I first visited Couples Swept Away in July of 2007 and loved the hotel so much this July I booked a trip with my husband and two other couples. Well, let me start off by saying that this was not the same hotel i stayed at last year. The service was terrible, there was literally 1/3 of the staff that was working last year. I am serious! One night at dinner I waited 45 minutes for a coca cola, by the time it came I was being asked for a dessert order. The first day I got there my friends rooms had colonies of ants in their bathrooms coming from the sink, the shower and underneath the toilet bowl. Now I understand Negril is the country and there is going to be bugs but the sheer number of the ants was alarming. Literally thousands between the two rooms. The lush gardens of 2007 were a distant memories as now there is patches of flowers and dead leaves everywhere. The worst part happened on my second to last day when two of my cell phones were stolen from my room, an Apple iPhone and an Lg flip, two quite expensive phones. I have stayed in and around Jamaica 8 times, 5 times in Negril alone and this never happened so when it did I was shocked. Thefts are not uncommon in major hotels and you know this kind of thing happens in even 5 star triple diamond resorts, but it is all how the staff reacts to your situation that makes the difference. The front desk staff at Couples Swept Away did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, to help my situation. The security held an " investigation" for two days only to call me when I was checking out to say that they never found the phones. Seriously, the whole situation was a joke. I was so embraressed that I had brought two couples to a place that would steal something out of my room. My last full day at couples I spent waiting to talk to the next person in line, they didn't care and they did not even pretend to care.

Overall the food was just okay and waiting at least 30 minutes for each course to be served was very irritating.

The only staff that I came across that were actually cool and nice to be around were the bar staff, go to any of the bars on property and you will be greeted by the nicest people on the entire resort.

The watersports team that work the desk are nasty and rude

The dining staff in the restaurants make jokes about you and laugh in your face as they are serving you.

The maids and the people who fill your room bar are not trustworthy.

The front desk staff is unreliable, they last time I came here when I arrived I was given a cool towel and a beverage and immediately brought into the lobby to fill out paper work. This time my friends and I were left sitting by ourselves for at least a half hour wondering what to do.

My honest opinion to you is to NOT go to this hotel because everything you can not fit in the safe is fair game for staff to steal. And once something is gone, ITS GONE, I have received no compensation, and no promise or even mention of compensation. All i received was a letter saying how sorry they were and someone fro insurance will contact me, but seeing the way I was treated at the resort, I am not holding my breath for the call and oh yea my phone was stolen how will they contact me????
If you are going to Negril go to The Grand Lido or Sandals Negril, both are the most stunning resorts in Negril. The food is excellent the beach beautiful and the staff outrageous. I have been to both places and recommend them highly. The service at these resorts is impeccable!

If you are planning a trip to Jamaica and have questions about this review, or the other hotels I mentioned contact me I will help you out.

We went to Couples Swept Away for our Honeymoon June 15-18, 2008. It was a wonderful resort. The took care of us as soon as we arrived at the airport. The trip from the airport to the resort was easy and our driver was great. It is strange to sit in a vehicle that is right hand drive. We enjoyed a beautiful room. We stayed in a Garden Suite and it was located in a great spot. Good walking distance to meals.
The food was excellent. The entertainment staff was great. Especially Dexter!!!! We enjoyed snorkeling and wished we could have gone back. We tried our hand at windsurfing. We had a great instructor who was patient and encouraging and always had a smile and great things to say. We enjoyed kayaking and swimming in the ocean. A drink on the beach and floating in the water. We enjoyed excellent meals at the buffet and at Lemongrass. We learned about Jamaican history, danced to Reggae music. Toasted our future together. Had an amazing couples massage. We were greeted in the morning with coffee at our door and a wonderful woman who said to me..... "Good Morning Sunshine" with a big smile on her face. My husband still says it to me today to remind me of a great honeymoon. You can see my pics at You Tube. Just search for london1817 and Couples Swept Away.

I have written other reviews and am not a nitpicker but CSA was a disappointment for my wife and me. We stayed 7-8 through 7/16. Here are the positives:

o CSA has, perhaps, the best beach I have ever seen. Absolutely fantastic.

o Our room was perfect inside - nice verandah

o Dining experience at Feathers was excellent

o Driver from the airport, Bud, was fantastic

o Christopher was very informative and friendly on the sorkeling trip.

o Catamaran trip was well worth it.

Now for the negatives:

We stayed in a Garden Verandah suite. View was actually nice but we abutted the road which was quite noisy until about 2:00 am each night. I have never stayed at a resort that had such a wide disparity between the least expensive suites and the most expensive. Our budget prevented us from upgrading so we had to simply suck it up. It WAS a problem, Mon.

