Mystic Mountain

We spent our second to last day in Jamaica at Mystic Mountain. Mystic Mountain has 3 main attractions: the lift ride up, the bobsledding, and the zipline tour. The attractions are all priced separately, and are honestly quite expensive. We ended up doing all 3 and it came out to be over $100 per person. But if I had to go back again I would suggest passing on the zipline tour. The lines that you zip down in the tour (there are 5 total) are not very long, and I thought the ziplining I did on Grouse Mountain in Vancouver was 10x better. Although if you’ve never been ziplining before, you may still want to try it out here on Mystic Mountain. Anyway, when you first walk into the park (past the ticket booth), you’re greeted with an amazing rainforest view.

The path takes you to the lift ride up. The lift ride takes about 15-20 minutes, so time-wise, it’s probably the best-value attraction here. The views on top of the lift are gorgeous, and you can see all the way out to the ocean.

When you get to the top, you can either zipline or bobsled first (assuming you signed up to do both). I highly recommend doing the bobsled first since the ride stars and ends at the top of the mountain. If you zipline, the tour ends halfway down the mountain so you would have to take the lift back up again. They also have a waterslide and infinity pool at the top of the mountain, but I believe it’s an extra fee. The views from the pool area are beautiful, though! And you can watch the bobsled riders whiz by.

The bobsled ride experience was so much fun! It’s like a roller coaster where YOU control the brakes. There are two levers (one on each side) that you push down to release the brakes and pull up to brake. They’ll tell you that it’s safer if you go faster (not that you’ll fall off or anything), but you’ll have a hard time going through some of the turns if you don’t have enough speed. They also let you connect two bobsleds together since each bobsled only fits a single person. My sister and I decided to connect, and since I was in the front, I controlled the brakes. And thank god for that because my sister for sure would have been braking most of the way down. If you like high speeds and sharp turns AT high speeds, push the levers all the way down the WHOLE way down. It was SO much fun and I would totally go back and do it again.

After bobsledding, we took a break before ziplining and just explored the top of the mountain. They have a garden exhibit where you can see beautiful plants, flowers, and hummingbirds! If you didn’t plan on ziplining and you don’t want to take the lift back down, you can walk down the trail through the garden and it’ll take you to the same endpoint as the zipline tour. My mom decided not to zipline so she walked down and met us at the bottom.

If you plan on ziplining, make sure you’re wearing close toed shoes and appropriate clothes (NO swimsuits). Prep time takes around 20 minutes depending on the size of your group. We got lumped together with several other parties and our total group size was about 12? So most of the time on the tour you’ll just be waiting for others to zip down the line. The actual time on each of the 5 lines is like less than 20 seconds I would say. Also, if you’re afraid of heights, there is one point on the tour where you’ll have to take a free fall down to the next platform that’s directly underneath. They attach you to a rope and someone is at the bottom to catch you, but that was the scariest part of the tour. It’s literally a straight down drop–my stomach lurched a bit.

Our trip to Mystic Mountain lasted about 4 hours I would say, so make sure you budget enough time so you don’t have to rush any of the attractions here. Once again, my only complaint is about the attractions being so expensive, but I think the lift ride up and the bobsledding were both worthwhile experiences. If you’re in Ocho Rios and want a fun, amusement-park type of day, this is the place to go!

XOXO,