk off our faces in the middle of the afternoon.

The above video contains distressing scenes of Liam trying to latin dance in Jamaica. Viewer discretion is advised.

In a funny way we were completely ripped off once we got to Bob Marleys house as we were all so utterly shitfaced by the time we got there (me especially) that you could have sold us anything and they did! My roommate Liam came away with a rastarfian cookbook and a hat with fake dreadlocks attached to it, and I'm sure everyone bought a ton of Jamaican merchandise. This in turn would lead to the impromptu Jamaica night photog deck 9 corridor party, where you'd only be let back in the corridor if you were wearing something Jamaican.

I still wonder to this day if Angel has his full Jamaican gangster tracksuit!

In the next cruise ship diaries - Last days on the Coral