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Getting to Bonaire: Air Jamaica--Goes with trip report from Rosemary
Bonaire Talk: Getting to Bonaire: Archives: Archives 1999-2005: Archives - 1999-06-02 to 2001-12-31: Air Jamaica--Goes with trip report from Rosemary
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Rosemary Beck on Monday, July 9, 2001 - 7:13 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

As usual, it took a long time to get to Bonaire. We started in Tucson, AZ; drove to Phoenix (cheaper tickets from there this time); flew United to LA; Air Jamaica to Montego Bay--Bonaire; then reversed the procedure on the way back.

Air Jamaica was about 1 hour late leaving LA; this was not so bad for us as we had a 5 hour lay over planned for Montego Bay and the LA airport is a much nicer place to wait than the Montego Bay airport. Then we were also about 1 hour late out of Montego Bay. On the way back, we were about 1 hour late leaving Bonaire, but we left Montego Bay on time and even caught some good wind that let us arrive in LA a few minutes early!!! The flight attendant took great pleasure in announcing our early arrival.

Our luggage stayed with us the whole time.

The overnight flight from LAX to MoBay is a long one. It didn't leave until almost midnight, so we were tired getting started. It is hard to sleep at first as there is so much business to take care of---customs cards, dinner, etc. Once asleep you can bet that someone near you will have to leave for the bathroom---at least once. Of course it gets busy again near the end of the flight. We felt pretty exhausted as we arrived for our layover. We had just moved some chairs and started to doze off in the airport when things started hopping there. The biggest annoyance was the speaker------they didn't just make announcements that we may have slept through. Each time there was something to say, they "squawked" the mic. That loud blare kept us from actually getting any sleep time.

None of this reflects any problems with Air Jamaica-----it's a long trip and there are inconveniences because of that. And, once in Bonaire we managed to have enough energy left to do our orientation dive and go out for a nice meal. I guess it wasn't that bad.

I didn't find the Air Jamaica food particularly appetizing, though we ate it. The beer was just fine!! We also carried granola bars and other snacks with us.

The long flight back offered a fashion show instead of a movie. The fashion show was entertaining, but a movie would have been nice. Oh, well, I finished the book.

We followed the advice of this group and checked our luggage at about 11:00 (before the 3:00 flight) when leaving Bonaire. The ticket agents don't appear to arrive much earlier than that. It saved us standing in a very long line when everyone else was arriving, but we still had to hang around the airport. It was hot and sticky.

All in all, our experience with Air Jamaica was positive and I wouldn't hesitate to fly with them again. I just wish we could count on the late departures so we didn't end up spending so much time hanging around airports.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Niki Harris on Monday, July 9, 2001 - 7:23 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Yeah, Rosemary, weren't the overhead announcements in Montego Bay the worst!? And the food on ALM was quite a bit better than AJ, so nobody's perfect. It's always an adventure, especially from the West Coast. Glad you had a happy and well-prepared vacation! Thanks for the informative reports.

 


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