We be jamming in Jamaica, mon!

Everybody’s a “mon” in Jamaica. You realize this soon enough when people say, “Hey, mon,” and they’re actually referring to you. Moi?

Yuh, mon!

Man, woman or child, you call them “mon” in Patwa. The pronunciation sounds like “man” but not quite — it’s a quicker flick of the tongue. In fact, a lot of Jamaican phrases sound almost like English because it’s the root of the language and then mixed with Spanish (Jamaica was a colony of Spain) and many other African languages — like a tall, cool glass of Jamaican cocktail mixed with the country’s famous rum as base.

For instance, “give me” is simply gimme, “morning” is mawning, “they are” is deh ah, ask is axe, brother is breddah, “wha’appen” is — yes, you got it — “what’s up?” or “what’s happening?”

When the phrases are said by a Jamaican, however, they sound so different. You expect the speaker to be bobbing his head to reggae music that only he can hear and a plume of smoke swirling around his dreadlocks.    

This, after all, is the land of Bob Marley who lives on in T-shirts and music, and the world’s fastest sprinter Usain Bolt, who’s said to consume large amounts of sweet potatoes (kamote) to make him run fast.

The Royal Promenade of the Navigator of the Seas is a convergence place for passengers. The promenade is flanked by restaurants, bars, cafes and boutiques.

We are at the second port of call of our five-night Western Caribbean cruise aboard Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas, the fourth of the five Voyager-class cruise ships of RC. The Navigator was once the largest ship in RC’s fleet and today is still a beauty with her glass balconies jutting out about three feet from the shell of the ship.

Our cruise sailed from Fort Lauderdale in Florida and first docked on the island of Labadee in Haiti.

Now, we are in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

And like Stella, we are trying to get our groove back, to shake off our sea legs as we walk on solid ground even for just an afternoon. The thing you notice right away is that the dreadlocks are not as ubiquitous as you might think — but Marley is and so are Bolt’s huge Gatorade billboards.

My friend June, who’s a connoisseur of, erm, weed, and has smoked all the world’s pot varieties from under a blanket of stars in Tibet to the red-light district of Geneva and the urban streets of Nairobi (the best strain, he says) texted me to go to Hope Road, but it turns out Marley’s house is in the capital city of Kingston, quite a long way from Montego Bay.

Following Kingston, Montego Bay is the second largest city of Jamaica in land area and the third in population. It’s a city of golf courses, beaches, vacation homes for the upper class, Red Stripe beer, soccer jerseys, Blue Mountain coffee (damn it’s good!), rum cakes, sundresses, souvenir T-shirts with Marley’s image, bottles of rum with Marley bubblehead stoppers, jewelry and watch stores, and tourists — lots of tourists that the stores we went to actually charge in American dollars (US$1 is JMD$82).

While still on board the Navigator of the Seas, you can already choose and book the tour you want to take at the ports of call. A lot of passengers hit the beaches and the golf courses; we took the quick city tour of Montego Bay for a little shopping and a lot of chismis from our tour guide.

It was the same at our first port of call, Labadee island in Haiti. Labadee is Royal Carribean’s private island of pristine beaches, walking trails, water sports, scuba diving, cultural shows, and local market.

On Labadee, the problems besetting Haiti seem so far away, but our walking tour guide takes a realistic, patriotic stance as he tells us the history of his country, the corruption in government, and how this island was first discovered by Christopher Columbus and only centuries later developed by Royal Caribbean. It is a lesson in tourism Filipinos can learn from — how tourism can improve lives and the generations after the present as the children can now afford to go to school.

“Haiti is the poorest island in the Americas,” says our tour guide, “but thanks to the ships, we in Labadee are able to send our children to school.” It is a somber walking tour that we can relate to — a third- world country being sucked dry by government, but on this island — there is hope because of tourism. 

Though the island is not that big, there are many things to do, a favorite of which is to lie in floating mats in the blue sea under the Caribbean sun. Thrill seekers can go parasailing or experience the zip of the Dragon’s Breath Flight over 300 feet above Labadee, both of which give them a bird’s-eye-view of the peninsula.

Standing on the beach near the dragon-shaped rock formation, you know there’s a zipliner coming down as you hear the screams — of both delight and fright — getting louder.

Our favorite activity by far is shopping for local souvenirs. The Labadee marketplace is arranged in an orderly fashion — the tiangge is a series of wooden structures where bargaining for clothing, musical instruments, paintings and magnets can be murder.

I am being konichiwa-ed again by a seller.

The Main Dining Room is three floors of fine dining.

“Japanese?” he says.

I shake my head.

“You speak Chinese?”

I shake my head again.

Only when I talk to my companions in Filipino does he get my nationality. By then, I could bargain without shame for a painting. 

What’s great about this port of call is that the crew of the Navigator transports all but the dining hall onto scattered cafeterias around the island. For lunch, we made our own hamburgers, or and had barbecued ribs and chicken, and tropical fruits.

It’s like never leaving the ship at all.

