Montego Bay Attractions
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Attractions
Appleton Express
Book with your hotel tour desk or 876-952-3692
Hours: 8:30 am-4 pm, Tuesday through Thursday
Admission charged
The
Appleton Express is an air-conditioned bus that travels from Mo Bay to the
Appleton Rum Distillery on the south side of the island. (If you traveled to
Jamaica a decade ago, you may remember that the Appleton Express was formerly a
train that took day-trippers across the island.
There
is a tour of the distillery, and every visitor gets a complimentary bottle;
children get soft drinks. The tour also makes a stop at Ipswich Caves.
Plantations & Great Houses
Barnett Estate
Granville Main
Road
876-952-2382, fax 876-952-6342
Open daily
Admission charged
“Barnett” and “Jarrett” are names well known on the island. Still among
Jamaica’s most powerful families, the Barnetts and Jarretts were plantation
owners and have owned land for many generations. Today, a visit to the Barnett
Estate offers a look back at the past to the days when this land grew
everything from sugarcane to coconuts. You can take a one-hour horseback tour of
the estate or a guided tour by a costumed docent. This plantation tour is one of
the island’s best.
Belfield Great House
876-952-1709
Hours: daily, 10-5
Admission charged
This
restored historic house is open to visitors, with guided tours available before
or after dinner. Located on the 3,000-acre Barnett Estate near Montego Bay, the
site is also home to the Belfield 1797 restaurant, operated by Elegant Resorts
International.
Belvedere Estate
Chester Castle
876-956-7310 in Montego Bay
876-957-4171 in Negril
Hours: 10-4, Monday-Saturday
Admission charged
Look
back at the plantation days with this heritage tour. Belvedere was one of the
first estates to be burned during the 1831 Christmas Rebellion, so today most of
the sites on the plantation are ruins or reconstructed. The uprising brought
about the end of slavery in 1838.
Tours
include a look at the ruins of the great house, dating back to the early 1800s,
the ruins of a sugar factory, a horse-drawn sugar mill and herb garden.
Belvedere is staffed by many craftspeople in period costume. Visitors can watch
a blacksmith at work, see a bakery using a clay oven, talk with an herbalist in
a wattle and daub house and see a canoe-maker carving the trunk of a cottonwood
tree. Also on site is the Trash House Restaurant and Bar (where the sugarcane
trash was once stored). Lunch is served daily and visitors can picnic on the
grounds.
Inaccessible Cinammon Hill
Cinammon Hill on the North Coast Highway is presently the home of country singer
Johnny Cash, who spends quite a bit of time on the island and has done
charitable work in Jamaica. Cinammon Hill, located near Greenwood Great House,
was the birthplace of Edward Moulton Barrett, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s
father.
Croydon In The Mountains
Located 20
miles into the interior near the town of Catadupa
in St. James (take B6 out of town)
Hours: 8:30-5:30
daily; tours from 10:30-3:30
876-979-8267
Admission charged
This
132-acre working pineapple and coffee plantation offers half-day estate tours.
The property was the birthplace of Samuel Sharpe, a national hero on this
island. Sharpe led a slave rebellion in 1831 that helped bring about the
abolition of slavery. You can learn about the preparation of coffee, honey,
pineapples and more.
Greenwood Great House
North Coast Hwy., 15 miles east of Montego Bay
876-953-1077
Hours: 9-6 daily
Admission charged
This
was once the home of the Barrett family (as in Elizabeth Barrett Browning).
Tours include a look at the finery enjoyed by the plantation families. Like Rose
Hall (below), Greenwood is a reminder of the turbulent period in Jamaica’s
history when wealthy plantation owners lived in luxury thanks to the profits of
the slave labor used to power sugar plantations.
Rose
Hall
North Coast
Highway
876-953-2323
Hours: 9-6 daily
Admission charged
Rose
Hall is the best-known great house in the country and is an easy afternoon visit
from Montego Bay. This was once the home of the notorious Annie Palmer, better
known as the White Witch. Guided tours take you to the ballroom, dining room,
and Annie’s bedroom and grave. The gift shop displays photographs of what many
believe are ghostly apparitions in the bedrooms of Rose Hall.
The White Witch
As the
story goes, Annie was born in 1802 in England to an English mother and Irish
father. At the age of 10, her family moved to Haiti, and soon her parents died
of yellow fever. Annie was adopted by a Haitian voodoo priestess and became
skilled in the practice of voodoo. Annie moved to Jamaica, married, and built
Rose Hall, an enormous plantation spanning 6,600 acres with over 2,000 slaves.
According to legend, Annie murdered several of her husbands and her slave
lovers. To learn more about the tales of Rose Hall, read the novel, The White
Witch of Rose Hall, which you’ll find in gift shops around the
island.
Bob
Marley Experience
Half Moon
Shopping Village
North Coast Highway
Hours: 10-6 daily
Free
This
new attraction features a 68-seat theater where you can watch a documentary on
the life and works of reggae great Bob Marley. The film runs several times
daily. The largest part of the attraction is a huge shop filled with Marley
memorabilia – CDs, books, T-shirts. The shop claims to have the largest
collection of Marley gifts in the Caribbean.
Golf
Montego
Bay has the best collection of golf courses in Jamaica; most take full advantage
of the city’s location, offering gorgeous views of the sea and hills. Fees
include golf cart and clubs. Caddies are mandatory and will cost an additional
fee.
