60th Birthday and Wedding Vacation - Trip Report

This trip we enjoyed 3 weeks at Seastar - it would be hard for us to stay anywhere else.

First week just hubbie and I to prepare for the 8 that were joining us the following Saturday in preparation of my sister’s wedding.

I partied like a Rock Star on our first night enjoying the Seastar Band and Reggie night - I’m sure some of you may have watched the live webcast Feb 2nd - I don’t think I stopped dancing until I was the only single person dancing amongst a bunch of couples - at that point I figured I better hit the hay. Hubbie’s not so crazy to dance.

Sunday was Super Bowl day at Seastar and there must have been close to 125 people there to catch the game on the big screen. My hubbie lost the big prize at the end of the game by about 3 seconds.

We also met up with M&G from Montreal at Fun Holiday who were treating Barbara and her kids to an afternoon at Fun Holiday. We also enjoyed their company at the end of the week when they dropped by Seastar on their last afternoon in Negril and we enjoyed some lunch and drinks and great conversation. We took this opportunity to have a photo op with Rambo, security extraordinaire!

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We went to LTU and Charlie purchased a couple of paintings from Karl now we just have to get them framed and hung on our Jamaica wall.

We went to Canoe bar and hubbie had a number of Caesars, Kirby was kind enough to get us back home to Seastar safe and sound.

Friday chilled by the pool enjoying our last day before the gang arrives. Kirk made sure that he had my favorite pool spot ready for my arrival each morning - now that's priceless!!

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- 2nd week

Text message wakes me up at 6 am from my sister - really peeved that she can’t get into duty free because the gate is on the national side and not on the international side - what nonsense is that! Several texts back and forth and I’m wide awake and up. 7 coming from Montreal and 1 gal from Ottawa - Montreal flight on time and the Ottawa flight is 2 hours late - so they have to wait for her at the bar at airport in Mobay. Needless to say when they all finally arrived at Seastar they were one happy bunch after enjoying a number of red stripes.

Toute la gang got themselves quickly checked into their rooms and back out to the bar for happy hour. Stevie West and the band were warming up for the show and it was just a great lead into the rest of the evening. No doubt some of you watched us on the dance floor that night as well ..lol
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Great report and pictures!! Love us some Rambo!! He is one of my very favorite guards in Negril. Such a nice young man but one has no doubt that he would have your back if needed. Can't wait to hear more. :)

Yetta so true - each night that Rambo was on duty and if we happened to be out and came back in through the gates - I'd make sure I got my Rambo hug!

I'll try to finish this off tonight - month end so gotta get to work early and work late - plus nasty storm went through last night - back to reality !

The Sunday was a chill day at Seastar - the boys went off to LTU and Catcha in the afternoon - actually they had a number of drinks at LTU and thought it much safer if they grabbed a cab to take them to Catcha (I’m sure that hasn’t happened very often - take a cab for about an 1/8th of a mile) . They spent a number of hours at the bar at Catcha - the purpose of that was to make a dinner reservation for us on the Monday for hubbie’s 60th. They were certainly feeling no pain when they got back.

Monday we all went off to Sun Beach - we had arranged the week before for them to reserve us 2 umbrellas and 10 chairs. The Seastar shuttle dropped us off and sure enough they were waiting for us to install the umbrellas and chairs - sweet!

The gang had brought down some Clamato Juice - horse radish and Tabasco sauce - when we got back to Seastar the 10 of us sat around on our balcony enjoying our own little happy hour. Since the weather was not so nice I decided when we got bat back from the beach to call Catcha and see if we could change our reservation to Tuesday. Not sure how the boys made their arrangements the day before but Catcha had no record of our group of 10 for that evening. Must have been Karma ...lol..... so I quickly made a firm reservation for Tuesday.

Tuesday half the group went to Margaritiville for the afternoon. I went with a couple of other gals staying at Seastar to Francine’s house to participate in a belly casting. As most may know - Chris owner of Seastar and Francine are expecting a baby girl towards the end of March. Francine is very artistic and wants a memento of her final month of pregnancy. Way cool - can’t wait to see the finished product. When the gang got back on the beach shuttle, Terry spied a goat across the road - she got Chris to bring it over to Seastar to show the gang what they were going to enjoy for the wedding buffet. Most of us had a good laugh over it but my sister-in-law thought it was quite cruel and I found her crying back at the bar. That night we went down the lane and across the road to Catcha so we could celebrate hubbie’s 60th birthday.
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Oh..................your sweet sister-in -law.....nice pictures................That BIG BLACK cloud~~WOW

Bless her heart! I'd be crying too. Great TR and photos, by the way!

