Jamaica: Dunn’s River Falls
Climbing Dunn’s River Falls is my must-do in Jamaica. The total area of the falls is 600 feet long and 180 feet high. This is the location where the British defeated Spanish invaders from Cuba in the 1657 Battle of Las Chorreras.
Dunn’s River Falls can be done from any of the Jamaican ports. It would save a long bus ride if you were able to do it from Ocho Rios. In my case I was going to Montego Bay with no Ocho Rios port stops on any of my future cruises. For that reason I decided to start this excursion from Montego Bay.
Booking
When I’m booking a long excursion, I prefer to book it with the cruise line. That covers me in case there are any issues getting back to the ship in time. In this case I waited until I was on the ship to book the excursion so I could use my onboard credit.
These were the Dunn’s River Falls excursion options:
1. Ocho Rios & Dunn’s River Falls with lunch for $79.99.
This excursion leaves at 9am and runs 7 1/2 hours. It includes lunch at the Almond Tree Restaurant. It also includes shopping if time permits. It was rated with 4 stars.
2. Dunn’s River falls and Bamboo beach club lunch for $99.
This excursion leaves at 9am and runs 7 hours. It was rated with 3.5 stars.
3. Dunn’s River Falls, Beach and Lunch for $79.99.
This excursion leaves at 9:15 and 10:30 and runs 6 1/5 hours. It sounds like lunch is on the beach at this one. It was rated with 2.5 stars. I wanted to know why it had such a low rating so I dug into the reviews. It sounds like people liked the falls but not the beach or the lunch. At this point I’m leaning towards the option with the Almond Tree Restaurant lunch.
4. Sky explorer and Dunn’s River falls 119.99.
This excursion leaves at 9:15 and runs 7 hours. It looks like you do a chair lift before you go to the falls. In fine print it says “excursion may last 8.5 hours.” It was rated with 4 stars. That sky explorer looks nice but I don’t want an 8.5 hour excursion.
5. Bobsled Jamaica & Dunn’s River Falls with Lunch for $128.99.
This excursion leaves at 9:15 and runs 7 hours. It was rated with 4 stars. I like the movie “Cool Runnings” but this looks like you’re paying an extra $50 to ride a roller coaster. I’ll pass.
I decided to book #1 but keep #2 and #3 as backups in case #1 was sold out.
Dining Room
I was able to book my first choice which was the Ocho Rios & Dunn’s River Falls with lunch excursion. Our meeting place is the dining room. Since ours is the first excursion to leave and the last to come back they wanted to make sure we got out the door first.
I brought a waterproof pouch with a lanyard to keep my phone in on the falls. I plan to record it.
Montego Bay Cruise Port
Surprisingly the other Dunn’s River Falls tours aren’t behind us. It’s the Appleton Estate rum tour that’s going to be the second group off.
Taxis are straight ahead. Excursions on to the right.
These are all of the excursion meeting points.
My excursion is in Zone 1.
Tour Bus
There was no line because nearly everyone on my excursion had already boarded the bus and it wasn’t that many. I counted 25 when I boarded. There were way more than 25 people getting off of that ship before me.
We boarded the bus at 8:20 and pulled out at 8:30. It was a nice big bus but I kept fighting my air vents. They kept closing.
This is where Usain Bolt went to school.
This is Discovery Bay. It’s where Columbus landed.
At 9:30 we passed the Appleton Rum Estate which explains why they were one of the first excursions to leave after us.
Rest Stop
At 9:42 we had a rest stop for 15 minutes. They were selling water shoes for $10 for anyone who didn’t already have them. I don’t know what the quality is but that’s a good price. The water shoes on the ship were $40. I think I got mine for $20 back home.
This isn’t the entire selection. They had water shoes all over the place here.
They had beer and snacks at this stop. I was going to hold off on the red stripe since we have them on the ship. When that fridge opened and I saw how cold and frosty that top left one looked, I had to grab it. The red stripes were $4.
The lady in front of me decided not to buy anything when they tried to charge her $6 for two cans of Pepsi.
