PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

This luxury hideaway is located on Allan Avenue, on the coast stretching northeast of town toward Frenchman's Cove. Designed like a British colonial compound of white-sided buildings with cedar-shingle roofs, it sits regally above jagged coral cliffs with a seaside panorama. The hotel's main building is furnished with antiques and cooled by sea breezes. Your accommodations will be a studio cottage or tower, reached by a path through the gardens. In the cottages, a large bedroom with ample sitting area opens onto a private patio with a sea view. All units have ceiling fans, plenty of storage space, and tasteful Jamaican antiques and colorful chintzes. Beds are most comfortable, while bathrooms have combination shower/tubs. Despite major renovations to the place in the wake of Hurricane Ivan's devastation in 2004, maintenance on some of the exteriors of this place has fallen off, giving to some visitors the impression of an elegant grand piano that's just slightly out of tune. Service, however, is attentive, old-fashioned, and white-gloved, evoking Jamaica the way it was during the heyday years of the 1950s, and bedroom areas look good and well maintained. Trident has a horseshoe-shaped sandy beach cove at one end of its grounds, which is accessible by a path that meanders along a landscaped terrain. It's a strip of muddy bottomed seafront that's not as appealing as a dip in the hotel pool. That pool is positioned near a graceful gazebo and sits above jagged rocks where the surf crashes and churns most of the day.

Men are required to wear jackets and ties at dinner, which is a multi-course, excellent fixed-price meal; if you have dietary restrictions, make your requirements known early.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Jamaica, 4th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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