The falls, the raft and the road west. Book the good days first.
Which Dunn’s River trip gets there before the ships dock. What a raft down the Martha Brae costs. Whether the glowing lagoon is worth a late night out of Montego Bay. Reviews of every tour you can book in Jamaica.
The falls, the hills, the lagoon and a bus full of strangers.
Four bookings a first week in Jamaica tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The big oneBlue Hole, Secret Falls, and Dunn’s River Falls Combo Day-TripTwo limestone pools and the terraced climb in one day out of Montego Bay. If you book a single thing on this coast, book this.
02The inland dayRastafari Cultural ATV Community Experience from Montego BayQuads up into the hills to a Rastafari settlement, lunch cooked where you stop. The highest-rated day on the island by a distance.
03After darkLuminous Lagoon Night Tour from Montego BayThe water lights up around whoever swims through it. It only works on a dark night, and the boats go out of Glistening Waters.
04The cheap nightNegril One Love Bus Bar CrawlA painted bus, four Negril bars and a driver who brings everyone home. Nobody has to stay off the rum.
In Jamaica the best day out usually ends wet.
Limestone holds the water here, so the island runs on rivers and falls: pools you jump into, a terraced climb everybody photographs, and a raft you take lying down. Four kinds of wet day and what it costs to get on each.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Blue Hole, Secret Falls, and Dunn’s River Falls Combo Day-Trip
Bamboo raftingA captain poles, you sit. Great River or Martha Brae.
Blue Hole jumpsLimestone pools above Ocho Rios, rope swing included.
The Dunn’s climbSix hundred feet of terraces, hand in hand, straight up.
River tubingAn inner tube, mild rapids and a drink at the take-out.
All 55 Blue Hole and waterfall days →
Six Jamaican towns, and the day out each one is best at.
Almost everything on this island is sold as a round trip from a hotel gate, so the town you sleep in decides what is a morning and what is a whole day. Here is what each base reaches easily.
Montego Bay is where most of Jamaica gets booked from.
Everything in Montego Bay →
Two rafting rivers sit within half an hour of the airport, the glowing lagoon is forty minutes east, and Negril is ninety minutes west. Nothing else on the island reaches as much in a day.
Raft the Great River or the Martha Brae
A captain poles a thirty-foot bamboo raft downstream while you sit on a padded bench and do nothing whatsoever. Most trips stop at a bank bar on the way down.
A limestone foot massage on the bank
Warm limestone mud off the riverbed, worked in by hand where the raft pulls up. It is the signature of this stretch of coast and it costs almost nothing beside the rafting.
Rick’s Cafe, ninety minutes down the coast
Cliff divers, a sound system and the sun dropping into the sea off Negril. Montego Bay hotels sell it as a late round trip, and the bus leaves earlier than you expect.
The reef is ten minutes offshore the whole way along this coast.
Catamarans run west from Montego Bay to the Negril caves and east to the foot of Dunn’s River, most of them with a snorkel stop, a rope swing and a bar that opens the moment the sail goes up. The quiet version is a clear kayak at first light.
The days out more people book in Jamaica than anything else.
Every Jamaican tour we have reviewed →These are the trips the island runs on. What each costs, how long it takes, and what earns it the slot.
1
Rastafari Cultural ATV Community Experience from Montego Bay
Travel from Montego Bay to Roaring River for coffee, fresh juice, local history, and an ATV ride through farms and forest. Guides such as Gilbert, Paul, Nick, and Ali lead stops for swimming, fruit tasting, and a ganja farm visit. A homemade lunch and hotel transfers are included.
From · $164
Read our review →
2
Montego Bay Airport (MBJ) Transfer One-Way or Round-Trip to Hotel
from $18
3
Jamaica All-Access Adventure Pass at Ocean Outpost
from $163
4
Negril One Love Bus Bar Crawl
from $25
5
Jamaica Dunn’s River Falls Party Cruise with Snorkeling
from $133
6
Blue Hole, Secret Falls, and Dunn’s River Falls Combo Day-Trip
from $125
7
Montego Bay Hotels Airport Private Transfer
from $20
8
Rastafari Cultural ATV Community Experience from Negril
from $164
Ten minutes inland the tarmac gives up and the hills start.
Behind the resort strip the ground climbs fast into bush, cane and red dirt track. Quads, horses and ziplines are how most people get up there, and the views back down over the coast are the reason to bother.
What a day out in Jamaica actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. The cheapest end of this island is not the worst of it — a raft down the Great River costs less than lunch at the hotel.
Rafting trips, falls admission, craft-market runs, a great-house ticket and the bar crawls.
The standard full days: catamarans, the Blue Hole combos, quad rides and the lagoon at night.
Private drivers, Kingston and Nine Mile from the north coast, and the all-day combination trips.
Three things that only happen in Jamaica.