They asked us to change clothes and put our water shoes on before we left the rest stop. We pulled out at 10am.
Dunn’s River Falls
It was a short drive from the rest stop to Dunn’s River Falls. We were given white bracelets to put on while we waited in line.
I have this thing about germs. I don’t like them. I don’t like shaking hands. I’ll try to avoid it. I won’t refuse but I’ll go wash my hands as soon as you leave.
Everything I’ve seen shows that you hold hands on this thing so it’s going through my mind. I’m thinking about who is going to be in front of me and behind me. This kid directly in front of me sneezes into his right hand. I’m horrified. I also hear a sneeze out of someone in the family behind me. This is not good. I have to change it up. I fake a water shoe problem and let some people pass.
Now there’s a girl in front of me. At some point she does a two handed sneeze. I’m going to have to reshuffle the deck again. I let some more people pass. At some point I realize the people I’m with aren’t with my tour guide. I ask what ship they’re on. They say Harmony of the Seas—not good. I look around and find my tour guide and she gets me with the right group.
They split us up into groups of about 30 people. Only 7 were actually on my ship. We had a long wait. Our tour group was encouraged to leave anything not going with us in the locked bus. The people from the other ship were renting lockers so we had to wait for them. This put us as the absolute last group on my tour and would take away any time for us to change clothes at the end.
You absolutely need water shoes. Your are going to be walking and climbing on slippery rocks. You will absolutely get soaked from head to toe. There are several checkpoints where you can get off of the falls if you want. I only noticed one.
I killed my phone battery because I tried to video the entire thing.
There was a lot of stopping to wait for the group ahead of us. Stopping for people taking pictures. Stopping because someone slipped and fell. So there was a lot of dead time in my videos. I tried to cut that out.
There are also a lot of times where my phone spun around on that lanyard and was just recording my shirt. I cut all of that out of the videos as well.
You may recognize the area you’re about to see from the 1962 James Bond film “Dr. No,” which had scenes filmed at Dunn’s River Falls.
At the end my battery started dying and the phone would go into power save, stopping the recording. I did get this still shot at of the end right after I got off of the rocks and realized it had stopped recording.
After getting off the falls my battery was at 3% so I turned my phone off. The Almond Tree Restaurant lunch was a big part of the reason I chose this excursion over the Dunn’s River Falls with Beach lunch excursion so I wanted to capture it.
As I mentioned we were the group from my ship to finish and because of that we didn’t have the opportunity to change clothes or shop after the falls as others on our tour did.
They wanted to sell you a DVD with pictures and videos of your climb for $40. They sent a cameraman with each group. We had people in our group that ordered them but didn’t get them.
We immediately boarded the bus and headed to the Almond Tree Restaurant for lunch.
Almond Tree Restaurant
Once we arrived I was able to change clothes in the restroom prior to eating lunch.
This is basically the same meal I had in Belize on the Lamanai tour. These countries must have gotten together and said “This is what we’re going to feed tourists on excursions: Stewed chicken, rice and beans. To make them different we’ll serve it with potato salad and tang, you serve it with coleslaw and watered down fruit juice.”
They do have some nice views here.
Tour Bus
After lunch they took us to the Ocho Rios shopping portion. It was just one gift shop. I got out and looked around. I sampled a couple of rums. But opted not to buy anything. My phone was totally dead at this point so no pictures.
On the way back they played a video of a Michael Jackson concert. I believe it was the early 90’s version of Michael. The video cut out about halfway back and they switched to Jamaican music.
We got stuck in rush hour traffic in Montego. We were real close to the port. It was frustrating. I wanted to get out and walk. I was glad I booked through Carnival and knew the ship wouldn’t leave without me. We got back after all aboard.
I highly recommend Dunn’s River Falls if you’re going to Jamaica. If you have the option I would much rather cruise to Ocho Rios than Montego Bay. Most of the excursions are closer to Ocho Rios. If Montego Bay is your only option, it’s still doable.
