VacationSelector
Cocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols, Cocoa Beach
Cocoa BeachCocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach

Photos: Cocoa Beach by Benoît Prieur, CC0; Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped.

Cocoa Beach or Negril?

Our verdict in twelve categories, each scored against the same fixed benchmark cities, and the climate month by month, so you can choose for your trip.

Choose Cocoa Beach for

  • families
  • day trips
  • shopping

What lies behind each score is written up on Cocoa Beach’s own page.

Choose Negril for

  • wellness
  • live music and the arts
  • beaches

What lies behind each score is written up on Negril’s own page.

Scoreboard

Twelve categories on one fixed scale from 0 to 100. The shaded stretch is the gap between the two.

Beaches & swimming. Cocoa Beach 80, Negril 93: Negril leads by 13 points.
Food & drink. Cocoa Beach 32, Negril 36: Negril leads by 4 points.
Culture & sights. Cocoa Beach 12, Negril 8: Cocoa Beach leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Cocoa Beach 27, Negril 40: Negril leads by 13 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cocoa Beach 62, Negril 60: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
Day trips. Cocoa Beach 52, Negril 35: Cocoa Beach leads by 17 points.
Good for families. Cocoa Beach 72, Negril 45: Cocoa Beach leads by 27 points.
Getting around. Cocoa Beach 22, Negril 30: Negril leads by 8 points.
Shopping & style. Cocoa Beach 20, Negril 15: Cocoa Beach leads by 5 points.
Affordability. Cocoa Beach 40, Negril 44: Negril leads by 4 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cocoa Beach 14, Negril 33: Negril leads by 19 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Cocoa Beach 30, Negril 52: Negril leads by 22 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cocoa Beach and Negril.

Your match

Pick a travel style or drag the sliders, and both match scores follow your weighting.

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Cocoa Beach
39match

Wins on families and day trips with your weighting.

Negril
41match

Wins on wellness and live music and the arts with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

Pick your month. The climate figures are measured averages, not a forecast.

Cocoa Beach in July

30 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
147 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
28 °Csea
14 hdaylight a day

Negril in July

34 °Cdaytime high
25 °Cnight-time low
174 mmrain in the month
9 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
Cocoa BeachNegril

Where the figures come from

Cocoa Beach has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Negril's temperatures are measured 52 km from the centre, at Montego Bay / Sangster.

Negril has no rain gauge within 25 km of the centre, so its rainfall comes from a gridded climate dataset read at the city rather than from a gauge further away.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Cocoa Beach: 1961-1990 (rainfall 1991-2020) normals, Cocoa / Patrick Air Force Base (11.2 km from centre). Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCocoa BeachNegril
Official language-English, Jamaican Patois
CurrencyUS Dollar (USD)Jamaican Dollar (JMD)
SocketsAB120 V, 60 HzAB116 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideRightLeft
Time zoneUTC-5, UTC-4 in summerUTC-5
Emergency number911Police 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110
Elevation0 m10 m
Main airportOrlando International Airport (MCO)68 km from centre170 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCocoa BeachNegril
City population11,3544,500
People per km²290-
Museums within 10 km30
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C11 months12 months

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Cocoa Beach or Negril somewhere new.

Browse every destination

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Rainfall where no rain gauge is within 25 km is from the TerraClimate 1991-2020 climatology (Abatzoglou et al. 2018, Scientific Data), read at the city. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database. Daylight hours computed from each destination's latitude using the NOAA solar position algorithm.

Category scores are our editorial verdict under rubric v3, each placed against the same fixed benchmark cities; the climate figures are measured. How the scores are set. Snapshot generated 2026-11-02. Daily budgets are estimates from country price levels.