The Jamaican bobsled is a gravity ride on a suspended metal track running roughly 3,280 feet down the hillside above Ocho Rios, with a hand brake in the sled so you set your own speed. It is not a standalone attraction: it sits inside Mystic Mountain, you reach the top by chairlift, and you buy it as part of a park package. Our Mystic Mountain page covers the park, its bankruptcy and its reopening. This page is about the ride and about the team it is named after.
History
The ride
The bobsled opened with the park in July 2008, built by Rainforest Adventures. The Sky Explorer chairlift carries you about 700 feet up the hillside in roughly 15 minutes, and gravity brings you down a rail through the trees in a two seat sled. There is no motor and no launch. The only control is a lever between your hands.
Where the joke stopped being a joke
Jamaica's bobsleigh team was not invented by Disney, and it was not invented by Jamaicans either. In 1987 two American businessmen living on the island, George Fitch and William Maloney, set up the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation. Fitch's idea came from watching the annual pushcart derby, in which Jamaicans race homemade carts downhill at speed with no engine and no proper brakes. He reasoned that the steering and nerve involved would transfer to ice.
They took the idea to the Jamaica Defence Force, which agreed to look for candidates among its servicemen on the grounds that bobsleigh was an army sport, and to the Jamaica Olympic Association for sprinters. That is the actual origin: a downhill cart race in the Jamaican hills, two foreign businessmen, and the army. It is a better story than the film, which took considerable liberties and which we deal with on the Mystic Mountain page.
What happened after 1988, which almost nobody knows
The Calgary crash is the famous part and it is the least interesting part. Jamaica kept going, for nearly forty years, on a fraction of the budget of every nation it races.
Jamaican crews won gold at the World Push Championships in Monaco in 2000 and again in 2001. Funding, then and since, has been the constant problem: in January 2014 an internet campaign raised the equivalent of about US$30,000 in the joke cryptocurrency Dogecoin, in a day, to get the two man crew to the Sochi Olympics. At PyeongChang in 2018 Jazmine Fenlator-Victorian and Carrie Russell became the first Jamaican and first Caribbean two woman crew at a Winter Games. At Beijing in 2022 Jamaica qualified in three bobsleigh events at once for the first time, including a four man sled for the first time in 24 years, piloted by Shanwayne Stephens.
Then, on 24 November 2025 at Whistler, the four man crew of Shane Pitter, Andrae Dacres, Junior Harris and Tyquendo Tracey won gold at the IBSF North American Cup in a combined 1:45.88. It was Jamaica's first international four man gold in the sport's history. Pitter and Joel Fearon took two man gold at Park City six days later.
At the Milano Cortina Olympics in February 2026 the four man sled finished 21st, and Mica Moore came 14th in the women's monobob, equalling the best Olympic result Jamaica has recorded in bobsleigh. Thirty eight years after the crash that made everyone laugh, the country still has a team, and it is winning things.
What it costs and when it opens
You cannot buy the bobsled on its own. It comes inside a Mystic Mountain package, and the basic Mystic Adventure Pass at around US$70 does not include it. Visitor packages that do have been quoted around US$140, with combinations running higher, so ask for the current sheet rather than trusting a figure online.
Jamaican residents get a far better deal with local ID. Brawta Reloaded is a three hour package at around J$7,000 for adults aged 10 and over and J$5,000 for children aged 7 to 9, including unlimited bobsled and Raggamuffin rides. Run Di Riddim Reloaded is four hours at around J$9,500 and J$6,000. Unlimited is the key word: on a quiet day that is as many runs as you can be bothered to ride the lift for.
Hours move and the park does not open seven days every week, so call (876) 676-1777 first.
What it is actually like
Genuinely good fun, and completely under your control, which is the unusual thing about it. Leave the brake alone and the sled runs quick through the bends with the trees close on both sides. Squeeze it and you can crawl the whole way down. Published speeds vary a lot, from around 21mph up to around 40mph, and the truth is that the number is whatever you choose it to be.
The run takes about three to five minutes. It ends sooner than you want, which is the standard complaint and the reason the unlimited-ride local packages are the sensible purchase. The Raggamuffin coaster next door is the faster, tighter sibling. Chairlift capacity is the bottleneck on the whole park, so on a heavy cruise day the queue for the ride is really a queue for the lift, and arriving at opening is worth more here than almost anywhere else in Ocho Rios.
What to bring
- Jamaican photo ID if you want the resident rate
- Closed shoes, and nothing loose in your pockets
- A strap for glasses and a case for a phone, or leave both in a locker
- A light layer, the chairlift is breezy and the hillside catches rain
How it fits a day
YaadBinge treats the bobsled as part of a Mystic Mountain morning, roughly 9am to 1pm, taking the first lift of the day and riding the track two or three times before the queues build, then lunch down the hill and a beach afternoon.
Dunn's River Falls is a few minutes away and the two pair well across a day, but not across a morning. Falls at 8.30am then up here from about 11am works. Both inside three hours does not.
