My husband Dale and I visited Couples Negril for the second time from Nov. 26 Dec. 2^nd, 2000.  We had been there in May and enjoyed it so much, that when we found a great deal; we couldnt turn it down.  We thought that there would be benefits returning so soon, as we would already know the lay of the land.  I decided to do another trip report, as there were some things we didnt experience the first time.   

We booked with Go Classy Tours again, and as before everything was handled without any problems at all.  I faxed our flight details down a few weeks before, so we would be able to get the complimentary flight from Montego Bay to Negril.  

We stayed at the Hilton at OHare, the night before we left.  It was very handy and we would do that again.  I happened to find a great deal on the Internet and it was so convenient being right at the airport.  We just walked over to the airport in the morning.  The Air Jamaica flight left only a little late, but  we had great seats again, row 5 A&B.  We were one of the first off the airplane which comes in handy with customs and immigration.  

This time because of the time difference, we arrived at 11:30 AM.  Customs and Immigration were a breeze.  We were shuttled to another part of the airport and in a few minutes we were in the small 6-seater plane to Negril.  When we arrived in Negril there wasnt anyone there from Couples to pick us up, we just caught a taxi to the resort.  We were at Couples by 1 PM.  We waited a little while for our room, but that seemed to be because they were waiting for a bellboy, rather than the room not being ready and while we were waiting a couple buses arrived.  We finally did go ask again and they called someone to show us to our room right away.  This is the one thing I think Couples could improve on and when I completed the questionnaire the day we left, I mentioned it.  The reception desk personnel, are not the friendliest, theyre almost standoffish.  They may be very busy, but the rest of the staff did not seem like that at all.  

Our room was exactly like the last one, although I asked for a room on the north side of the resort this time and got one.  We enjoy the water sports, and we thought it would be more convenient to be closer to that area.  I also asked for a first floor room and we were on the 3^rd floor, but the stairs were good exercise.  Our room was in the 3^rd room block, overlooking the spa area.  We were very happy with this location and would ask for it again.  We noticed that they werent putting anyone in the 5^th block, close to the new RIU resort construction.  I did not hear any construction noise whatsoever from our room.  We did not bother to attend the orientation as we remembered pretty much where everything was.  I also remembered that there was a listing on TV of the various activity times.  It was nice knowing where to go and we started signing up for things we wanted to do the next day.  It was almost like we had never left.  I had planned out ahead of time that we wanted to do the sunset cruise on Tuesday, and we didnt go to Ricks Caf in May, so we planned to do that this time.  They have trips to Ricks on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so we decided to go on Wednesday.  We had gone shopping last time, so we didnt do that again.  Dale wanted to get a few dives in, so things kind of fell in to place.

We did not attend the returning couples dinner on Monday evening.  We went in May, and enjoyed it, but we remembered that it was Caribbean night on Monday.  They had a Caribbean buffet and steel drum band.  We really didnt want to miss it again.  The management left us a bottle of rum and bag of Blue Mountain coffee in our room, a nice surprise.  

We ate at all of the restaurants again.  On Friday night they had lobster in every restaurant.  As before the food and drinks were excellent.   

One of the things I had heard about on the Internet, was a make shift tent on the other side of the RIU construction and Negril Cabins, just off the beach.  Some young guys have an out door grill and will cook a lobster dinner.  If I hadnt heard about it on the Internet, I would have been afraid to go exploring, but many different people said if you want a great lobster dinner, look for this tent, called the Office of Nature.  We did manage to find the tent the first day.  We told them wed be back, and on Tuesday, we had lobster for lunch.  It was a great lobster and we got to talk to some of the Jamaicans who dont work at the resort.  These guys all live in Orange Bay and are characters, but very friendly.  We talked to the guys for quite awhile.  The lobster cost between $10-15 for each dinner, we spent $40, which included both meals and drinks for everyone.  We also made friends with Christine, who has a vendor stand next to them.  

I had read about bringing gifts for the staff on some of the Caribbean bulletin boards.  Of course its difficult to know what to do, but they especially suggest school supplies as all schools need just about everything.  I brought several things along this time and gave many of them to Christines daughter who attended a nearby school.  I also brought some things for little children and gave them to our housekeeper.  When we return I'll bring more school supplies, things that we take for granted mean so much to them.   

We enjoy water sports and we took the Hobie cats out again a couple times.  We also went for a long kayak ride.  Dale went diving several times.  It was no problem to ride along on the dive boat.  I brought a book along and read during the dive.  We went snorkeling again this time.  The reef is not as nice as many other places in the Caribbean, but we saw several colorful fish.  

We heard from someone that Couples would give you a pass to Swept Away for the day, as they are under the same ownership.  We decided to ask about this, as we thought that we might like to stay there some time in the future.  I talked with Dwight at the guest relations desk and it took some checking with him a couple times but he set it up for us to visit for lunch on Friday.  A Couples van brought us over and picked us up a couple hours later.  When we got to Swept Away, they gave us bracelets and then let us walk around on our own.  We spoke with some of the water sports staff and looked the whole resort over.  Everyone was very friendly and the guests seemed to be having a good time.  The fitness center is awesome.  We had a delicious lunch in the Feathers restaurant.  The restaurant, spa, and fitness center were across the road.  They had other restaurants on the beach side too.  The rooms looked very spacious with large patios.  The taxi from Couples showed up right on time to bring us back.

On Tuesday, we went on the sunset cruise, because we had enjoyed it so much in May.  There wasnt any sunset, it was a cloudy day, but the cruise was fun.  On Wednesday, we went to Ricks Caf.   The trip wasnt anything special and the drinks were expensive but we enjoyed watching the cliff jumpers and listened to the music.  It was interesting to drive up to the cliffs and see the other resorts and bars.  

I noticed there werent as many weddings during the week. When we were there in May; it seemed like there were several weddings every day.  We saw a few, but not many.  For the week after Thanksgiving, I really noticed the lack of Christmas commercialism.  We saw very few Christmas decorations anywhere.  Maybe when it got closer to Christmas there were more.  It was kind of nice to get away from all the commercialism for a week.   

It started raining about mid morning on the day we left.  We had decided to take the bus back, as it works good for us to take the commuter plane there and then ride the bus back.  We were told on our last trip this is a good way to do it, as in the afternoon storms can come up fast and the plane ride could get rough.  It happened that the commuter flights were all canceled because of bad weather and our bus was late leaving the resort.  Several people came back to the resort and they needed to find transportation at the last minute.  By the time we got going it was raining harder and we had a full bus.  One guy in particular was a complete idiot.  He kept telling the driver he was going to miss his flight so he wanted him to drive as fast as possible and not stop anywhere.  He kept asking him how much farther it was to the airport and all in all acted like a complete jerk.  The driver really did a good job, the roads were completely flooded in some areas and it was pouring.  The simple wood frame houses of the poorer people looked especially bad in the pouring rain.  We made it to the airport in 1- hours and of course every single flight was delayed.  We needed to be bused from the terminal to the plane and it seemed like they only had 1 bus in the whole airport!  We finally left and got into OHare about 2 hours late.  

This was our fourth visit to a Couples resort; we have also been to Couples Ocho Rios twice.  Both resorts are excellent and we would not hesitate to return to either one.

  Dale & Bonnie