Rick’s Cafe

Right in the heart of Negril, Jamaica is the popular tourist excursion located at Rick’s Cafe. Being able to jump off a cliff into the ocean is unlike any other feeling I’ve had before and it is one I would gladly do again if I got the chance. Although this seems like it would be very frightening that couldn’t be further from the truth. I absolutely do not like fish and I normally don’t find myself ever swimming in the ocean for fun either, but I was not phased one bit by this experience. The only time I found myself nervous was the first initial jump off the 15 foot cliff. But after you get the first jump over with there’s no stopping how many more times you’re going to do it. At the time I was around 14 years old and my sister was only 11 so this excursion could be done by the whole family even at young ages. I wouldn’t go under the age of 8 or 9 just incase, but if you felt comfortable in their swimming abilities and they are confident enough to jump off then why not give it a shot. My family and I stayed at Beaches Negril while we were visiting and the taxi to and from Rick’s was only 14 minutes from there. What makes this experience even better is the fact that cliff jumping is free the whole time you are there. The only thing you have to pay for is drinks and food if you want any while visiting. They also have a gift store on site that we ended up getting a few things from as souvenirs as well. I highly recommend going during the day time since there is practically no one there with you besides a few people. If you choose to go later that is when it starts to become crowded, because everyone comes to watch the beautiful sunset. Also when you mix a bar, cliff jumping, and a party atmosphere sometimes it can get very dangerous. People get crazy as the night goes on and drunk people can be jumping off and not paying attention to who is near or even under them when doing so. It overall is just not worth the stress when you could just go a few hours earlier and have the whole place practically to yourself. We had a late lunch and took a break from jumping and the view was amazing since it is right on the edge of the water. You can look out and just see never ending ocean meeting the sun. I can only imagine how beautiful it is when the sun starts to set, but I don’t think we missed out on anything by not staying for that part. Another aspect that we didn’t do was the other heights for the cliff jump. They start out around 10 feet and go all the way up to a 40 foot jump. We were only brave enough to jump from the one that was 15 feet high, but my sister did try and jump off one that was 25 feet, but she backed out at the last second. I don’t blame her since even just looking at the height from where I was sitting scared me enough. Some of the Jamaican’s there however did have their own makeshift jump points that are even higher than 40 feet and since it wasn’t crowded while we were there one of the Jamaican’s jumped off the platform and did a trick for us. It was pretty cool to watch, but I would never have the courage to do it myself. Some safety pointers I wanted to go over as well is that jumping off of these cliff’s is at your own risk so nothing that happens can be put back on Rick’s Cafe. Now they have been open for close to 45 years and they haven’t been shut down yet, so that speaks on itself, but they have to include that just incase. Another thing to be careful of is the rocks that are located below the cliffs, and so you must be aware of jumping outward to avoid that rocks as much as possible. Lastly, they recommend you jump and immediately go into a straight pencil position so that you avoid any parts of your body smacking the water when you land. This can hurt pretty bad if you don’t do it and we managed to each make this mistake at least once, but we sure did learn from it afterwards. Overall, I highly recommend visiting this location if you get the chance no matter your age since it very well could be a once in a lifetime experience.