Beaches and boat trips exist all over the Caribbean. A staircase of waterfall, a bay that lights up around you and a foot massage made of riverbed do not.
Dunn’s River Falls
Six hundred feet of limestone terraces fall straight into the sea at Ocho Rios, and the whole point is that you walk up them. Guides run a hand chain from the beach to the top, everyone barefoot, the water pushing at your knees the whole way. Cruise ships dock a few hundred metres away, so the first hour after opening is the only quiet one.
- 1Jamaica Dunn’s River Falls Party Cruise with Snorkeling★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 997 reviews
- 2Blue Hole, Secret Falls, and Dunn’s River Falls Combo Day-Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 973 reviews
- 3Blue Hole and Dunn’s River Falls Private Tour from Montego Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 420 reviews
The Luminous Lagoon
Where the Martha Brae meets the sea at Falmouth, the brackish water holds a density of dinoflagellates found in only a handful of places on earth. Move a hand through it after dark and the whole arm outlines in blue-white. Boats go out nightly from Glistening Waters, and the darker the sky the brighter it reads.
- 1Luminous Lagoon Night Tour from Montego Bay★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 419 reviews
- 2Mesmerizing Luminous Lagoon (Glistening Waters) Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 98 reviews
- 3Explore Montego Bay to Luminous LagoonGlistening Water Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 78 reviews
The Limestone Foot Massage
At the take-out point on the Great River the raft captains scoop white limestone mud off the bed, warm it in their hands and work it into your feet while the raft is pulled out. It costs a few dollars, it is older than the tourism, and no other rafting river in the Caribbean does it.
- 1Jamaica Bamboo Rafting Experience with Lime Stone Massage★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 549 reviews
- 2Private Montego Bay Bamboo Rafting with Limestone Foot Massage★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 200 reviews
- 3Bamboo Rafting and Limestone Foot Massage on Lethe River Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 114 reviews
Negril has the beach on one end and the cliffs on the other.
Seven Mile Beach runs flat and shallow the length of the north side; the West End is limestone bluff, ladders into the water and every bar angled at the sunset. Ninety minutes from Montego Bay, and worth staying over for.
Every Negril day out →
Four Jamaican bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be sorted at the hotel desk the night before. These four run on cruise schedules, tide, darkness and a mountain road, none of which care what time your flight landed.
- 01Jamaica Dunn’s River Falls Party Cruise with SnorkelingShips dock at Ocho Rios and Falmouth most mornings and their passengers go straight to the falls. The early slots are the only ones with room on the rock.
- 02Luminous Lagoon Night Tour from Montego BayThe lagoon only reads at night, and it reads best with no moon. Boats run to a fixed nightly rotation with a fixed number of seats.
- 03Bob Marley’s Nine Mile Admission and Guided Tour from Montego BayNine Mile is two hours up a mountain road from the coast whichever resort you leave from. It takes the whole day, and the minibus goes when it goes.
- 04Reggae Catamaran and Snorkeling Open Bar Cruise Montego BayThe catamarans sail on a timetable and the shaded seats go first. Booking on the day usually means sailing the next afternoon.
North-coast weather arrives after lunch and leaves before dinner.
From May onwards the cloud builds over the hills behind Montego Bay and Ocho Rios and comes down hard for twenty minutes most afternoons. It is not a day-ruiner if you plan around it: water in the morning, and something with a roof or a verandah for the back half.
Kingston is the half of Jamaica the resorts leave out.
The capital sits under the Blue Mountains on the south coast, three hours from the tourist strip and a different country in feel: Trench Town, the Marley house on Hope Road, galleries, a working harbour and coffee grown at five thousand feet an hour up the hill.
- 1Club Kingston VIP Lounge & Priority Entry at Norman Manleyfrom $37
- 2Friday Evening Kingston Harbour Cruise, Sunday Beach Cruise or Charter Our Boatsfrom $75
- 3Kingston Blue Mountains Tour with Coffee Tastingfrom $90
By town — north coast, west end and the capital
By kind of day — river, reef, hill or sound system
Montego Bay, the Martha Brae, Ocho Rios, Negril: how a first week usually runs.
The newest Jamaican tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Blue Hole Waterfalls + Bamboo River Rafting Tour from Ocho Rios
Read our review →
Jamaica Foodie and Cultural Experience & Konoko Falls Ocho Rios
Read our review →
Full-Day South Coast – YS Falls, Pelican Bar & Black River Safari
Read our review →
Black River Safari, YS Falls and Appleton Estate
Read our review →
Horseback Riding and Bamboo Rafting from montego Bay and Falmouth
Read our review →
Private Transfers from Montego Bay Airport to Runaway Bay Hotels
Read our review →
Private Tour From Runaway Bay to Ocho Rios, Blue Hole, Sightseeing and Shopping.
Read our review →
Montego Bay Airport to Grand Bahia Principe Jamaica
Read our review →