My favorite place on the Navigator of the Seas is the Royal Promenade on the fifth deck. It’s almost like being inside a mall with restaurants, shops, cafes and bars flanking the promenade.

On one evening, I lose control and splurge at the beauty counter, buying cosmetics that I would normally ignore in Manila — but aboard the ship it is too hard to resist because it’s duty free!

During those times I would wait for my companions or after dinner and the show, I would hang out at the Irish pub Two Poets Bar (in this case, Shakespeare and Keats), where the Filipino bartender makes a mean drink, teaching me how to make a Bellinni sunrise. The walls are covered with oak bookshelves and paneling, and is the perfect place for a nightcap. For sunset there’s the Viking Crown on the topmost deck, which is surrounded by glass windows giving you a perfect view of the horizon. At the 19th Hole bar, a colleague and I had mojitos, which the bartender (another Filipino) made with Cruzan coconut rum.

You will not be wanting for dishes to try or drinks to order, what with Windjammer, the ship’s buffet restaurant, open to all passengers. Then there are the specialty restaurants, of which we pick Portofino where we have a sumptuous Italian dinner served by a Filipino waiter. Other theme restaurants include the ‘50s-style diner Johnny Rockets and Chops Grille.

The total capacity of the Navigator is 5,020 including the 1,240 crew members from 57 countries. About 30 percent of the crew is made up of Filipinos, from officers like senior beverage manager Mario Buendia to our stateroom attendant to the restaurant wait staff.

For its inauguration in 2002, after it was completed in the shipyards of Turku, Finland to the tune of $600 million, Royal Caribbean picked tennis legend Stefi Graf as her godmother. No wonder, then, that the sports facilities on board offer a variety of choices, including a rock-climbing wall, an ice-skating rink and in-line skating, gold simulators, and a basketball court. Runners, too, will not want for places to run — even at sea. There is a track on the upper level and the fitness center is equipped with treadmills and other cardio machines, a free weights area and resistance machines.

As for the sheer logistics of making the ship run smoothly, you can only credit the decades of experience Royal Caribbean has with its growing fleet. Imagine, in one week about 105,000 meals are prepared for both passengers and crew; 300,680 desserts; 69,000 steaks; 234,000 appetizers. That’s about 20,000 lbs. of beef, 12,000 lbs. of chicken, 5,000 lbs. of pork, 4,000 lbs. of seafood, 5,800 lbs. of cheese, and 5,800 lbs. of cheese. Guess how many slices of pizza are served? About 18,000! 

The Navigator of the Seas had just come from its season in Europe where it was docked in Rome two weeks before we boarded at Fort Lauderdale. According to hotel director Tony Muresu, the ship is going to be in the Caribbean until May 2011, after which it is going to spend the summer docked in Rome, and the winter in Barcelona.

The Navigator’s European itineraries should prove interesting to Filipino passengers who are planning their vacations next year — or even those who are planning to spend it in the US until May. 

The Navigator gets a mix of passengers, from the silver-haired to families and the young.

“Ships are a great promoter of romance,” says Muresu. “We always have lovely romance stories. It’s not unlike any other community where people get together, they meet, and often romance or friendship flourishes. We have people who go back here for their honeymoon.”

Muresu continues that what makes passengers come back again and again is that Royal Caribbean is “very focused on retention. Our standards are absolutely superb. We invested a lot of money and time training our personnel. The service levels are extremely appreciated. A lot of companies are interested in volume business — of course we like that, too — but we are firm believers that repeat business is great business.”

Local art abounds in Labadee, Haiti, an island developed by Royal Caribbean.

Murseu points out that they do more than mystery shopping to test the standards of service. “We have two scales: brand quality inspection that is done twice a year unannounced and they spend 10 days with us. In addition, we also have a secret shopping program. The results have been consistently good. This is very important because we don’t want a jaded opinion of what is going on, so the folks that are sent in especially for the secret shopper program are first-time cruisers. We utilize a very good company with an incredible reputation and they have a huge staff of secret shoppers across the hospitality industry who have an understanding of service across the industry rather than just cruise ships.”

Muresu proudly states that Royal Caribbean’s Crown and Anchor Society (like the frequent flyer program of airlines) has over 5.5 million members — people who have cruised with RC at least four or five times. “We also have our Diamond Plus members, folks who have cruised 25 times or more with us. We have over 5,000 of those.”

On that particular cruise that we were on, Muresu says there was a passenger who has cruised with Royal Caribbean 265 times over 15 to 20 years.

Speaking of passengers, Simon the entertainment director of the Navigator, says during the show on the last night at sea that he’s heard some of the 10 most weird questions on board the ship from passengers.

One is, “Does this elevator go forward?” and my favorite is, “Do these stairs go up or down?”

Maybe these passengers got caught up watching the Caribbean sunset and had one too many Jack Cokes.

* * *

For inquiries about Navigator of the Seas and Royal Caribbean, call Arpan Air Philippines — the international representative of Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, and Azamara Club Cruises — at 892-2701 to 03.