Mystic Mountain Sky Explorer
Our second excursion day was in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, which meant another early morning wake-up call and breakfast buffet. The excursion handling here was much better than in Nassau as we were able to leave the ship on our own and had to meet up at a pre-defined area on the pier. That gave us time to wander around a little awhile and Janie bought some cheap sunglasses for the day at the duty-free shop on the pier. Then we took a quick bus ride to Mystic Mountain resort where we had a day of zip-lining and bobsled racing ahead of us. Our tour began with the Sky Explorer -- a ski-lift that took us to the top of "Mystic Mountain". The view from the chair-lift was incredible, looking out over the harbor and soaring over a lush rainforest. Jamaica was, by far, the most beautiful island we have seen in all of our island excurions.
Ziplining
After a short wait and a safety demonstration, we donned our safety gear and headed off to the ziplines. The zipline consisted of seven separate platforms with six zipines, one surprise 10-meter vertical descent and a 25-meter suspension bridge. J. R. and Janie were both worried over the idea of zip-lining, but it was a lot of fun.
Jamaican Bobsled
Following the ziplines, we took the chair-lift back down and then back up to the top of the mountain for our bobsled run. The lines for this were incredibly long and the ride itself was very short. J. R. wanted to go all out on the run, but Thomas played the role of 'Captain Slow' causing J. R. to have to hit the brakes. Following the bobsled, we decided to head back to town to do some shopping.
Teppanyaki
It was Christmas Eve, and we had Teppanyaki booked for the night. This was another disappointing dinner for us as the service was incredibly slow, mainly because they made us wait close to 20 minutes at our table waiting for another group that was supposed to be there to show up. They never did and we finally got underway. The food, particularly the shrimp and steak, were really overcooked but the show itself was fun. We went back to the room after dinner to give the kids some small Christmas gifts as the boys were planning to attend the evening show.
