This was our second time visiting Ocho Rios on a cruise ship.  On the first visit (which will be covered on a separate post) we did all the touristy things – Dunns River Falls, the market and finished at the Enchanted Gardens which has a beautiful walk-in aviary.

Princess Cruises has a number of shore excursions but none of them are suitable for birders.  We arranged a private tour with top birding guide Wendy Lee.  She can be contacted by email at wendylee@cwjamaica.com and you can see another review of a land based birding tour with her on Trip Advisor.

We disembarked with trepidation as the weather was already drizzly.  Wendy was right there waiting for us and said she would do her best in spite of the weather.  I was prioritizing the 2 endemic parrot species – Yellow-billed Parrot and Black-billed Parrot.  Wendy took us to a grove of trees and sure enough the parrots were there, albeit very soggy parrots!  I did my best with the photos but I kept having to cover my camera from the rain.

Wendy had planned to take us somewhere else after the parrots but she said the road would be very dodgy because of the rain and the birds would be hiding anyways.  She offered to take us to her wildlife rescue instead to show us some birds rescued from poachers.  We saw a Cattle Egret along the road.

The rain had eased off a bit as we headed back to port, getting a glimpse of the ship as we went over a hill.  The final stop was the Enchanted Gardens with the fabulous walk-in aviary.  This seems to be the best-kept secret of Ocho Rios as hardly anyone ever goes there.  The guide showed us around and since we had limited time due to the ship schedule, we only wanted to see the aviary.  We spent some quality time playing with the birds.  They give you food and the birds will climb all over you.  I think it was around $20pp to visit the gardens.

I think this little guy is the same Olive-throated Parakeet I had named “Tiki” back in 2008!

After the tour, Wendy dropped us at the shopping centre near the cruise ship dock so we could visit the Jimmy Buffets and grab some parrot themed t-shirts.  We then walked back to the ship.  It turned out to be a great day in spite of the rainy morning!

Bad photo of some jerk chicken we shared at Margaritaville.

Two of these Dr Bird paintings are now gracing the hall between the kitchen and our home aviary!

Somebody else on the ship bought this – wish I had seen it first!