One of our most vivid memories of our first trip to Hedonism stared in the SuperClubs holding room in the Montego Bay Airport. We were handed a bottle of water and asked where we were going. Hedonism 2 was our tentative answer. “Ah the Zoo” said the Jamaican porter. “You get the narley bus”.
It was a bus ride to remember. Three hours of windy roads, small fishing village, goats in the middle of the road, a couple of beer and bathroom stops and a gaggle of Jimmy Buffet wannabees singing Bob Marley songs at the top of their lungs. Unlike the ride back to the airport where everyone left double fisting banana daiquiris before falling into an exhausted stupor most of the way. All with sunburns and in various stages of undress.
The bus trip now may be the way have gone the way of the dodo.
Hedonism has dropped the free airport transfers. In response to a new tourism tax that the Ministry of Tourism has levied on Jamaican resorts.
Here’s the skinny.
“As part of the agreement, all arriving visitors will be required to pay a US$20 fee, which will be included in the ticket cost, effective Aug. 1, 2012. The agreement will also see the introduction of a new daily accommodation tax per occupied room, per night of US$1 for properties with less than 51 rooms, US$2 for hotels with 51 to 100 rooms and US$4 for hotels with 101 rooms and above, effective Sept. 1, 2012. Currently, unlike most destinations, hotels in Jamaica do not charge an accommodation tax.”
But how do you get there you may ask? You can still pay to get ground transportation. Or as Chris Santilli says in her book “Tales from the Naked City”
