VacationSelector
Seven Mile Beach, Negril
NegrilSeven Mile Beach
The old Bath House in the Government Gardens, Rotorua
RotoruaThe old Bath House in the Government Gardens

Photos: Negril by gustavo.kunst, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped; Rotorua by W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.

Negril or Rotorua?

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 Negril for

  • beaches
  • nightlife
  • prices

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

Choose Rotorua for

  • wellness
  • culture and sights
  • nature and the outdoors

What lies behind each score is written up on Rotorua’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. Negril 93, Rotorua 33: Negril leads by 60 points.
Food & drink. Negril 36, Rotorua 33: Negril leads by 3 points.
Culture & sights. Negril 8, Rotorua 38: Rotorua leads by 30 points.
Nightlife. Negril 40, Rotorua 14: Negril leads by 26 points.
Nature & outdoors. Negril 60, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 26 points.
Day trips. Negril 35, Rotorua 45: Rotorua leads by 10 points.
Good for families. Negril 45, Rotorua 68: Rotorua leads by 23 points.
Getting around. Negril and Rotorua are level on 30.
Shopping & style. Negril 15, Rotorua 22: Rotorua leads by 7 points.
Affordability. Negril 44, Rotorua 36: Negril leads by 8 points.
Live music & performing arts. Negril 33, Rotorua 30: Negril leads by 3 points.
Wellness & relaxation. Negril 52, Rotorua 86: Rotorua leads by 34 points.
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What lies behind each score is written up on the two cities’ own pages: Negril and Rotorua.

Your match

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

Too close to call, 2 points apart

Negril
41match

Wins on beaches and nightlife with your weighting.

Rotorua
43match

Wins on wellness and culture and sights with your weighting.

What matters to you?

When should you go?

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

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

Rotorua in July

11 °Cdaytime high
6 °Cnight-time low
113 mmrain in the month
No recordsunshine a day
15 °Csea
10 hdaylight a day

Daytime high, °C

0°10°20°30°40°JFMAMJJASOND

Rainfall in the month, mm

050100150200250JFMAMJJASOND
NegrilRotorua

Where the figures come from

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.

Rotorua has no weather station within reach, so its figures come from a gridded climate model rather than a measured record, and read a broad area rather than the city itself.

Temperature and rainfall are climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Negril: 1991-2020 normals, Montego Bay / Sangster (51.8 km from centre). Rotorua: 2001-2020 normals, NASA POWER reanalysis grid, no weather station within 90 km.

Before you go

MeasureNegrilRotorua
Official languageEnglish, Jamaican PatoisEnglish, New Zealand Sign Language, Māori
CurrencyJamaican Dollar (JMD)New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
SocketsAB116 V, 50 HzI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeftLeft
Time zoneUTC-5UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer
Emergency numberPolice 110/112/119/911, ambulance 110, fire 110111
Elevation10 m280 m
Main airportSangster International Airport (MBJ)52 km from centre48 non-stop destinationsRotorua Regional Airport (ROT)7 km from centre3 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year10 days12 days

By the numbers

MeasureNegrilRotorua
City population4,50058,500
People per km²-22
Museums within 10 km01
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km00
Swim season, months above 21 °C12 monthsNone

Where else could you go?

Every comparison below shares a destination with this one, so you can follow Negril or Rotorua 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). 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. Temperature and rainfall for destinations with no weather station are from the NASA POWER 2001-2020 climatology, derived from MERRA-2. Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. 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.