We stayed for one week. Like other reviews, the views are beautiful, food quite good, hotel lovely. However, it is not serene and quiet! It's on 6 acres with lovely gardens but the hotel area itself is small. We aren't used to barking dogs at night! It wasn't particularly relaxing to have a massage with hotel staff talking on the room balconies, or hear the owners interviewing for new hires. And like another review, we heard the owners bickering when we got there. After talking to many staff, we, learned, unfortunately, that one of the owners is not nice to staff, who make less than $60/week. There have been staff problems due to her difficult nature. That doesn't seem very eco-friendly to us. The staff are nice and ready to assist, but candidly, always around doing chores, so getting a private moment, sometimes even in one's room is not a guarantee. We used the car service for day trips to Blue Mountain, Reich Falls, Winifred Beach, and Rio Grande rafting. Those costs were about $700 just for travel. The roads are awful so be prepared to spend time in the car! The trips are great, and we really had an 'experience' of Jamaica, not available in the more tourists parts of the country. Each one was special.Make sure to go to Boston Jerk for lunch! We had a great cultural experience!
We wouldn't go back...with so much of the world to see...but for safety and comfort with an expensive pricetag, the Mocking Bird Hill is very nice.

My wife and myself moved to Kingston in November 2006 and casually discovered Mocking Bird Hill few weeks after arriving in Kingston. Since then it became "our" place in Port Antonio and are going there whenever we can. The atmosphere is extremely relaxing and the view is spectacular; service is friendly and efficient and after all this time we do not have a single complaint (and we can be very fussy). Furthermore, thanks to Shireen and Barbara we were able to discover aspects of Portland ignored by the guides.
Mocking bird is the place where we take our friends when they come to the Island and it is a great experience for all of them.
What to add? Kudos for the eco-friendly steps taken and for the link with the local communities (an example for other hotel in Jamaica and elsewhere).


PS The food! I almost forgot the food: delicious and worth the trip.

We have just returned from a trip that included Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos and Nassau and we can say that our stay at the Hotel Mockingbird Hill in Jamaica was a major highlight of the whole trip. Getting there is a bit of a challenge - we rented a car in Montego Bay and ended up driving after dark on roads that were either full of potholes or full of detours because of road construction. NOTE to other travellers -time your drive so you can make it to the Hotel in the daylight - AND don't be fooled by the good road between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios - it gets a lot worse after that! It might be better to fly into Kingston than Montego Bay - it's a shorter drive from Kingston.

Enough about the roads - getting to Mockingbird Hill makes it all worthwhile. What a wonderful place! We were greeted by a smiling lady with lovely cool damp towels to wipe off the travel grime and were immediately offered a complimentary beverage. Our bags were whisked to our room - a very nicely decorated and airy room with a king size bed, balcony, full bathroom, fresh flowers and even a CD player with a CD of Jamaican music. We arrived just before 9 pm and the restaurant normally closes at 9, but we were told that there would be no problem to get a late supper. We had a delicious light supper and fell into our comfortable bed. Mosquito nets are provided in all rooms - a good thing because although there weren't that many mosquitoes when we were there, the occasional one wanders into the room. We woke and wandered out to our balcony and what a sight! - We overlooked the gardens of the hotel which sloped down to forested hillsides and then to Port Antonio and its harbour with the sea gleaming in the distance. The Blue Mountains formed the backdrop. We sat and had our breakfast on the outdoor patio while watching hummingbirds dart about. We decided that we had come to the right place!

The hotel staff were very informed about the various outings that can be taken in the area and helped us book a guided hike through the forest and a rafting trip on the Rio Grande River. We spent the next 3 days happily exploring the Port Antonio area - which offers lots of opportunities for people interested in pretty beaches, waterfalls, rainforest, rafting down a river that still feels like the wilderness, and interesting little towns perched along the coastline. Port Antonio itself is fun to walk around and explore and its market is a bustling and lively place - check out the wood carvings offered by a man who calls himself "Rock Bottom" (because his prices are rock bottom apparently). There are not that many tourists in the Port Antonio area, so be prepared to feel a tad obvious as you wander into the Boston Beach jerk stand centre or browse through the market. Vendors will approach you, but will also take No for an answer and are always courteous. Our favourite vendor experience was at a public beach called Winnifred Beach (recommended by the hotel staff) where we met two really interesting ladies and had a great chat as we looked at the crafts they had for sale and enjoyed the delicious soup prepared right there in a little stall on the beach.

Although there are opportunities to eat dinner elsewhere, the food is so good at the Mille Fleurs restaurant at Mockingbird Hill that you will be tempted to eat there every night. The hotel offers a package that includes breakfast and dinner - we didn't take it but in retrospect we should have. Nothing else in the local area comes close. The menu features local produce as much as possible and the tood is prepared with skill and style. There is also a good wine list.

Hotel Mockingbird Hill places great emphasis on being as environmentally sustainable as possible. Water is carefully managed - rainwater is collected and supplemented by water hauled up the hill by truck - so guests are reminded to be water-wise. The hotel has good air flow and ceiling fans - we didn't miss A/C and it is much nicer to sleep with the fresh breezes wafting over you than the stale air of an air conditioner unit. Dinner is by candlelight on the deck overlooking Port Antonio. All electrical light fixtures are fluorescent. The owners are currently asking guests to contribute to carbon offsets for their air travel by contributing towards the planting of trees in the area. All of these measures (and more that we have not listed) are commendable - we just wish the other places we stayed on our trip came even close to Mockingbird Hill's environmental performance!

In summary, if you are looking for a superb location a bit off the beaten track where you can experience the true Jamaica and be treated royally, choose Mockingbird Hill.

My wife and I stayed there for three nights in early January, and they advertise that you will have a very serene experience, and I must say, the beauty of the place was diminished by the obvious problems the staff and management were in the middle of...

First, we were handed a list of things to expect when we arrived. This included complimentary morning coffee and an afternoon drink. The staff seemed totally unaware that this was the case when we went looking for their supposed complimentary Blue Mountain Jamaican morning coffee. Same case with the afternoon drink. Also, there were two charges on the bill for morning coffee when we checked out (which they did remove after a not-so-friendly confrontation with a staff member (that is not too harsh a word).

Also, and perhaps most disturbing, we heard the management arguing with (or yelling at) the staff a few times as we approached the main building and this certainly disrupted the serene environment.

One of the staff members did confide in us that there had been a major staff turnover the 1st of the year and that this could possibly be a cause of our problems.

Finally, there was an extra charge on our bill for a fee that had been added after we made our reservation, and the staff member we dealt with had a hard time believing that we should not be charged for it.

Call me crazy, but I believe that in the service/hotel industry, the customer is always right, and a customer should not be treated with a snooty attitude.

All in all, the place was indeed beautiful (but you definitely need a rental car if you want to explore the surrounding area), the views are top-notch, but with all of these problems that made us increasingly uncomfortable, unless they do a major staff training and learn to hide moments that break the serenity of the environment, we will not be going back to a place that was quite expensive.