It’s Got Resorts fo Every Taste, Hot Reggae and Hotter Jerk Chicken and Package Deals It Hopes Will Make You Forget Hawaii. . . : It’s jamaica, Mon!

Long a favorite of East Coast island-lovers, the island of Jamaica is now coming on hot and heavy to West Coast vacationers as well.

Eager to edge out archrival Hawaii, Jamaican resort hotels and U.S. tour companies are offering a sudden abundance of bargain charter packages to this Connecticut-sized island that boasts it has the Caribbean’s most complex culture and diverse topography. Five-and-a-half-hour, nonstop charter flights from Los Angeles to Kingston make Jamaica about the same flight time away as Hawaii.

For less than $600, vacationers can get six nights’ accommodations on one of the island’s north-coast resort areas, with round-trip air fare, transfers from airport to hotel, taxes and service charges included.

We’re not talking about luxury digs at the $600 level, mind you, and many of the cheapest hotels are either up a cliff or across the road from the beach. At the other extreme, top-of-the-line packages at the island’s poshest all-inclusive resorts--such as brand-new Ciboney in Ocho Rios and Grand Lido in Negril--may include everything from unlimited booze to meals prepared by butlers in your villa, and run as high as $3,000 per person for six nights.

But with some 70 choices of accommodations running the gamut from bare-bones to expensive, there’s a good chance of finding a satisfying balance of price and amenities.

That’s what the charter companies and resort hotels are counting on as they attempt to entice West Coasters away from Hawaii. Both destinations offer lush jungle and mountain scenery, gorgeous beaches and seascapes, and a rich island culture. Jamaica’s stance is: Why not take a break from hulas and poi, and come on down for some hot reggae and even hotter jerk pork and chicken, the spicy fare that Jamaicans claim was the four-legged prototype for New Orleans’ blackened fish? (Eating and shopping in Jamaica are particularly good deals now because of the devaluation of the Jamaican dollar, which has fallen from $10 Jamaican per $1 U.S. to about $21 Jamaican per $1 U.S. since last September.)

An earlier promotion to woo Southern Californians to Jamaica, offered last August by tour packager Sunburst Holidays, succeeded beyond the company’s wildest expectations when literally thousands showed up at LAX three weekends in a row for the advertised $99 day-trip to the island. According to company vice president Marie Mentone, “Phone lines jammed and there were people camped out at the airport; we had everybody, from families with children to very old people.” The fuss was over a charter trip that left L.A. at night, arriving the nextmorning in Montego Bay, bused day-trippers off to one of the all-inclusive resorts where they spent the day sunning, swimming, eating and using the resort’s sports facilities, then flew Sunday night back to L.A. Needless to say, the offer is no more. “Demand so greatly exceeded capacity that we could never repeat the offer,” Mentone says. “We wouldn’t ever have enough airline seats.”

With 2.4 million residents, mainly of African descent (900,000 in Kingston), and 4,400 square miles ranging from well-paved coastal drives to pock-marked interior dirt roads, Jamaica is not some quaint speck of land easily grasped in a few days.

Stick to the north coast (as most tourists do, since most of the resorts are there) and you’ll get the impression that Jamaica is made up predominantly of white tourists with a black resident serving staff. Rent a car (or take a tour south) and you’ll encounter the neatly trimmed Georgian homes of wealthy black and white Jamaicans in Mandeville; the bustle of business, educational and cultural life in the capital of Kingston; the winding roads and knock-’em-dead peak-and-valley vistas of the Blue Mountains, where hiking is superb and many rich Jamaicans (including the family of the late reggae legend Bob Marley) have elegant estates. The island’s mountainous vertical spine can best be appreciated from the air.

There’s crime in Jamaica--mainly in Kingston, as a current U.S. State Department advisory warns (see story on page L19). But exercise the same cautions in urban Jamaica as you would in Los Angeles or New York City, and it’s possible to safely explore the capital’s diverse attractions, which range from fine theater to a magnificent art museum to a rich musical culture popularized by Marley.

This reporter spent two weeks in January inspecting a sampling of coastal resorts and hotels in Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril--with a detour to Port Antonio, which offers few packages, but is a wonderfully peaceful alternative. The options--which usually, but not always, jibed with the price--ranged from oh-so-wonderful beachfront villas where I had to be pried away from my raging-surf view, to depressing dumps where I was afraid to sit down for fear I might catch something, and where the ocean--somewhere down the road and across the street--seemed more a concept than a reality.

