Sights in Ocho Rios
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Mahogany Beach
Mahogany Beach, 1km east of the town center, is a small and charming beach.
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Columbus Foot
Immediately west of Island Village Beach is Columbus Foot, a tiny fishermen's beach with colorful pirogues (fishing boats) and nets festooning shade trees.
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Coyaba River Garden
Coyaba River Garden is a paradise with walk-ways and trails leading through lush gardens with streams, cascades and pools filled with carp, crayfish and turtles. Coyaba is an Arawak word for 'heaven' or 'paradise.'
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Enchanted Gardens
The 8-hectare Enchanted Gardens are an Edenlike setting featuring a lush landscaped park with 14 waterfalls, huge pools, a fruit orchard and separate fern, spice, cactus and lily gardens. It also has a walk-in aviary. Guided tours are offered.
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Shaw Park Gardens
The Shaw Park Gardens is a tropical fantasia of ferns and bromeliads, palms and exotic shrubs, spread out over 11 hectares centered on an 18th-century great house. Trails and wooden steps lead past waterfalls that tumble in terraces down the hillside. A viewing platform offers a bird’s-eye vantage over Ocho Rios. There’s a bar and restaurant. The gardens are signed from opposite the public library on the A3.
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Coyaba Museum
Coyaba is an Arawak word for ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise.’ The Coyaba Museum traces Jamaica’s heritage from early Arawak days to independence. There’s a gift store, vegetarian restaurant, waterfall and art gallery. Coyaba is just shy of 2km west of St John’s Church (on the A3), not far from Shaw Park Gardens; follow the signs. Admission includes a 30-minute guided tour.
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Prospect Plantation
If you’ve been wondering why St Ann is called ‘the garden parish, ’ you’ll find your answer at this beautiful old hilltop great house and 405-hectare working plantation, 5km east of town. On a pleasant, educational tour you’ll travel by tractor-powered jitney through scenic grounds among banana, cassava, cocoa, coconut, coffee, pineapple and pimento. Three horseback tours are also offered (US$58) through a gorgeous working plantation with excellent views of the sea and countryside. For US$89, you can take the tour on a camel.
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Reggae Xplosion Museum
This impressive museum provides an excellent presentation of the grand lineage of Jamaican music, from ancient African drumming to the futuristic digital rhythms of dancehall. The self-billed ‘interactive reggae experience’ is divided into mento, ska, reggae, dancehall and other sections, including one commemorating Bob Marley. It features posters, photographs and videos. Headphones let you listen to sounds of each era. There’s even a makeshift artists’ recording studio with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s original sound-gear. The entrance fee includes a guided tour.
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Island Village Entertainment Park
Since its 2002 opening, Island Village Entertainment Park, at the junction of Main St and DaCosta Dr, has changed the face of Ocho Rios. The 2-hectare development, brainchild of resort and media visionary Chris Blackwell, claims to resemble a 'Jamaican coastal village.' It doesn't.
Quibbles aside, you will find a peaceful beach, upscale craft shops, a cinema, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and Blue Runnings (both with bars and restaurants), a video-casino, Reggae Xplosion and a village green and amphitheater for live performances. The fences around the place reveal that this is not a public space, but rather a kind of daycare center for skittish, newly arrived cruise-ship…
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Island Village
Since its 2002 opening, this self-contained entertainment park, at the junction of Main St and DaCosta Dr, has changed the face of Ocho Rios. The 2-hectare development, brainchild of resort and media visionary Chris Blackwell, claims to resemble a ‘Jamaican coastal village.’ It doesn’t. Quibbles aside, you will find a peaceful beach, upscale craft shops, a cinema, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville and Blue Runnings (both with bars and restaurants), a video-casino, Reggae Xplosion and a village green and amphitheater for live performances. The fences around the place reveal that this is not a public space, but rather a kind of daycare center for skittish, newly arrived…
reviewed
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Cove
This popular cove, adjacent to Dunn’s River Falls along the A3, allows you to swim with bottlenose dolphins. Three dolphin packages are offered, notably ‘Swim with Dolphins, ’ which grants you 30 minutes in the dolphin lagoon. Professional trainers direct the sociable dolphins, who display an almost goofy desire to please. For the most expensive experience, the thrill-seeker grabs the dorsal fins of two dolphins and is lifted from the water. Even more adventurous visitors can touch and feed sharks – under the Cove’s watchful supervision. And if direct contact doesn’t appeal, basic admission includes an aquarium and pools with tropical fish, sharks, stingrays and eels, as…
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Island Village Beach
Island Village Beach, located at the west end of Main St, is a peaceful, small beach that offers lockers (US$5), towels (US$5) and beach chairs and umbrellas (US$5 apiece).
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Turtle Beach
The main beach of Ocho Rios is the long crescent of Turtle Beach, stretching east from the Turtle Towers condominiums to the Renaissance Jamaica Grande Resort. There are changing rooms, and palms for shade.
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Turtle River Park
Near Island Village on Main St, this welcome new green space in the middle of downtown represents a positive new trend in Jamaica’s approach to urban development. The lushly gardened park with manicured lawns also provides a zone free from the hustle of the main drag.
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Dunn's River Falls
Widely held to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world, these famous falls, on the A3, 3km west of town, are Jamaica’s top-grossing tourist attraction. As long as you’re not expecting a peaceful communion with nature, a morning here can be an enjoyable and invigorating experience. Join hands in a daisy chain at the bottom and clamber up the tiers of limestone that stairstep 180m down to the beach in a series of cascades and pools. The water is refreshingly cool and the falls are shaded by a tall rain forest and a number of magnificent tree specimens. Today, the place seems more like a man-made theme park than a natural wonder. The St Ann Development Company…
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