Yeah 'Mon we be jammin' in Jamaica!

Carnival Freedom Day Four
Ocho Rios Jamaica
First of all let us apologize for the lateness of this posting. Internet connection is very slow at times on this ship.

We arrived in Ocho Rios at about 6:45 AM. Tim, as usual, was already up and waiting on his two pots of coffee and 6 Danish. Only one glitch - Tim had forgotten to order the 6 Danish the night before. A call was placed to room service and they were delivered within 5 minutes.

After our morning coffee and Danish we went to the dinning room for a full breakfast before making our way forward and down to deck 0. We departed the Freedom for a day of shopping on Ocho Rios. This is not our first time in Ocho Rios, we have been here several times and we know how the Jamaican people can be both friendly and pushy at the same time. We have learned from past experience to say no or not interested a lot.

We walked from our ship to the two main shopping areas close by that are duty free. Tim wanted to get his Harley Davidson t-shirt from Jamaica and Di needed to pick up small gifts for her girls in the office. We also were shopping for Christmas present for our daughter. We found a store that had what we were looking for and, after a lot of talking with the store manager, were able to purchase the gift.

While we were in the small shopping mall it rained, which cooled things down a little bit. Once the rain stopped we started walking back to the ship but got distracted by a new shopping/show area. A local dance group was putting on a show and one of the shows was how Jamaican’s celebrate Christmas since the days of slavery. It was very interesting to see.

After we left the show area we stopped at a liquor store and purchase 3 bottles of local dark rum for $12.00. We also picked up a small bottle of vodka for $4.00 for the two ladies who are traveling with us from Schalamar Creek. They were very appreciative of the unexpected gift.

Arriving back on the ship we dropped our purchases in the cabin and went to the Lido deck for lunch where we were joined by one of Di’s group members. He shared his day with us and we were amused to hear him talk about being burned out from shopping with his wife. He was so tired that he had left her in town and came back to the ship to rest.

Tonight was our second formal night and, as one of the bartenders told us, we were looking good! Tim ordered the tiger shrimp and Diane enjoyed the Chanute Briean. We think we are getting to old to stay up and party with the young kids these days because it ended up being a very early evening for us. After dinner we headed back to our cabin for the night. Tomorrow is a day at sea and also our last day of cruising this year.