All package prices listed below are for six nights, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles. Prices can vary and sudden sales are common, so always check with your travel agent for the best deal.

At the top of the scale are the five properties that make up the group called Elegant Resorts: Round Hill Hotel and Villas, Half Moon Golf and Tennis Club, and Tryall Golf and Tennis Club--all in Montego Bay; Trident Villas in Port Antonio, and the Plantation Inn in Ocho Rios. Luxe to the max, all have smashing oceanfront settings and first-rate service; several offer afternoon tea, require guests to dress up for dinner and maintain a staff that always seems to be polishing brass. Package prices for six nights with no meals range from $1,300 per person, double occupancy, for a simple room, to more than $3,000 per person for a villa staffed with a cook and butler. Under Elegant Resorts’ Platinum plan--which adds at least $500 per person to the price--meals, drinks and sports facilities are included in the package.

While all five resorts are scrumptious, my favorite was Trident. The food was exquisite; the setting in untouristy Port Antonio, where our villa faced a crashing surf, was breathtaking; the folksy mento band that played sweet--and sometimes bawdy--banjo ballads at the cocktail hour was up-tempo fun, and I liked the way the resident neon-colored peacocks meandered onto our veranda each morning to watch us eat our room-service breakfast.

Taking leave of ultra-luxury, Jamaica is most famous for its all-inclusive resorts--pioneered by the Sandals chain, which now has six resorts across the island.

Nearly everything is included at these places, from unlimited food and drinks to water sports and sometimes even cigarettes. With a few exceptions, the food tends to be ho-hum. Several guests I spoke to at the Negril Sandals (where we stayed) said the food was better than they had expected from a place where everything was “free.” I felt otherwise, even at the two small specialty restaurants on the property, which were supposed to be better than the sprawling general dining room. Prices at Sandals’ all-inclusive resorts range from $1,300 to $1,900 per person, double occupancy, depending on the resort and the room.

While all six Sandals are couples-only (no singles or children), the all-inclusive Superclubs chain has five resorts geared to various combinations of singles, couples and families: Boscobel Beach (families) and Couples in Ocho Rios, Grand Lido (couples and singles) and Hedonism II (singles and couples) in Negril, and Jamaica Jamaica (couples and singles) in Runaway Bay, west of Ochi, as the locals call Ocho Rios.

Our suite at the Boscobel family resort had no hot water during our two-night stay and there was loud construction work below our window from 8 a.m. until after 5 p.m. each day. We thought the food mediocre, but I must confess, the swarms of children seemed to be having a magnificent time scarfing down hamburgers and ice cream and participating in myriad organized activities for different age levels--pool volleyball, scavenger hunts, reggae parties. Their parents, meanwhile, were mostly collapsed on chaises, blissfully devoid of responsibility--though some tagged behind their kids, apparently in the throes of separation anxiety.

At the Grand Lido in Negril, Superclubs’ top-of-the-line resort, the couples atmosphere was classy and the food quite good. Meanwhile, across the street, Hedonism II was decidedly low-brow--dare I say brash? Here the wet T-shirt contest lives on (when guests bother to wear anything at all) and there is much ogling--lest anyone mistake this place for a naturalist sanctuary. One guest complained to us that the resort’s name was more accurate than he had anticipated and that an inordinate number of mate-swappers had shared more than he cared to know about the day’s sexual rompings.

Package prices at the Superclubs range from $1,400 to $2,000 per person, double occupancy, depending again on the resort and room. At Boscobel, children under 14 (one per adult) stay free in the adults’ room. As always, check with your travel agent for the most recent offerings and deals.

All five Superclubs currently are offering a special $199 round-trip charter fare with a minimum six-night booking at one of their properties, which can bring the package price down by about $200 per person. The special fare isn’t available certain holidays and peak periods and goes off during the June-through-August summer months, but picks up again in September and is scheduled to run through the end of the year.

There are at least a dozen other all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica that are not part of any chain. The newest is Ciboney in Ocho Rios, which rises on a hill across the street from the ocean (though the resort does own beach property where guests can sun, swim and dine alfresco at the hotel’s Italian restaurant).

The atmosphere is elegant and romantic, the food excellent. The villas here are quite nice, with some 90 plunge pools, some of which are private, others shared by villa clusters. Villas come stocked with basic foodstuffs--fruit, cold cuts, cereals, eggs, cheese, drinks. Should you order room service at dinner, you won’t get a tray from the kitchen, but rather two butlers who will prepare and serve your meal in your own villa--all included in the villa price. Package guests also get free massages and other treatments at Ciboney’s spa on the grounds. Prices range from $1,300 per person, double occupancy, for a room in the main house to $3,000 per person, double occupancy, for a two-bedroom villa. Honeymoon villas ($2,540) have an indoor pool.

