Jamaica Rafting on the Martha Brae

Anyone have experience with this? The website does not list a price or the length of time the entire trip takes. Any insight or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks!

I did this in January and it was just ok. We booked it through NCL. It's about a 45 min bus ride from the port with a pit stop half way there. You can use the restroom and buy snacks. The ride is about 90 mins down the river. We saw vendors on the side every so often. They were selling souvenirs and bottled drinks. There was even a Tarzan swing! Your guide will stop if you ask him to. Our guide wasn't very chatty. We heard other guides ahead of us explaining about the wildlife, the trees, etc. It's a nice and easy ride, so if you want to do something on the laid back and quiet side the this is perfect. I'll post a few pics.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I did the Martha Brae river rafting about 15 years ago and it was enjoyable except for one big nuisance . It seemed like every bend in the small river there was someone on the river bank selling something be it handmade souvenirs or Red Stripe beer and of course our raft guide/driver /poler would stop at each one to see if you wanted to buy something. There were at least 7 or 8 riverside vendors .

One stop the lady said our guide looked very thirsty and we should buy him a beer and he looked at me and said "I'm thirsty mon". I remember the beer was way over priced and I'm sure the guide was getting a kickback from the riverside vendors . Several people in our group complained about this after the tour was over. Hopefully the cruiselines have told the operator to tone this scam down. It really distracted from what should have been a nice excursion.

Looks like some things never change .

It's one of those tours we're glad we did once just to see for ourselves but have no desire to ever do again. :rolleyes:

The day we were there, the river was "running fast" according to our guide. We were only actually on the raft for 25 minutes and that included a couple of stops at the friends of the guide along the way who were selling beer out of ice chests.

It was a long boring drive getting there and back to Ocho Rios.

LuLu

Thanks everyone for your responses!

We were in Jamaica in March and rafted the Martha Brae. It was nice and was $30 each. The raft trip was about 45 minutes to an hour. It was relaxing and you have an opportunity to steer the raft as well. There were people on the edge of the river in various places trying to sell stuff, but they are everywhere. It was something that I wanted to do and now I have. I'm not sure I would recommend it over another tour though.

My friend and I did this and we loved it! We booked through the website - $60 each. They picked us up on the same shuttle with the Oasis of the Seas group. Drove through town and talked a bit about the things we went past before heading out to the rafting point.

When we got to the rafting spot they had fruit punch which you could kick up with some rum for $4. Yes Please! Very tasty. We got life jackets and had time to use the rest room and then it was our turn to walk down to the rafts. I kind of wish we had a few minutes to look around the little market there but oh well.

We got on our raft and at first our captain seemed quiet and not much fun until we started asking questions about things that we were going by. Then it really became fun. He whistled a song, hummed another song, sang a song, it was really nice. He pointed out a lot of things along the way as well. There were only three vendors on the side of the river that day and he went closer to shore but we felt no pressure from him to get anything. And the vendors were ok with a polite "no thank you." We did get a Red Stripe for each of us and one for the captain at the one place we saw that had beverages.

At the end of the ride there was another small shop, a small bar, and restrooms. We waited just a short time and the same driver from the trip there picked us up. He dropped off the Oasis passengers at a place where they ate lunch (included in their excursion) and told us we could get lunch there too but we were ready to go back. One of the couples from the Oasis came back as well. The driver talked about some more points of interest on the way back.

This was one of the highlights of the trip and my friend's favorite thing all week! I think it helps if you engage the captain and buying the guy a beer probably doesn't hurt either. :) But if you just want quiet time you can have that too!

Anyone have experience with this? The website does not list a price or the length of time the entire trip takes. Any insight or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks!

If you want to see an awesome picture review then check out this thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1741907

Start with post #17 if you want to get straight to the Martha Brae stuff.

