If you just want to tour Montego Bay from a comfortable, air-conditioned bus with shopping stops along the way and time to eat lunch at either Scotchies or Margaritaville, the “Top 10 Best of Montego” may be a good excursion for you.

The “Top 10 Best” tour doesn’t actually have ten stops. It lists the “top 10” as two photo ops (St. James Parish Church and Panoramic View), three stops (Scotchies, Shoppes at Rose Hall, and Margaritaville on the Hip Strip), and five drive by sites (Old Town, Sam Sharpe Square, Westgate Hills, Fairview, and Ironside).

Booking

I booked the “Top 10 Best of Montego” excursion through Carnival. It was $39.99. I got 10% of that back for booking with my Carnival MasterCard.

Montego Bay Cruise Port

This is what it looks like when you step into the Montego Bay Cruise terminal. Taxis are straight ahead and excursion lines are to the right.

This is where the excursions meet.

I found my excursion in zone 5.

I have some time before my excursion. I’m going to step outside and look at the market area.

These Juici Patties are popular here.

They are supposed to have a reggae band and cultural dancing here. If I hadn’t booked an excursion, an alternative to not getting off of the ship would be to come out here when the band started. I could grab one of those meat patties and a red stripe, watch the show, look around the market, then get back on the ship.

It’s 9:25am. I’m going to get in line for the excursion.

This is the same type of shuttle bus I had out of Grand Cayman where we had so many people I had to sit in one of those little fold down seats in the middle of the aisle. 

I have been polite letting people board before me but it’s time to start thinking about not ending up in one of those seats.

The bus aisles have two seats on one side, one on the other, four on the back row, and fold down seats in the aisles. 

This is the fold down seat. I don’t recommend it.

These air vents are such that I can’t figure out if they’re supposed to be on me or the people in front of me. They won’t move back enough to hit my head. They go further forward than back. I put the ones behind me on me but I’m not sure that’s right either. It’s like my head is in the perfect spot where no air can hit me.

This is Sandra, our tour guide.

Old yeller can be seen up on the right.

9:33am Scratch that we just pulled over to change buses because we have more people coming. They said they want everyone to be comfortable. I like to be comfortable so I’m good with that.

The new bus is much better. 9 rows of two on each side. And five on the back row. I have a two seat row to myself. I count 24 people on a 40 person bus.

The air is great for me. Some people on the other side are complaining of no air. I think they just don’t know how to operate a vent.

They’re taking scotchies jerk chicken/pork orders on the bus already. It’s $6. 

It’s 9:50 am and I just ate breakfast two hours ago. Hopefully it’ll be closer to lunch time when we actually get there.

I’m not committing to lunch this early. Only one person on the bus is putting in an order.

We’re finally pulling out at 9:55 am. Again with the jerk chicken orders. They’re up to three people. I’m not one of them.

This is the left side of the road they call it the right side. The other side they call the suicide.

Our first stop (really drive through) is the Westgate hills residential area.  Homes here range from 450k-1mil. It’s mostly foreigners who use them as winter homes.

Here are some of the Westgate homes.

We are out of the neighborhood now.

Bashco = Costco

Old shipping dock.

Harbor Street craft market

These gas prices are per liter. There are 3.78 liters in a gallon.

Sam Sharpe Square

National Museum

We are turning onto Union Street. Sandra says this is called Union Street because it is where slave trading occurred.

She says this is the building where the slave trading occurred.

We almost hit a guy on a bicycle. This bus is big enough I don’t think it would’ve affected me though.

Our bus driver doesn’t give a darn. You better get out of the way if you’re on foot.

Courthouse 

You can see the ship from Queen’s Drive which was built by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Well..I doubt she actually built it herself.

The airport also seen from Queen’s Drive.

We are entering Iron Side residential area

Scotchies

We reached our first stop at 10:55.

I figured out why they were taking jerk chicken orders in the bus. They want you to shop while they pick up your food, then have you eat in the bus on the way to our next stop.

I wasn’t having it. I wanted the full dining experience. I don’t care about the shopping. We have other shopping stops coming up.

I’m walking over to Scotchies and this Jamaican–we’ll call him Smokey was trying to stop me. Hey man where ya from? I just blew him off. I have limited time and I’m not looking to shop.

I got this different kind of Red Stripe and 1/4 jerk chicken. I’ll stick to the regular Red Stripe from now on.

These are the eating areas out back.

I think I’ll grab a seat under the covered area.

Here is the chicken.

Coming out of scotchies heading to the bus “Smokey” tries to stop me. 

“Yo man where ya from?”

I just keep walking. He walks next to me

“I’m a farmer man.”

“I grow marijuana man.”

