Almeida Adventures: Our Vacation to Jamaica

September 24th – October 5th
We spent 11 nights at the Jewel Dunns River all inclusive resort in Jamaica. We had a really nice time, even though hurricane Matthew was a threat. Of course we ate and drank too much, but I guess that’s what vacations are for! We hung out at the pool everyday, read, played Sudoku, played pitch & putt, billiards, shuffleboard, paddle boarding, and water aerobics.

They had hermit crab races one evening and people were betting on them big time! The crabs were placed in the center of the circle and whichever crab crossed the white line first was the winner.

We love to play shuffle board and we’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. It’s so much fun to strategize on the next move to knock out your opponents pucks and I kicked some major booty!!!

There’s a little crappy pitch & putt 9-hole golf course on the property. It only takes about 45 minutes to play and we played it almost every day. No dress code here…LOL

Dinner out on the pier

A couple of employees that we met when we were there 3 years ago are still there and they recognized us! It’s amazing considering how many thousands of people they meet every year. Just the friendliest people and they love their jobs. Sanya is a waitress and works at all the restaurants on the property.

Garnet has been working there for 14 years. He’s a bartender and moves around from bar to bar.

This is the beach bar & grill where you can get “fast food” if you will… hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, jerk chicken, nachos, etc. Yep, we’re guilty… we visited it several times.

A walk along the beach before it disappeared due to the hurricane.

This is the lifeguard station… NOT!!! We’re in Jamaica mon, there is no lifeguard! You swim and do everything at your own risk. The water sports employees said if you’re in trouble while on the paddle board just wave and we’ll come and get you. You’ve got to be kidding, they mostly just talk to the guests and don’t pay attention to what you’re doing. Needless to say, I didn’t go too far from the shore!

There were 2 peacocks on the property that went everywhere, they traveled a lot. They were very friendly and would eat out of your hand.

This one is resting on our patio chair.

This is the view of him from inside our room.

Notice the beach behind, it almost disappeared due to “Matthew”.

Good cabana boy serving drinks.

This is the main pool and that waterfall is awesome to be under. It’s powerful enough that the water gives you a shoulder massage.

This is the crappiest pool table ever, but we still had fun playing.

Kitties, kitties, and more kitties everywhere on the property. We see cats at all the resorts that we go to and most are feral and/or skittish at best. But these cats were so friendly!! There must be about 18 cats that roam the property. The weird thing is that almost all of them were missing the tip of their left ear. We figured it must be an in-breading issue.

In this photo you can see the tip on his left ear is missing. We had just finished eating breakfast and this cat just jumped on my lap and took a short little nap.

Beach dinner party night.

We met some really nice people from Texas and Colorado, so we hung out with them and had a great time. Hope to see you again sometime Todd, Lacy, Vivien & Larry!

Hurrican Matthew was brewing but since it was moving so slowly, we figured we’d have enough time to get out if it was going to be a direct hit. Several days out it took a more northernly turn, so Jamaica was no longer in a direct path. We were in the middle northern section of the country so only the outer bands would hit us. But Kingston, which is the capital of Jamaica and on the east coast, got hit more than we did.

You can see in this photo that we were not in the red section.

In preparation, they boarded up the ocean facing restaurant.

The plywood and rain gear for the employees arrived a few days before Matthew hit.

This is just outside our room. They installed 3” pipes from the down spouts to handle the amount of rain that would fall. We were told most likely we would have to move to higher ground and into a different building, but that didn’t happen.

They had sand bags at all the entrances.

Here are before & after photos. See how there are loung chairs on the beach beyond the palapas.

This is how the ocean took over the beach 2 days before Matthew arrived.

The beach before

Two days before

One day before

This is the adjacent property before

Adjacent property 2 days before

Adjacent property 1 day before

Matthew finally arrived, but not too bad, only wind and lots of rain. Thank you God for watching over Jamaica, but very sad for so many that lost their lives and their homes in this huge hurricane.