March 30

Relaxing at the beach, and dinner at Norma's in the evening. You absolutely have to try the coconut chicken and the jerk chicken there — incredibly delicious! Afterwards, we went for a long walk along the beach. We had actually planned to check out the big reggae festival taking place at the northern end of Seven Mile Beach in late March, but we were too tired and the main show didn't start until 11 PM.

Thursday, March 28
Around 9 PM we arrive at our hotel Footprints on the Sand and head to the nearby Cotton Tree Bar for a few drinks. The bar is located on Norman Manley Boulevard, the main road. The crew are pretty laid-back guys who definitely rely on tourists. Happy hour runs from 4 PM to 6 PM. cottontreebar.com/

Sunday, March 31
Relaxing at the beach. When it starts to rain, we head over to Tony's Hut Bar and Guest House, a beachfront bar with guestrooms (gatehousevilla.com) with an especially Caribbean vibe. If you want, you can spend the whole day here playing various games over good cocktails (Connect Four, dominoes, etc.). That's exactly what we did — we spent an entire afternoon playing dominoes with a Rastafari... Germany was the winner.

After some delicious long drinks, we stopped by a simple but excellent beach bar right next to Norma's for jerked chicken — a typical Creole chicken dish — and fish, wonderfully smoky from the classic barrel grill.
In the evening, we join our Rastafari friend and his crew at Alfredo's Bar — the go-to spot in Negril for reggae fans (live music) and lonely hearts (no single woman stood alone here for more than five minutes).

Unfortunately, the rainy season set in quite early this year — normally it doesn't start until May.
Since Friday, the rain has been starting around 3 PM every afternoon.