Jamaica Carnival Budget Breakdown (2018)

To be quite honest, at this point I will just repeat what I said in my ‘So You Want to Go to Cropover Eh?‘ post;

Carnival is not for the weak.

Carnival is not for the broke.

Carnival will have you spent both physically and monetarily. 

In about 35 days I will be making my return to Jamaica. I haven’t been to this wonderful island since 2010 when I did a solo trip to the infamous Hedonism resort in Negril. This time I will be in Kingston and I will not be exploring alone. 

The purpose of this post is for anyone who plans to do carnival hopping to understand budget associated with doing it. When I initially released my Cropover post, people were shocked at how much it can all add up so I felt it necessary to do one for Jamaica’s carnival as well. This year the flights for Cropover were so OVO unruly I decided not to go back again for 2018. Even last year there was a dip in prices, no dip in sight this year. Shame.

Unlike Barbados, I will not be staying a week for the festivities in Jamaica, I am only going Thursday to Monday so that I can save my vacation days for any other shenanigans planned in 2018. I probably could have squeezed in more events, but with only being there four days and the FINAL day being time to play mas – not happening.   

Here we go – note, I will show you how much things are in USD and converted into CAD so you can cry with me. Also, the totals are inclusive of the online fees associated with everything purchased. 

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Flight to Kingston = $540.37 CAD (roundtrip, direct)

** Shout out to my mom and dad for buying that as my birthday gift though! **

AirBnB: $414.00 – $47.18 credit = $366.82 / 3 people = $122.27 CAD per person

** This actually could have been $98.00 per person but we opted to book it for five nights since we land in Kingston at 4:30am and didn’t want to wait until check-in **

Frontline Costume from Xodus: $745.50 USD ($958.30 CAD)

Parties:

1) Thursday: AFloat Boat Cruise = $75.96 USD ($97.77 CAD)

2) Thursday: Tribe Ignite = $64.20 USD ($83.25 CAD)

3) Friday: Candy Coated Boat Cruise = $91.79 USD ($119.75 CAD)

4) Saturday: AMbush = $102.60 USD ($135.07 CAD)

5) Saturday: Sunrise Breakfast Fete = $112.91 USD ($147.30 CAD)

Party Total: $583.14 CAD

Spending money: $400 USD ($514.18 CAD) 

** I assume this will be enough for liquor, food and taxi while there, pending I do not buy too much rum and jerk pork **

Total Cost of Jamaica Carnival 2018: $2718.26

I mean I probably could have done backline and maybe not so many parties but – YOLO. When was I really going to have a chance to play frontline for UNDER $1000 USD? Probably never. We really lucked out on the AirBnB credits and finding a great two bedroom/two bathroom spot in New Kingston. I personally lucked out for my mom and dad hooking me up with that flight as well. Hope this helps all of you plotting on maybe going to Jamaica Carnival 2019. Needless to say, mans are reaaaady for 2018.

See you all in Jamaica 🙂 

– Mirna