It rained every day except one. Not the resort's fault but my wife slipped on the tile steps coming down from our suite one day. I would have thought they would have some kind of anti-skid coating on the steps.

Other than Feathers, we thought the food was less than good. Service at Palms and, especially at Patois Patio was really bad compared to other AI's we have stayed at.

The layout of the resort does not make sense. Other resorts we have stayed at had the main lobby, restaurants, shops, entertainment, etc centrally located - equidistant from either extreme end. CSA has the Palms and Lemongrass on one end and Patois Patio and Feathers on the other end. Logistics are crazy.

We wanted to see the piano guy. Went to the Aura nightclub and were bowled over by the smell of mold and stale beer.

Entertainment was really lame. In addition, they have a show every night at the Palms and won't seat anyone until 5 minutes before the show starts because people are eating.

The hustlers on the beach were charming at first but got to be really annoying. Musicians walk the beach and sing the same 5 songs over and over and over and over. Then there are the guys selling wood carvings, beads, sea shells, cigarettes and the really annoying jet ski and parasailing. When you have such a beatiful beach with crystal clear water, why turn it into a circus. As I looked around one day, I thought there was only one thing missing to make me feel like I was at Virginia Beach; the plane's flying by with the buffet banners behind them. Not very romantic at all.

Lastly, the sidewalks are narrow. When aproaching another couple, someone has to step off the sidewalk into the wet sand (as I said, it rained alot),

I will never return to CSA

My husband and I spent a week at Couples Swept Away. The grounds are really pretty-very tropical and well-maintained. We stayed in a beach front suite (older section), which was nice-not great. The location was fine-steps to the beach and beach bar, but the room and its furnishings left a bit to be desired. The a/c did not put out cold air; there was a great deal of mold in the shower, and while I understand that Jamaica is, indeed, rather humid and mold is inevitable, it could have been controlled a bit better. The soap dish was covered in mold, and leaving soap on it felt incredibly unsanitary. Our porch was mediocre-there was a large chunk of the table's corner missing and it never felt "clean" to me. The room was a bit more "rustic" than I generally prefer, which I had anticipated but thought I could cope with.

The beach at CSA is fantastic-white sand, warm, clear water, and the staff really works hard to keep it clean. We weren't really bothered by any of the vendors, and security did a good job of making sure that no guests were harassed or made to feel uncomfortable. Water sports were fun; we loved the Hobie Cats when there was enough wind to get them going. Beach towels were a problem; there were never enough clean towels to go around, so we ended up using the same (damp and smelly) towels for 4 days. There was a several day wait to book the glass bottom boat and catamaran cruise (4-5 days for the cruise). The sports facilities were nice; the squash courts have GREAT a/c and are a nice place to cool off from the heat and humidity. I had a massage while we were there and wished I had saved my money. The facilities are nice, but the quality of the massage was pretty poor, with the massause opening the window to talk to other staff members in the middle of it.

As for the service, I'm really mixed. Some staff were super friendly and helpful, while others were incredibly rude and acted as though they were doing us a HUGE favor by getting us a drink/food/whatever. My husband was irritated by the incredibly slow pace most of them worked at, and by the minimal effort they put into their work. It was very disapointing and frustrating and made me wish we had gone somewhere else (or somewhere that allowed for tips, which may have helped improve service).

I was concerned about the food prior to arriving. I'll admit, I'm a pretty picky eater as far as quality goes, and I was ok at CSA (so ok that I gained quite a few lbs!) We weren't able to get into Feathers during our trip, but did eat at Lemongrass (both had a 6+ day wait). Lemongrass was good, not great, though it marginally passed as "Thai" food. I asked for extra spice to be added to my entree (red curry) and found it to be really yummy. My husband had the yellow curry and was disappointed--not at all like traditional yellow curry whatsoever. Other meals were pretty good-white meat chicken most of the time, good seasonings, etc, though the menus didn't change often or offer much variety. Not the best food, but I didn't expect gormet food at an AI. We also had a dinner on the beach, which was fun, although I could definately tell that the meat (steak) had been previously cooked and reheated, which was not very appealing. The experience of the beach dinner was fun and very romantic (but be sure to wear lots of insect repellent!!!)

Overall, it was a nice vacation, but we did get bored after a few days. My husband and I prefer more active vacations, where we get to explore the area and culture, and CSA wasn't quite that. Yes, we should have signed up for excursions off of the resort (hindsight is always 20-20, right?) CSA is more of an American resort that happens to have Jamaican employees and a slight Jamaican influence. Good for other people, but maybe not the best choice for us. I'd recommend CSA to friends if its what they're looking for, though I doubt we'd stay there again. There are too many other places to visit and stay, and we'd love to explore new areas rather than stick with once place.