Falmouth, Jamaica Cruise Ship Port Review + Tips
The Falmouth Cruise ship port is a completely gated port in western Jamaica. Its a lush, mountainous area located in between Montego Bay and Ochos Rios.
Falmouth is one of the newer cruise ports in Jamaica, (having only welcomed cruise ships for the past 15 years) but it has a lot of history. It served as a popular sugar and rum shipping area in the 1700s.
The port was built to accommodate large cruise ships in 2011. It now caters 100% to cruise ships that dock almost daily – typical visitors include Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Disney, Norwegian and several others. Usually, there’s only one or two cruise ships visiting at a time, so it doesn’t get overly crowded!
Is Falmouth, Jamaica, safe?
Falmouth Jamaica cruise port is incredibly safe. The port is completely gated, and only cruise ship guests and staff (people working in the shops) are allowed to enter. It’s a completely separate entity from the rest of Falmouth.
My husband and I felt safe within the gated community, but we were curious about what lay outside of it.
We decided to go beyond the gate, and explore what Falmouth looked like outside the cruise ship area – and we’re glad we did. It had a completely different feel, and there were fewer souvenir stores. We found people to be kind, and were just busy living their lives.
There are some negative accounts online from people who don’t recommend going beyond the gates. We personally didn’t have any bad experiences, and didn’t feel unsafe at any time – that being said, I am glad that he was with me. We walked all the way to St. Peter’s Anglican church, as we spotted it from the cruise ship (its one of the tallest buildings in the area) and we wanted to see the town.
This was a month after Hurricane Melissa and the cruise port and just recently opened again.
Important: If you want to go beyond the gates at the Falmouth Port, you need to bring your cruise ship room key card. This is how they know to let you back into the gated area when you return
Things to Do at Falmouth, Jamaica
Falmouth has fewer excursion options than other ports, like Montego Bay. But, there are a few nature-based excursions available from the cruise terminal in Falmouth, which you can book through your cruise line or with a vendor on-site.
Originally, we had a port adventure planned, but decided to explore the gated (and beyond the gated) port instead. However, the port is recovering from the recent hurricane and doing any of the excursions supports the community and livlihoods for many people who work in tourism.
Some of the excursions and activites offered in or from the Port of Falmouth are:
- Martha Brae rafting, which takes you on wooden rafts through the lush rainforest.(All ages permitted!), about a 20-minute drive from Falmouth
- Water tubing along Jamaica’s Rio Bueno, 3.3 hours, ages 5+
- Waterfalls – Blue Hole and Dunn’s River Falls, 5-hour excursion for all ages, about 1 hour from Falmouth
- Ziplining Dunn’s River Falls, 6 hour excursion for ages 6+
- Professional photoshoot + drone footage on a beach near Falmouth, 1-hour photoshoot, all ages
To get more of an idea of what to expect in Falmouth, check out my YouTube video!