Montego Bay: Doctor's Cave Beach, Rose Hall, Reggae Sumfest, and the Luminous Lagoon
Montego Bay, Jamaica's premier resort city and the capital of Caribbean all-inclusive tourism, combines the original resort beach of Doctor's Cave with the plantation gothic drama of Rose Hall, the Reggae Sumfest music festival, and the extraordinary bioluminescent Luminous Lagoon at nearby Falmouth.
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Doctor's Cave Beach: The Original Resort Beach
Doctor's Cave Beach on the Montego Bay Hip Strip, the beach club that established Montego Bay as the first resort destination in the Caribbean when it was developed by the Cave family in the 1920s and reputedly declared to have curative mineral properties by the osteopath Herbert Baker, is the finest single beach in Montego Bay, with a calm, protected bay, clear water, full beach services, and the historic beach club building that preserves the art deco character of the early resort period.
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Hip Strip: The Tourist Mile
Gloucester Avenue, the strip of hotels, beach clubs, jerk stands, and craft shops known as the Hip Strip, is the social spine of Montego Bay tourism and the most concentrated resort strip in the English-speaking Caribbean, where the duty-free shops, the bob sled cocktail bars, the beach access points, and the nightly live music venues create the complete package of Caribbean resort culture within walking distance of the all-inclusive hotel zone.
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Rose Hall Great House: The White Witch
Rose Hall Great House, the 18th-century plantation great house on the hills above Montego Bay and the site of the legend of Annie Palmer, the White Witch of Rose Hall who allegedly murdered three husbands and used voodoo to control her enslaved workers, is the most visited historic site in Jamaica after the Bob Marley Museum and the source of the dominant narrative of Jamaican plantation gothic that has inspired novels, songs, and the famous Johnny Cash song.
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Sandals and the All-Inclusive Revolution
The Sandals resort chain, founded by Jamaican entrepreneur Gordon Stewart in Montego Bay in 1981 with the original Sandals Montego Bay property, pioneered the couples-only all-inclusive resort model that has transformed Caribbean tourism by bundling accommodation, food, drink, and activities into a single price and creating the most commercially successful resort formula in the history of Caribbean hospitality. The Sandals brand now operates throughout the Caribbean.
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Reggae Sumfest: The Caribbean Music Festival
Reggae Sumfest, held in Montego Bay in July and considered the largest reggae festival outside Jamaica's international diaspora events, draws an international audience of reggae and dancehall enthusiasts to the Catherine Hall venue for performances by the biggest names in Jamaican music alongside international artists. The Sumfest experience of outdoor concert in the Jamaican summer heat, with the dancehall sound systems and the jerk food vendors, is the most complete musical festival experience in the Caribbean.
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Luminous Lagoon: The Bioluminescent Bay
The Luminous Lagoon at Falmouth east of Montego Bay, one of only four bioluminescent bays in the world and the brightest, is accessible by night boat excursion from the Glistening Waters restaurant on the lagoon shore. The dinoflagellate microorganisms of the Luminous Lagoon produce an electric blue-green glow when disturbed by the movement of fish, swimmers, or boat propellers that creates one of the most extraordinary natural light displays accessible to Caribbean visitors.