Down the road, the oceanfront Sans Souci hotel is a full-fledged, all-inclusive spa, with a spring-fed mineral pool, spa cuisine (though there’s also a fattening restaurant for cheaters) and an array of health treatments and fitness classes. Rooms start at $2,100 per person, double occupancy, including meals, treatments and classes.

Those on a budget can do better than the all-inclusive resorts--particularly if free watersports and unlimited food and booze are not important to you. (For a sampling of resorts now offering packages under $1,000, see story on opposite page).

Perhaps you don’t want to tackle the whole country. But even the resort areas have unique personalities, and unless you’re determined to let nothing but meals and bedtime pry you from your chaise, it may help to know what they are.

MONTEGO BAY (or Mo-Bay, as insiders know it) is Jamaica’s north-coast tourist epicenter, with the largest number of resorts, from cheap to expensive. It’s the resort most convenient to Donald Sangster International Airport, which is no more than 20 minutes away from any hotel in town. There are fine restaurants and beaches, lots of golf options, day-tours by train to plantation country and a rum factory, a good crafts market on Harbour Drive, tours of the great houses of banana and sugar barons of yesteryear and, on Monday nights, a street carnival on the main hotel drag with Jamaican music and food stands.

OCHO RIOS, about a two-hour drive east from Mo-Bay, is where the cruise ships come in. It’s beginning to rival Montego for number and variety of accommodations. After Kingston, this north-coast resort city is the country’s reggae capital (the island’s only 24-hour all-reggae station is based here), and there are numerous reggae clubs for dancing or just jiving with your friendly local Rastafarian. Also popular here are rafting on the White River, helicopter “flightseeing,” tours of working plantations and excursions to the estates of Noel Coward and Ian Fleming.

At Chukka Cove Farms, just north of Ochi, you can go horseback riding into the hills or along the beach, and there are polo matches Thursdays and Saturdays. (Chukka Cove is a favorite haunt of United States Ambassador Glen A. Holden, who hails from Los Angeles and frequently brings over friends from the Santa Barbara Polo Club for matches.)

At dramatic Dunn’s River Falls, Jamaica’s No. 1 tourist attraction, visitors form a chain and scale the rock ledges of the cascading falls (a fairly easy task for the able-bodied of all ages), usually led by a guide in dreadlocks.

NEGRIL, two hours from Mo-Bay on the west coast, still retains much of the laid-back funkiness of the ‘60s, when it was a ganja-smoking (as in marijuana) hippie haven. But, with a seven-mile expanse of powder-soft beach and plenty of good restaurants and watering holes, the town is growing as a tourist center. There’s not much sightseeing here, except for a must-stop at one of the many jerk chicken stands (with names such as Finger Lickin’ Jerk Chicken and Veery Serious Chicken) and a mandatory pilgrimage to Rick’s Cafe for sunset watching from the cliff-top bar.

Many Negril resorts set aside clothing-optional beach sections. From Rick’s you may even catch sight of the nude sunset cruise out of the all-inclusive Hedonism II resort.

PORT ANTONIO, finally, is the pretty town built around twin harbors east of Ocho Rios, and favorite haunt in the ‘40s of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn. A quiet fishing village, Port Antonio has a bustling fruit and vegetable market, and behind it, a good indoor craft market. At the town’s old courthouse, you may be lucky enough to see a wigged judge hearing a case.

Nearby is Boston Bay, birthplace of jerk pork, and site of a duo of magnificent waterfalls, tourable caves, rafting on the Rio Grand and, offshore, Navy Island. Once Errol Flynn’s private retreat, the island is now an informal resort that’s a 10-minute ferry ride from town, with reggae dancing on the beach Thursday nights. How informal? During my visit, guests shared the beach with a donkey who lay sprawled out by a picnic table, sunning itself and snoring.

GUIDEBOOK: Jamaica: How to Get There and Where to Eat

Getting there: You’ll get the best deal buying a package tour that includes chartered air. Some charter companies and travel agents will sell air only, with departures usually Sunday, and return Saturday or Sunday. Charter flight prices run about $435 round trip (plus $28 departure tax), but vary with dates. The 5 1/2-hour overnight flights travel nonstop from Los Angeles to Donald Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay. On the return, however, L.A.-bound passengers must go through customs and change planes in San Francisco.