I recently ran across this when researching Montego Bay but the rafting info is pertinent to any port. (once you get there of course) :)

We did this through Royal Caribbean in late May. It was $80 per person. It was a decent excursion but we encountered a few things that we found annoying. It started out when the bus for the time slot we'd reserved was overbooked. The tour operator blamed it on Royal Caribbean but I spoke with one of the excursions staff who was walking around and she said otherwise. So, we had to stand and wait for about 45 minutes while the bus took a load of passengers there and came back to get us. The ride to the river was relatively brief. When we arrived at the river, we had to sit around for another 30 minutes waiting for guides and rafts to become available. The ride down the river was nice...very relaxing. Our guide wasn't particularly talkative so we tried to engage him as nicely as we could by asking about him, etc.. We saw other guides telling their passengers about the plants and other things passing by but not our guide...almost no narration at all. Then, when we were nearing the end of the trip, he told us how he and the other guides personally did some carving and he'd like us to purchase something he'd done and handed me a bag. The bag contained about 10 small wooden (a coconut shell perhaps?) cups of varying sizes with the identical designs on each cup. I later saw that all of them had the same cups so it was pretty obvious these were not done by the guides as he had told us. I agreed to take one of the smallest items. When we reached the end, I wasn't sure how much to give him. I had only $40 in my wallet and offered him a $20. Since the excursion cost $80 and included other stops, I thought $20 was a reasonable tip for his part. He looked at me and said he wanted $50. I explained I didn't have that much and offered to give back the cup which I didn't want in the first place. He clearly seemed unhappy so I decided to just hand him the $40 to avoid any sort of situation and got off the raft. So, the excursion ended up costing me $120...not worth it.

We did this through Royal Caribbean in late May. It was $80 per person. It was a decent excursion but we encountered a few things that we found annoying. It started out when the bus for the time slot we'd reserved was overbooked. The tour operator blamed it on Royal Caribbean but I spoke with one of the excursions staff who was walking around and she said otherwise. So, we had to stand and wait for about 45 minutes while the bus took a load of passengers there and came back to get us. The ride to the river was relatively brief. When we arrived at the river, we had to sit around for another 30 minutes waiting for guides and rafts to become available. The ride down the river was nice...very relaxing. Our guide wasn't particularly talkative so we tried to engage him as nicely as we could by asking about him, etc.. We saw other guides telling their passengers about the plants and other things passing by but not our guide...almost no narration at all. Then, when we were nearing the end of the trip, he told us how he and the other guides personally did some carving and he'd like us to purchase something he'd done and handed me a bag. The bag contained about 10 small wooden (a coconut shell perhaps?) cups of varying sizes with the identical designs on each cup. I later saw that all of them had the same cups so it was pretty obvious these were not done by the guides as he had told us. I agreed to take one of the smallest items. When we reached the end, I wasn't sure how much to give him. I had only $40 in my wallet and offered him a $20. Since the excursion cost $80 and included other stops, I thought $20 was a reasonable tip for his part. He looked at me and said he wanted $50. I explained I didn't have that much and offered to give back the cup which I didn't want in the first place. He clearly seemed unhappy so I decided to just hand him the $40 to avoid any sort of situation and got off the raft. So, the excursion ended up costing me $120...not worth it.

I think you're quite generous. I would have handed back the cup and tipped $10-20. And if he didn't like it, he'd get nothing.

Absolutely an incredibly memorable experience! Go for it!

Worldspan

(135 cruises and no more!)

We had a great time when we did this many years ago. We are going to go again when we do the Silhouette in Dec. Hoping to have as much fun as we did the first time

I think you're quite generous. I would have handed back the cup and tipped $10-20. And if he didn't like it, he'd get nothing.

This was exactly what we did. Gave our guy a tip and told him to keep the souvenir gourds.

Guess we were rather lucky on our trip, I don't recall any vendors along the way. None selling Red Stripe for sure. Not sure how safe it is to have the guy guiding the raft to be drinking a beer for every trip down the river. :eek: