Jamaica Hello.
Reviewed and Photographed by Hal Drucker

 

It had been more than 20 years since last we visited Jamaica and stayed at the Jamaica Inn. Thanks to the enormously helpful assistance of public relations extraordinaire Virginia Haynes, Alice and I spent three pleasurable nights in the Jamaica Inn and three at Round Hill in Montego Bay. I have driven the entire island on several occasions, albeit 40 years ago, when I traveled here on business for Hertz International. It is an island of incredible contrasts, with lovely beaches in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, and below Ocho and towards Kingston, a rain forest leading into a look-alike of the English countryside. On the east coast at Port Antonio. I rafted with pole-toting Oxford-like punters.  For this holiday, Alice and I eschewed such tourist havens as Dun’s River Falls, Lantana and the rain forest for vegging out on the beach with a good book.
Sunset from our Cottage Veranda.

JAMAICA INN
P.O. Box 1, Main Street
Ocho Rios, St. Ann
Jamaica, West Indies
Reservations & Information: 1- 800-837-4608
Tel: 876-974-2514
Fax: 876-974-2449                                                                                www.jamaicainn.com

Overall Impression:  

Eveningwear at the Jamaica Inn once consisted of, at the minimum, blazer jacket, cream-colored slacks, long-sleeved shirt, repp tie and a fussy skirt for the distaff side. Though the inn no longer requires jackets, many guests willingly carry on the dinner tradition of dressing-up.
"They call us the 'huggy hotel,” General Manager and former tennis pro Mary Phillips said, a lilt of laughter in her voice. “The biggest staff training comes from our guests,” added Jamaica Inn co-partner Peter Morrow.

Educated in England, and the Cornell Hotel School, Mary Phillips was for 11 years, second in command at Round Hill Resort in Montego Bay. She has been GM of the property going on six years.  Part of Jamaica Inn's charm she suggested, was its "amazing location," punctuated by a “unique” type of service delivery.

“You have to love what you do since you’re on all the time. I have a staff who are just amazing. They work incredibly hard. I encourage each one of them to be yourself, to maintain your own personality.   "My whole thing here is service - hospitality with a whole pile of love."

Speaking of service and delivery, I asked Phillips what her favorite tennis court surface is.

Not surprising, she answered, “Grass is my favorite because I like fast courts. The faster the better for me.”    

“The Biggest Training is from our Guests.”   The words belong to Peter Morrow, co-partner with his brother Eric, of the intimate, family-owned resort—on six acres fronting a protected cove on Jamaica's lush north coast.  Once the playground of Winston Churchill,  Noël Coward, and Ian Fleming, the inn retains the ambience of an elegant, convivial setting characteristic of a Terrence Rattigan play.

“Eric has a wife and two children,” Morrow told me. “We own it together.   I first came here 50 years ago with my Dad when I was 12.”

I advised that my first visit to the Inn was seven years later.

“My family had a hotel in 1949.  at Montego Beach,” he continued. My father and uncle ran it like a private house with house guests.  I went to school here and England in The Cotswalds. I had a private tutor.

“Eric and I swap off; we each spend three or four months a year here.  I live in the Sierra Nevada foothills. North of Sacramento near Lake Tahoe.  I also have a house in the Adirondacks in Old Forge NY where I fly a little 1946 seaplane, two-seater, 85-horsepower.  Uses little fuel, just five gallons an hour. Eric and I ran the Inn for years.  Then we hired Mary. Her premise of having staff members maintaining their personality resonated with us. People have a very different experience here. The staff is nice, yet unobtrusive. The biggest training is from our guests. Most of the people who come here are well-informed on overseeing versatile help, for instance, an upstairs maid or  butler. So they’re comfortable with training of staff and afford a good deal of respect for our personnel. In my Dad’s day you couldn’t get in here in February, there were so many repeat guests. Given our half-century of doing business, we’ve lost some guests. As a consequence, over the last five years we’ve done a huge upgrading of the rooms, created a spa, and attracted a younger crowd who are beginning to repeat.

Cottages 3 (ours) and 4 are off by their lonesome from the rest of the property. If you look carefully you can spot our abode.

Accommodations:  

Added in 2004, Cottage 3 is situated on a bluff overlooking the Caribbean, blissfully remote from all rooms and suites, save that of Cottage 4.

Flanking our veranda was an outdoor shower and a pocket-sized pool for pre or post-salt water skinny-dipping.
With its own private entrance to the beach and sea, what a convenience to trundle a few steps to the ocean, dunk and loll for 20 minutes or so, come back to shower off, change suits and repeat the process.
The cottage had two lap-of-luxury bedrooms, two spacious bathrooms, one of which had a separate shower and tub and a formidable living room sans TV.
We availed ourselves of the generous, unlimited use of the internet in the library, well-stocked with board games as well as books.

The one downside: each trip from our cottage to the dining room meant negotiating a 12 -minute walk. On our first attempt at dinner hour we got lost in the dark, even with my trusty flashlight (Alice and I always pack a flashlight when we travel, having experienced a blackout at the Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico where we led other guests down the stairs). A young man from the bar insisted on walking us back to our room demonstrating the Phillipsian Theory of Pro-active Service.   For subsequent meals (we were on the breakfast-lunch-dinner plan) we would on occasion phone the front desk, who would send a car for us.

