VacationSelector
Cocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols, Cocoa Beach
Cocoa BeachCocoa Beach Pier behind yellow parasols
The limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios
Ocho RiosThe limestone terraces of Dunn's River Falls

Photos: Cocoa Beach by Benoît Prieur, CC0; Ocho Rios by Dr. Thomas Liptak, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Cocoa Beach or Ocho Rios?

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
  • beaches

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

Choose Ocho Rios for

  • wellness
  • food and drink
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Ocho Rios’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, Ocho Rios 78: Cocoa Beach leads by 2 points.
Food & drink. Cocoa Beach 32, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
Culture & sights. Cocoa Beach 12, Ocho Rios 16: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Nightlife. Cocoa Beach 27, Ocho Rios 28: Ocho Rios leads by 1 points.
Nature & outdoors. Cocoa Beach 62, Ocho Rios 72: Ocho Rios leads by 10 points.
Day trips. Cocoa Beach 52, Ocho Rios 56: Ocho Rios leads by 4 points.
Good for families. Cocoa Beach 72, Ocho Rios 60: Cocoa Beach leads by 12 points.
Getting around. Cocoa Beach 22, Ocho Rios 24: Ocho Rios leads by 2 points.
Shopping & style. Cocoa Beach 20, Ocho Rios 26: Ocho Rios leads by 6 points.
Affordability. Cocoa Beach 40, Ocho Rios 42: Ocho Rios leads by 2 points.
Live music & performing arts. Cocoa Beach and Ocho Rios are level on 14.
Wellness & relaxation. Cocoa Beach 30, Ocho Rios 50: Ocho Rios leads by 20 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Cocoa Beach and Ocho Rios.

Your match

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

Cocoa Beach
39match

Wins on families and beaches with your weighting.

Ocho Rios
Best match
42match

Wins on wellness and food and drink 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

Ocho Rios in July

33 °Cdaytime high
26 °Cnight-time low
85 mmrain in the month
8 hsunshine a day
29 °Csea
13 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

0100200300JFMAMJJASOND
Cocoa BeachOcho Rios

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.

Ocho Rios's temperatures are measured 62 km from the centre, at Kingston / Norman Manley.

Ocho Rios 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). Ocho Rios: 1991-2020 normals, Kingston / Norman Manley (61.9 km from centre).

Before you go

MeasureCocoa BeachOcho Rios
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 m59 m
Main airportOrlando International Airport (MCO)68 km from centre170 non-stop destinationsSangster International Airport (MBJ)86 km from centre48 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year11 days10 days

By the numbers

MeasureCocoa BeachOcho Rios
City population11,35416,671
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 Ocho Rios 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. Ground elevations sampled from the Mapzen terrain tiles via OpenTopoData, merging SRTM, ASTER, NED, EU-DEM and national sources. 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.