I would cry over the goat too!

Excellent report. LOL -- I see the blue and white pool towel I left behind a couple of months ago!

Hubbie enjoying his 60th celebration...lol

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Wednesday the gals went to the SPA RETREAT HOTEL - we had booked a SPA and lunch - manicures and reflexology. Lordy what a beautiful place and location. You can enjoy the facilities while there and it sure was worth it. I had arranged with Lembert to pick us up at 2:45 for the Pub Crawl - worked out perfectly. We had a terrific time - went to several bars including Mi-Yard - Xtabi - No Limit - Pee Wee - C&D/Jenny and of course our beloved Seastar.

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We loved our stay! I see Tyrone - we had a great time there

Now girls - you just have to book a manicure or massage at the Spa Retreat and enjoy some of that serenity!!!


Jim-Donna/Maryann/OAngie - not the first time she cried but that story coming up

gerryg123 - yes there were a few odd towels showing up in the towel cabinet from time to time - lol


Some Pub Crawl photos

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just remembered on the pub crawl one of the bars took our money for beers but didn't have any left - so Lembert waited while the bar had some delivered - rush - rush by taxi - now that was a hoot!

Wedding coming up tomorrow night - to be cont'd .....

Loving the photos. That parrot pic is fabulous.
Seastar Inn is the coolest place to stay in a destination full of cool places.
Remembering when it was only half a dozen rooms, and Chris and Francine had big dreams.
Well; they've all come true and no one works harder at hospitality than they do.

great report. love your pictures. thanks for posting!

Thursday - Valentine’s day is my sister’s wedding. Seastar was hosting and ensuring everything was prepared as requested. We were having a buffet with curried goat - white rice - jerk chicken - red snapper pan fried with salad and soup. Hubbie had arranged to pay to have the Seastar Band - Sasanya and Stevie entertain us for 3 hours after dinner. Can’t get better than that. Staff worked hard to make the wedding quite a success. Ended up with 32 people attending with his family from the States - friends from Canada and a couple of locals including our good friends John and Anita of Johnmaica tours. My sister’s husband, Richard, who left Jamaica when he was 7 years old to come to Montreal, happened to meet his cousin - Devon the painter on the beach a couple of days before - the last time they had seen each other was around 25 years ago. Small world sometimes times - it was quite unbelievable at the time. Richard’s sister came down the day before from Maryland USA with her brood of 16 for one reason or another - still not sure why, they were too late for the ceremony but arrived in time for photos and party.
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A few more

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Great pictures!

Irie always - great pictures!! I can't believe your already finished with another trip :) glad you enjoyed it!

What a lovely couple! Congrats to your sister! Thanks for sharing your trip with us!!

Lovely wedding, they both look very happy. Great pics, thanks for sharing

Friday we discovered the “Boardwalk Beach” - apparently it’s been there for some time but I had never been - next to Our Past-Time Hotel. Great place to chill - restaurant - beautiful shops - clean bathrooms - lots of shade. This is the section where a lot of boats are moored as well. Some days they have a DJ with good music playing on the big speakers. A couple of ladies have their massage tables set up and a young man you has his fruit cart set up and will slice up a nice mango, orange or pineapple for you to enjoy.