Marie Clarke, Receptionist and Cecile Forythe who routinely  taxied us from and to our cottage and the main house.

Service: 

Service was everything Mary Phillips and Peter Morrow advanced to us, as typified by the unsung barman (I wish I had written his name down).   From dining staff to maid service, to grounds-keeping, to tea servers, without exception each individual was cheerfully helpful to us.

Beach, Ocean, Grounds: 

In the 40-plus years since Alice and I have stayed at the Jamaica Inn or its neighbor the Plantation Inn (now known as the Royal Plantation) we have always been impressed by the smooth, toe-tingling Ocho Rios sands (just a shade less refined than that of Bermuda) the buoyantly clear lake-like waters that are easy on the body temperature, and the pebble-free, sandy bottoms that are kind to your bare feet, and the  gorgeous foliage which inspired guests Kathryn and David Swanson (above) to take a guided horticultural tour of the grounds, of which they were vastly more enamored than their slippery-sloped climb of nearby Dun’s River Falls. 

“Teddy is the family retainer,” Peter Morrow told me, referring to Teddy Tucker, Jamaica Inn’s venerable beach mixologist. ”He was 16 years old when I met him 50 years ago. Teddy’s a classic here. Guests [like Suzanne Morrow (L) of Santa Cruz, CA and Priscilla Foley (R) of Denver, NC] call at Christmas time to wish him a Happy Christmas.  He is by the way, a singer, has a great voice, and often appears with a musical group during dinner.” Teddy’s signature invention is the “Tucker Margarita” to which he adds a tablespoon of lime juice, a spot of sugar and a dash of Cointreau.

Dining:

We elected to do the triple-meal plan at the hotel, which was more oh-oh cuisine than haute. The dinner service from captain to waiter to bus was attentive and we gloried in the romantic candle-lit setting. Coconut and royal palms rustle in the tropical breeze. In due time, dinner, a languorous affair highlighting local cuisine, appears on candlelit tables set with white linens and fine china. The soups were fine, the fish entrees were respectable but inconsistent. And the four-piece music groups were proficient and unobtrusive. One dinner was confined to a beach barbecue, something I’m not big on. For lunch, we suggest you stick to the fresh salads or club sandwich, rather than – say – a most unpalatable hamburger.  Breakfast was fine, with a have-it-my- way egg-white omelet and tasty pancakes or French Toast. Our one experience with a room service breakfast was fine, delivered promptly, headily and piping hot by Robert Williams.  Tea time was outdoors and enticingly civilized. 

Round Hill Hotel and Villas Resort
John Pringle Drive, P. O. Box 64,
Montego Bay, Jamaica, West Indies
Reservations & Information: 1-800-972-2159
Tel (876) 956-7050                                                                                            Fax (876)956-7505
www.roundhill.com

Overall Impression:  

After the winding, seemingly interminable limo ride from Jamaica Inn, it was heartening to enter the utterly tasteful environs of a resort I had never observed or visited during my numerous trips to Jamaica. It was even more of a welcome sight to be ushered  unimpedingly to Villa #17, Suite 77,  since Alice was feeling poorly, owing to what turned out to be a stomach virus, which laid her low for the remainder of our stay.

Accommodations (Villa #17, Suite 77)  

Our lavish, nautical-themed villa consisted of bedroom with king four-poster bed, bath with shower, an open living area, lounge chairs, veranda and private pool. During our stay, another couple from California had Suite 76 and had pool privileges as well.  In addition to a housekeeper, another staff member tended to cleaning the pool and keeping the veranda tidy, while still another fed and cleaned the songbirds. The view of Round Hill Beach from our site was spectacular, especially at sunset. Propitiously, given Alice’s confined state, this was the most advantageous facility for the remainder of our stay. She was able to veg out on the lounge chair or bed interchangeably, with the peace of mind to be mere steps away from the bathroom.  The only suggestion I tendered was to have remote rather than wired, phones for greater flexibility when one lounged on the veranda.
Kerisha Fisher, Sales Manager of Round Hill, introduced me to Managing Director Forstmayr and took me on a private tour of the impressive grounds and facilities of the resort.
A pool for the populous off Montego Bay.

Service  

We had kitchen privileges … that is to say that we had our own cook who prepared breakfast  to order each morning and served us in the living area. One could store juice and fruit in the kitchen refrigerator, but the use of the kitchen was confined to our cook. Managing Director Austrian Josef Forstmayr and his staff could not have been more attentive to Alice’s comfort and steady improvement.

Dining    

Although we signed up for the complete meal plan, breakfast was our main daily treat. We forsook lunch altogether for a spice-less snack and either I or a waiter brought Alice’s and my dinner to the room each night.

Libation, Tea or TV  
Bartender Larry Vernon’s popular and original beach libation is “The Kamikaze” -   Pour equal parts Brandy and Triple Sec liqueur; add lime juice, shake it, strain it over ice into a shot glass and drink it straight like a shot.
A 4 pm break for Twining, Constant Comment or English Breakfast, a scone’s throw from the TV viewing room.
Our one concession to the outside world was a Satellite TV where I kept up with the doings of the Mets and followed the primary returns from stateside. Looking on is Rene Hernandez.