Jamaica will always have a special place in my heart! It was the first trip I ever booked for Divas Travels. I started Divas Travels in November of 2016. A couple of weeks later was my college homecoming, THE Xavier University of Louisiana (shout out to College of Pharmacy Class of 2007). I asked a few of my travel friends, “hey let’s do a trip to Jamaica next month”. I had no clue what I was doing, but a month later we were in Jamaica. It felt good to get my first booking under my belt, even if it was for my friends and me. I have been to Jamaica a few times since, and it is always nostalgic.
Before I was a travel agent, I started doing an annual Cinco de Mayo trip. Last year Jamaica was the location, but you know COVID happened 🙄. This year we resumed our Jamaica plans. Our schedules did not permit for us to be there on Cinco de Mayo, but we went as close to the day as we could.
I got a Secret…Breathless did not leave me breath-less
We stayed at Breathless Montego Bay. I love the Breathless properties and my goal is to try them all out. I have been to the property in Cancun a couple of times, and to the one in Cabo. The Jamaica property is currently the newest one, so I was too excited to see how it compared. Well Breathless did not meet my expectation or excitement. The property is small and does not have many restaurants. Now all the food was amazing at Breathless. Jamaicans can cook!! The Dj at the pool was on point, playing a good mix of reggae, R&B, and rap. Each night they had a silent party, which only consisted of one channel (very odd) which was reggae, R&B and rap. The great thing about Breathless is, it is next door to Secrets Wild Orchid and Secrets St James and you have full access to each resort. The Secrets side is amazing. It’s beautiful, very resorty, with plus green grass, lots of palm trees, and is much larger than Breathless with multiple pools and restaurants. If I could do this trip over, I would have stayed on the Secrets side, and went to the Breathless side late in the afternoon for the Dj turn up.
The Secret I never knew I wanted
The beach is located on the Secrets side of the resorts, so Secrets had beach parties at night, a Jerk chicken cart, which is basically a man with a grill and jerk chicken hot off the grill (yummy). They also had a food stand with authentic Jamaican patties. My absolute favorite restaurant was Blue Mountain, which consisted of Jamaican cuisine, oxtails, ackee, lamb curry, and more. We ate there twice because the oxtails were BOMB.. We honestly did not eat anything we truly did not like. I was leery of the Secrets side, as a travel agent I know the reputation of Secrets is stellar. It is comparable to Breathless in amenities and luxury, but Secrets is geared to couples and Breathless is the turn up resort. I stayed in my first Secrets property last October and I was not impressed. After experiencing the Secrets in Jamaica, I would for sure give them another try.
Curfews and COVID
Jamaica is under a strict curfew so movement outside of the resort is limited. I am not the excursion girl. I have done most of it before, zip-ling, ATVS, horseback riding….I am also VERY accident prone, so I don’t want to ruin everyone else’s trip because I broke a bone on an excursion. I said all of this to say, I don’t usually leave the resort unless it’s for “off campus” food (that’s what me and friends call it when we go off the resort to eat). I am usually game for one good meal off the resort, other than that you can catch me at the swim-up pool bar! Most of group did a bamboo float ride down a river, they really enjoyed it. We all left off campus to go to my favorite Jamaican food spot Scotchies. Unfortunately, due to the curfews in place in Jamaica, due to COVID surges, they were closed the day we tried to go. Our cab drive shout out @Khevlarmusic, took us to get takeout from about spot, Peppers. It was bomb too. Jamaica is currently on a curfew of 8 pm on weekdays, 6pm on Saturday and 2pm on Sunday. Restaurants stop letting people in about 2 hours before curfew and all excursions run early to avoid the curfew. The resorts do not have to abide by the curfew, but most resorts since Covid do not operate 24 hours, Breathless and Secrets shut down at 1am.
Jamaica requires a negative COVID test to enter, you must test within 72 hours of travel. The United States requires a negative COVID test within 3 days of travel back home. Breathless/Secrets offer complimentary COVID testing and complimentary quarantine if you test positive 🥴. The COVID testing process was a breeze in Jamaica. They emailed results the same day and have a workstation to print results, if you needed it. I flew American again, so I used the Verify app and uploaded my results and did not need a printed copy. My one word of caution, make sure you get to the airport on time on the US side. Due to the need of a COVID test to enter Jamaica, you cannot check in your flight online, you must see an agent. The lines were long. I was lucky because I was in first class and the priority line was super short.
Overall Jamaica was great, with bomb food and amazing friends. Next up was Napa Valley…blog post coming soon!
Divas Travels Adventures 