Friday night kind of sad as 4 of our friends were returning home - set the alarm to get up at 7:30 am to wish them a safe journey home. That left six of us to enjoy our last week. My sister and her new husband along with my hubbie’s sister and brother in law got ready to enjoy another Saturday night reggae party. Like all good plans most of us didn’t quite make it - but my brother-in-law and his wife enjoyed the whole thing once again - Mike even got called up on stage with Stevie but once there he was not quite sure what for - lord did I get a laugh out of that, perhaps you caught it on the web cast ;)

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Our Trip this February - 3rd week

This week was a bit more laid back - we walked up the road and went to Ahhh Bees for Hamburgers ! They have 9 oz burgers that are most tasty and if you can get there is also a mini 1/3 the size - fries are extra but big enough to share with 2 to 3 people. Even the 9 oz can be cut in half and shared. The burger is the picture is the Canadian Classic which hubbie enjoyed to the last morsel. Hope it’s there next year when we return. Aubie does a great job with good cold red stripes.
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Ahhh Bees looks yummy! Will have to give it a try next time. Enjoying your report! :)

We went to 3 Dives for sunset and lobster and jerk chicken - Nice portions for a very reasonable price. Service was great. Nice cold - cold Red Stripe Lights! Had one of the Lights with Lime flavour - pretty good! Great sunsets from here too! The Barrels are just off the side of the road and watching some of those vehicles coming around the bend - like those big buses coming back from Ricks - you just hope none of them come flying off the road.
My hubbie can’t seem to find his jerk spicy enough anywhere we went. However at 3 Dives they have their homemade jerk sauce that satisfied that heat he was looking for. So much so that we asked of they sold it. They had none ready for sale at the time but told us to come back Friday afternoon and they would have some. A wata bottle size for 1,000 Ja
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We went back to Catcha on Tuesday to celebrate John’s Birthday of Johnmaica tours - good friends John and Anita and to treat my sister and her new husband and my hubbie’s sister and her husband, to dinner. I had reserved under the canopy which was a good thing since it did start to rain during dinner and everyone else ended up under the canopy as well.

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Wednesday I went to Boardwalk Beach with my sister and her new husband. They went for a couples massage and Dawn does a terrific job . Richard - Cathy’s husband chatted it up with the fruit guy on the premises who told us he would reserve us the same spot as we were coming back the next day with the rest of the troop. We had befriended a couple of nice ladies from New York who were staying at Seastar and it was their first trip to Jamaica.
We returned to the Boardwalk beach on Thursday. There were our four chairs with towels on them under our umbrella - same spot as day before - I thought - Wow - he came through. So we moved right in and put the $ 5.00 cushions onto the chairs when the security guy came over to say there seemed to be a problem. I looked up and 3 people were glaring at us from the restaurant. Seems the fruit guy hadn’t reserved these chairs for us nor any other chairs. Oops - so we quickly vacated but not before we got a tongue lashing from the young couples mother who came charging down to give us what for. While she was doing this I was up apologizing profusely to the young couple and trying to explain why we had done such a thing! Worked out in the end - we sat behind them and we tried hard to ignore each other .. lol
I had arranged a glass-bottom boat ride to pick us up there and take us down to Canoe for the Thursday Steel Drums. We were 10 people and Canoe had a table reserved for us as I had called a day ahead to arrange. When we arrived to Canoe my sister-in-law exited the boat the wrong way and ended up landing on her bottom on the hard beach and was soaked and hurt her back. They went back to Seastar by taxi to get dry - take some meds and put some ice on the tail bone. The rest of us enjoyed some lion fish and fries and the first set of the Steel drums and then headed back to survey the damage back home.

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Friday was our last full day, Vicki was in a lot of pain - she rested all day with a hot bath. By the end of the day she was doing much better but still not great.
I managed to get some fresh Mahi Mahi (thanks Kimbo!!) for dinner. Then we got ourselves packed to prepare for our morning departure at 8:00 AM..

Vicki doing better in the morning but she was worried about the plane ride and having to sit for 4 hours. I gave her a couple of my Aleve and she managed to get some sleep on the way back. Just to add icing to the cake they were pulled over by customs in Montreal. We waited for them to come out which surprisingly was about 3 minutes later. Customs asked them if they travelled a lot to which they replied this was their first trip in 25 years and customs said have a nice day. She is doing much better now after a week but still a little tender.

All in All another terrific holiday.

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Purple Rain looks tasty......

Loving this report and the pictures. The food looks soo good!

Where exactly is the Boardwalk Beach?

My tuna lady...xo!! Wow...did you all do a lot on this trip...looks like you had a blast as always!

OAngie: the Boardwalk is just past Long Bay Beach Park in between the "All Inclusives" - Seashore Bay Resort is to left as you stand facing the sea and Couples Negril is to the right.

Bnewb: My pleasure as always xox