We flew out a week ago today, arrived to not so great weather thanks to Joaquin. We cannot recommend highly enough Kevin from Coleman K Jammin Jamaica Tours! Kevin was waiting with cold Red Stripe and waters and took EXCELLENT care of us with transports for us and others in our wedding party, as well as tours for the 7 of us on Sunday. He treated us like family, and will always be our 1st choice for anything when we go back (because we WILL GO BACK!).
Arrived at Catcha to find the Water Commission was on strike and the water and power were out, broke my toe, the groom got food poisoning (not at hotel!) and was super sick the day before the wedding, and we couldn't snorkel or swim due to weather until the last day.
However, it's funny how things work out. Wedding was scheduled for 5 pm, but as usual I was running late getting ready, so we told them 5:15. At 4:50 a storm blew up and it POURED....for all of 10 minutes. Then the sun came out, the wind died down a little, and we were married with the most beautiful backdrop of the ocean and amazing sunset! Weather was perfect for the rest of our stay, but the ocean didn't calm down enough to snorkel until Monday. Holy cow, what a GORGEOUS DAY! Needless to say we have already decided we have to return, if only to do all the things we had wanted to do this trip.
One thing did bother us. I have dealt with higglers/beggars/sellers before in other places, but we took a cab (thanks Dougy!) into town on Saturday to walk around before the wedding and honestly, by the time we got back we didn't even want to make eye contact when walking because that's all it took. Hubs had a somewhat difficult time getting rid of one who insisted on escorting us around the shopping center. Tried very politely many times to let him know, and finally had to be abrupt to get him to leave us alone. Between that and so many asking for money for literally walking across the street with us, we were a little put off. But there was balance, the 3 guys hanging out at Traveler's Rest were great company and had cold beer, the staff at Catcha was absolutely amazing, people in the supermarkets we shopped at were very nice, and when the groom's sister slipped and twisted her ankle about 10 people came and shielded her from traffic and made sure she was ok. It's a balance, and I get that, just wish it wasn't quite so prevalent.
