Bacchanal Jamaica Weekend 2013

Jamaica carnival was so much more than I expected.  I had a lot of people tell me that JA carnival wasn’t that great and that I shouldn’t bother… man o man were they wrong.com   There are different tiers of carnival and I would rate JA at a Tier2.

Tier 1 – Trinidad, Brazil, Barbados

Tier 2 – Toronto, Miami

Tier 3 – Atlanta, NY, DC (the old DC carnival, can’t vouch for the new Baltimore/DC carnival)

Tier 4 – Smaller carnivals

Landed in Montego Bay, JA Thursday morning and went to Ocho Rios for the day.  Ochi seems to be everyone’s favorite part of JA so I’m glad I finally made it there. Swam, drank, ate & chillaxed.  We made our way to Kingston Thursday night, but pit stopped several times along the way for booze.  Small town JA bar hop’n!   It was funny seeing Hennessy White in these lil tiny, hole in the wall bars when it is so coveted back in Atlanta & every time I go to the Caribbean I have several people ask me to bring them bottles back.

Late Thursday night we hit up the Blocko fete.  It was a big block party, kinda like Vale Vibe in Trinidad.

www.craigchung.com

Friday we had a day long pool party courtesy of DJ Private Ryan mixes and Mr. Bose (Bose Soundlink speaker). The good chunes brought all the cool kids to our side of the pool and we made lots of new friends.  We smashed several bottles of booze and ended the day several shades darker.

Spanish Court Hotel

Spanish Court Hotel

Friday night was Pandemonium, performances by Machel Montano, Superblue, Shaggy, Farmer Nappy, & Patrice Roberts. Around 2am the wata, powda & paint came out, that’s when the homies were OUT!!!  I on the other hand made my way to the front and jumped around like a mad ooooman!!!  When looking thru the event photos I found it hilarious that I could see my lil Appleton bottle floating around all over the place.  Another thing I found hilarious was that people from the audience threw colored powda on Machel Montano while he was performing, but nobody threw jack sh*t on SuperBlue *nuff respect* Around 4am we hit the road for a jouvert road march.  I followed the trucks for about an hour until they came to my hotel and then I went inside to scrub, scrub, scrub because I forgot to put on baby oil before jumping in the paint. 

 

Around 7am Saturday we headed to the Sunrise Breakfast party where Blaxx was performing, but surprise surprise Machel Montano hit the stage too and the crowd went madddddd.  The vibes at the breakfast fete were nice.  I ate a hearty breakfast & drank a red bull and forgot all about the fact that I barely slept and then I danced until early afternoon.  Went back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours then we linked up with our new homies for another pool party.

DJ Private Ryan *Big hug*

Saturday night was the Bazodee fete, very upscale. It came with an $80 price tag compared to the $40 price tag of the other fetes, but a fete of that caliber in Trinidad would have been $120+. Food from around the globe, my favorite DJ (Private Ryan) and several HUGE bars so that you didn’t have to wait long for a drink.   

We got our lives together around 11am Sunday and made our way to the road march.  Let me just say that I decided to be a stormer this year (I hijacked a band). I’ve hijacked bands before, but this time I did it in the costume that I designed.  Having a costume on made it very easy to storm because I looked like I belonged.  Being that I have no desire to make another costume I will definitely pay for a costume or tshirt next year because at times it got a little scary on the other side of the ropes.  You know the later in the day it gets, the more riffraff that appear.  For the last hour or 2 the side lines were very congested but I felt nice & safe behind all that security.

I somehow managed to sneak past 2 wrist band checks and enter the Last Lap (or whatever they call it) around 7pm. A closed off area where the masqueraders get to relax and/or kept fete’n, eat and drink some more,.   

Shanee got sucked into an interview about her thoughts on JA carnival and under the pressure of the camera lights & maybe a lil too much rum she said that it is better than Trinidad carnival.  She completely regretted saying that & prayed to the Fete Gods that the video never surfaces. Although we know that statement is wrong I would like to point out the thing about JA carnival that happens to be better than Trinidad carnival,  JA carnival costs about 1/3^rd the price of TNT carnival (or other Tier 1 carnivals).   Jamaica is closer which means shorter & cheaper flight, hotels are on average $100-$150 less a night than Trinidad. 1 day road march, $200 JA costume vs. $600 Trinidad costume (no we are not talking front line). Shorter trip over all, I was only in JA 5 days vs 7 days TNT. 

Any who Monday morning party dun, back to Ochi we went!

I can’t really decide which was my favorite fete they were all so awesome in their own way.  It’s a tie between Pandemonium and Sunrise Breakfast Fete.  After looking thru all my pix I see that maybe I was a little outta control with my Appleton bottle… but everything I do, I do in excess so it’s only right.

Shout out to the Spanish Court Hotel for being so fabulous!  Free wifi, free breakfast (dayym good breakfast at that) top notch customer service, a pool boy, & letting us blast our music all day.

Video recap of the Bacchanal Jamaica Weekend

St. Maarten carnival is the end of this month… wish I could go L

Cayman Islands carnival is the beginning of next month… wish I could go L

Atlanta carnival is the end of May… hooray J Atlanta carnival road march still needs a lot of work (it’s just too dayym short), but the fetes carnival weekend are too awesome to miss!!!