Mystic Mountain, Jamaica

Visited: April 6, 2019

Attending: Brian and Carole

In April of 2019, Carole and I went to Jamaica as a reward from Carole’s employer, along with a few hundred of her co-workers, plus guests. We stayed at the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall, which was a pretty awesome all-inclusive resort. Coasting was hardly the main goal of the trip, but we did sign up for an excursion to Mystic Mountain, about a 90-minute drive from the resort. The location includes a chair lift, zip line trail, mountain coaster, and pool. The chair lift is half ride, half transport, as you need to take it from the parking lot up to the top of the mountain where the attractions are. The zip line was our primary interest for the day, and although that was fun, there was a lot of waiting around, and the actual lines seemed kind of short, except for the final one. The zip line deposits you at the halfway point of the chair lift, after which you need to go back down to the bottom of the mountain, and all the way back up again, if you’re not yet done for the day. The pool was tiny, so we didn’t use it. The food provided was the standard jerk chicken and rice found all over the island, nothing special. There was another restaurant on-site, but our excursion didn’t include it. And of course there was also the mountain coaster.

Mystic Mountain Bobsled

I’ll be honest, I’ve never been one to count mountain coasters as coaster credits, mostly because they exist outside parks, and the speed is rider-controlled, which most coasters don’t do. But if I apply the “if it’s in RCDB, it counts” standard, then I get to count my first coaster outside of the US, so I’ll count this one. This coaster leans pretty heavily into the “Jamaican Bobsled team” theme, so the cars have hoods that cover the riders’ legs and are painted with the Jamaican flag, instead of holding two riders as mountain coasters often do. There is an option to link two cars together, in which case only the rear car controls the speed. I know that the biggest risk on a mountain coaster is getting stuck behind somebody who’s riding the brake. The rider in front of me didn’t seem to have a good grasp of how to control the car, so I asked the ride op for some extra cushion before I started, which she granted me. I never saw that other rider again, so I guess it worked. I kept the brakes off all the way through the course, but I admit there were some spots I might have wanted to slow down, if not for my determination to say I’d done it no-brakes. The initial slow turn around the pool gives a good view down the mountain into Ocho Rios, but after that, you’re in the rainforest the entire time. After the first downhill, there are a couple of helixes that pull some noticeable G’s, and then a small drop that gives a little air if you take it at speed. There’s a straightaway that you can take pretty fast if you want, but it’s immediately followed by the brake area. The ride is unfortunately somewhat short, and the lift hill is at the end, slowly taking you back up to the peak. Not the most notable coaster experience, but it was the only game in town, so I’m happy to have done it. I’ll probably do a mountain coaster again if the opportunity presents itself, but I’m not likely to seek them out specifically.