Travelers who want more flexibility than charters allow can fly American Airlines to Montego Bay, with a change of planes in Miami both ways. Round-trip prices start at about $570 for 14-day advance-purchase tickets, flying midweek; weekends are slightly higher.

Package tours: A good travel agent can help you sort through package prices and figure out what’s included and what’s extra--and many tour companies require that you book through an agent. Though air fare, accommodations, transfers and tips (and meals at all-inclusive resorts) usually are included, departure taxes from the United States ($28) and Jamaica (currently about $5) usually are extra. Air transfers to resorts in Port Antonio, a five-hour drive from the international airport in Montego Bay, often are the responsibility of the travelers.

Following are five companies that have extensive experience with packages from Los Angeles:

* Apple Vacations--Book through travel agents only.

* Go Go Tours--Book through travel agents only.

* Sunburst Holidays--6033 W. Century Blvd., Suite 805, Los Angeles 90045, (800) 666-8346. Or book through agent; price is the same.

* Island Flight Tours, 2134 Sawtelle Blvd., Suite 309, Los Angeles 90025, (800) 426-4570. Or book through travel agent at same price.

* Sunbird Vacations, 2025 Gateway Place, San Jose 95110, (800) 800-0202. Or book through travel agent at same price.

Air schedules may vary with the company. For example, Island Flight and Apple run mainly six-night trips, which are nonstop outbound but change planes in San Francisco on the return. Sunburst Holidays and Go Go Tours offer mainly seven-night packages, with nonstop outbound and the San Francisco plane change on the return. Earlier this month, TWA, in cooperation with the charater companies, began operating charter flights between Los Angeles and Montego Bay that are nonstop in both directions. The flights leave and return on Sundays and are booked through travel agents and tour companies.

Where to eat: Even if you’re staying at an all-inclusive resort, it’s fun to eat out sometimes. Area code is 809 nationwide:

MONTEGO BAY

Sugar Mill--Nouvelle-Jamaican food outdoors on golf course of Half Moon Resort. Telephone locally: 953-2314.

Calabash--Great views and good Jamaican food. Queen’s Drive; 952-3891.

Julia’s--Italian trattoria on hilltop with great view of town and bay. Bogue Hill; 952-1772.

Wexford Court--In hotel of same name; simple, inexpensive Jamaica fare. Gloucester Avenue; 952-2854.

OCHO RIOS

Almond Tree--Jamican and continental dishes; popular with locals and tourists. In Hibiscus Lodge, Main Street; 974-2813.

Moxon’s--Candlelit patio overlooking water, with fish and chicken dishes; quiet and expensive, dinner only. Boscobel Lagoon at St. Mary’s, eight miles east of Ocho Rios; 975-3234.

Casanova--Innovative Jamaican cuisine, plus low-call spa menu. At the Sans Souci Hotel & Spa, four miles east of town on the main drag; 974-2353.

Evita’s--Italian food, lots of pastas. Eden Bower Road next to Carinosa Gardens; 974-2333. NEGRIL

Rick’s Cafe--On cliff overlooking the ocean. Fun for brunch, a must for sunset-watching with, perhaps, dinner afterward. Lighthouse Road; 957-4335.

Hungry Lion--Good vegetarian and seafood dishes on the cliffs. West End Road; 957-4486.

Charela Inn--Five-course French and West Indian fare. Norman Manley Boulevard; 957-4277.

Negril Tree House Club--Island fare, live reggae music many nights. Norman Manley Boulevard; 957-4287.

PORT ANTONIO

Trident--Elegant five-course fixed-price dinners in the formal dining room (sometimes informal dinners are served on the veranda). At Trident Villa Resort; expensive, but very special. East of Port Antonio on Route 4A; 993-2602.

Admiralty Club--At resort of same name on Navy Island in Port Antonio Harbor (ferry service, usually on the hour). Good seafood and Jamaican fare. Great views of Port Antonio and Blue Mountains. Reggae music on the beach Thursday nights; 993-2667.

Bonnie View--High on a hill; great views and late-afternoon tea and sunset-watching. Informal Jamican dinners; 993-2752.

Boston Bay--On the roadside about 15 minutes south of Port Antonio are the smoky barbecue pits where Jamaica’s jerk pork and chicken were born; very spicy, very cheap (sometimes very fatty, too), with ice-cold bottles of Red Stripe beer.

For more information: Contact the Jamaican Tourist Board, 3440 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1207, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 384-1123.