Negril, Jamaica - April 2022

In spring of 2022, J and the male half of our closest friend couple turned a milestone age. We decided to go on a couples' destination trip together - after much research, we settled on Negril, Jamaica. We booked a big villa at The Cliffs, which had been a top ten Caribbean destination that year.

Horribly, pretty much everything that could go wrong for our friends did in the few weeks before the trip, and they couldn't go. The hotel was non-refundable, so J and I ended up going. We missed our friends just terribly.

I didn't end up taking my good camera, so these are just from my phone. We ended up making a few different sets of friends, in particular a couple and their infant from London.

Here are a few of the photos:

The outdoor living room in our villa, looking out toward the ocean.

I have a mild phobia of walking bridges and pathways, so this was not living my best life to traverse. But it was picturesque!

Another angle of the ocean over the cliffs. It rained a little in the afternoon each day, and then cleared off like this at night.

Not entirely sure why I took a photo of J's drink, but it was an interesting pop of color.

Their Zest restaurant did have indoor seating, but we ate each meal here on the patio overlooking the sea. They had the most delicious Caribbean jerk pasta and jerk chicken.

We spent much of our second full day in the saltwater pool off to the lower right here, making some friends from Texas. I got burnt to a crisp.

I took this from the saltwater pool; this was one of our TX friends. I jumped off of this cliff (which is much taller than it looks), but I didn't look anywhere near as cool doing it.

There was a wedding onsite the next day, so we and our British friends walked offsite to a nearby Jamaican barbecue restaurant. These were the extra-clear directions provided on the way.

As I don't like seafood, I'd planned on getting chicken. They were out, so my options were oxtail or goat. I chose goat (lower left), which apparently is comprised of a million floating ribs in stringy muscles. I gave it a college effort. Note the tureen of ketchup.

The Cliff was absolutely beautiful and the staff wonderful, but Jamaica is far less safe than Curacao. Additionally, the drinking water was not treated. Since our visit, the price of The Cliff has also skyrocketed - the TripAdvisor award brought them a ton of visibility. It was delightful, and beautiful, but I think these combined with desperately missing our friends and preferring the vibe of Baoase keeps us on Team Curacao!