“I got a rolled one in my pocket man.”

“You want it man?”

I just keep walking.

When I get back on the bus everyone is already there and nobody is eating. It looks like everyone fell for the shopping thing and I was the only one who ate.

I finished the beer on the bus. Fortunately they had a spot for empty beer bottles.

They call this the old windmill.

Shoppes at Rose Hall

Our next stop is the Shoppes at Rose Hall. We arrived at 11:30 and we had 45 minutes here.

This is a nice picture spot in the back. You have no idea how long I had to wait to get a picture of it without someone posing for their own picture in front of it. They had a gazebo smoking area back there as well.

I’m not sure what was going on with the coconut. I thought they were going to get one of those coconuts with a straw. This guy emptied the coconut water into a ziplock bag. Then cut out some of the coconut and put it in the bag. He kept looking at me like he didn’t appreciate me watching and taking pictures so I moved on before the exciting conclusion.

I moved over to the food and bar area.

They had a DJ and food. I just grabbed a Red Stripe at the bar. 

I grabbed my beer and stood by a fan in eating area for a few minutes. You can see one on the right side of the picture below. When I felt like the table of people that fan was on had about enough of me…I left.

Looks like they’re jerking chickens here as well.

On the way out I stopped at the Blue Mountain Cafe. This is like their Starbucks only more expensive. It was $4 for a small brewed blue mountain. I didn’t need coffee but I wanted to try theirs without having to lug a bag of it home. Mr. Coffee is broken anyway.

The Hip Strip

We have reached our final stop which is Margaritaville/Hip Strip. This is supposed to be a 50 minute stop. The problem is they started that clock about 10 minutes before we got off the bus. So we really only had 40 minutes. 

They said if you wanted to eat at Margaritaville you needed to order as soon as we got there.

I’m heading down the Hip Strip to the Harley Davidson store.

Usain Bolt Statue

I want to check out the action in this casino.

These people have a totally different definition of gaming than I do.

Maybe it’ll get better upstairs.

Nope. They do birthday parties though.

I go up the next flight of stairs and…Jackpot!

This is a picture of the security lady telling me I can’t take pictures.

I wasn’t permitted to take pictures of the casino but they had a lot of penny slots. The only table games were electronic…which I won’t play.

They have a really nice semi circle bar and TVs with American sports on. They had great view as well. Too bad I couldn’t take a picture. 

They did allow me to take a picture of the ship from right outside the bar area. I got Margaritaville as well.

I headed across the street to check out Margaritaville and grab a beer.

You have a good view of the ship from here.

There are two levels with bars and seating. This is the lower level.

I would guess this is a stage for entertainment. They didn’t have any while I was there.

A plane coming in for landing at the airport we saw earlier.

This level has these misting machines blowing on the tables.

You can take this water slide down from the second floor.

I’m going to check out the action upstairs and grab a beer.

I grabbed a Red Stripe draft from the bar.

We had an extended wait for our bus since this bus was sitting in the only spot in front of Margaritaville. During that time I had four people try to sell me weed. One of them points at my beer and says “That beer sucks man. Red Stripe is better.” Of course the beer I was drinking was a Red Stripe draft in a Margaritaville cup. I guess he assumed I was drinking Bud Light or something.

They tell us we may have to walk across the street and up a hill to where our bus was parked. Which was kind of dumb because right after that this bus pulls out and there’s a parking spot available. I think they just didn’t want to have to move the bus in this traffic.

Finally they confirmed we have to walk across the street and up the hill.

Old yeller said he wasn’t a walking up any hills.

This is the walk up the hill. No that’s not our bus. Ours way up there. I stayed behind this struggling elderly couple to make sure they made it up the hill safely. Old yeller crossed the street but waited at the bottom of the hill. I guess we all could’ve done that. I’m not sure why they asked us to walk up the hill.

We made it up the hill. That’s our bus up ahead.

Here’s a look down the hill. Old Yeller is under the covered area on the left.

We get going and hit the traffic. This is the kind of traffic that made our Dunn’s River Falls tour late for the ship last cruise. Fortunately this is a much shorter excursion. We have plenty of time.

On the way back I got to smell stinky’s feet the entire time. I basically just had my nose up to the air vent.

When we got back to the port I grabbed this shot of the cultural dancers.

It looks like the reggae band is on break.

Before I got on the ship I decided to try one of these Juici Pattis. 

This wasn’t a bad excursion if you just want to get away from the port and experience some of Jamaica. I mostly just wanted to try the jerk chicken, get my souvenir at the Harley Davidson shop, and take a picture of the ship from Margaritaville so it worked for me.

• Montego Bay
• Top 10 of Montego Bay