Couples
Negril
2/13-2/18/2000
Our
flight down was uneventful. Upon arrival at MoBay we headed to immigration and
got right through. We went down
stairs to claim our luggage and then zipped through customs. From there we found Tim Air and the Apple Representative for
Couples standing near one another. We
checked in with both and then stepped aside & waited for Tim Air to find
their other passengers. We did
not want to take the 2-hour bus ride so we paid just under $60 per person to
fly a puddle jumper to Negril. It
took approximately 1 hour for Tim Air to round up the passengers and 15 min in
the air. I thought it would be a
bit quicker and was somewhat disappointed.
However, we had gotten our room, showered and were in the middle of
lunch when we saw the couple that was directly in front of us at immigration
getting their welcome tour. I
felt better about our decision after that.
Later, I discovered that it was a very good decision after talking to
many people in the hot tub who had taken the bus. They were all looking for information on how to fly back.
Our
room was very nice. We had booked
an ocean view room. It was “obstructed”
by palm trees, but we could see as much of the bay as anyone I believe.
We could not see people on the beach or in the water, but we considered
it an “ocean view” room. We ordered the continental breakfast every morning and had
them put it out on the balcony where we enjoyed watching the fish in the pond
behind the wedding gazebo. We
were on the 3rd floor in block 8. The
room and bathroom were large. The
water pressure had a little to be desired.
Fortunately, we had been warned about this in advance and took it all
in stride. The smoke detectors do
work, because we kept setting ours off with the steam from the shower. The bed was king size and the tapestry looked exactly like it
did in the brochure. However, one
of my 4 complaints on the week comes with the bed.
I believe it was just a box spring.
It was hard and lumpy and just uncomfortable in general.
I felt the wall safe was a good size and safe.
They use the pop out locks and you carry a key on a chain.
You can hook it to your room key chain, which is an elastic wristband.
The housekeeping staff did a wonderful job.
We never saw them. They
were in & out and the room was always immaculate.
They refilled the soap and shampoo when needed and would straighten our
towels that we had just thrown on the towel rack.
We always had a fresh pitcher of ice.
This was nice because we drank lots of water after being in the sun so
much and all the alcohol we consumed. The
water is good and safe to drink.
The
food was fabulous! From the jerk
chicken, tuna sandwiches and cheeseburger at the Grill to the dinners at the
Terrace were very good. Of
course, the cheeseburger was not corn fed black Angus, but it wasn’t too
bad. The breakfast was good.
The cook at the grill for breakfast is very talented, in my opinion, to
get that many orders going at one time and still get eggs completely cooked!
I also tried some of the Jamaican dishes such as, steamed salted
mackerel, and some greens called caleleo (I think).
Not bad. It is not what I
would eat on a regular basis, but I was glad I tried some different dishes.
We did not go to the restaurant since the food was so good at the other
areas. We made reservations for
one night, but then chose to go to Rick’s on the shuttle for sunset.
That was a mistake for us—I will cover later.
We enjoyed the regular buffets. That
meant that we could get our meals at our own pace.
Our week was full of “our own pace”.
If we missed something due to constricting schedule, we figured we didn’t
need to do it anyway.
The
beach is beautiful! It is white,
wide and clean. The water is not
too deep (only about 4’ out by the rope markers), and clear as a swimming
pool. It is completely sandy,
with no rocks or seaweed. However,
you do have to watch out for the resident stingray and starfish.
The water sports area is to the north end. It is very well run. They
let you take the kayaks; paddleboats; and sails out as long as you want.
We figured common courtesy would tell you to take them back in if
everything was out and you had been using it for a long time, though.
We never ran into any kind of problem.
Of course, they told us we had to keep the lifejackets on, but I would
have hated to get any tan lines, so once we cleared the swim area everything
came off. There were at times a
line for water skiing, but that looked like too much work, anyway!
We used the kayaks on several days.
The first day we saw a bed of starfish.
We could also see urchins, and a stingray on the bottom.
It couldn’t have been more than 10’ feet down.
On another day we paddled along the south coast and checked out the
caves and rocks. We were able to dock the kayak on a beach area at one point
and found some shells and saw fish and other sea creatures in the area and
created some memories of our own. This
was an area I wish I had my underwater camera and snorkel equipment, I only
had my regular camera with me on this trip.
Those pictures turned out great! We
took the snorkeling trip one morning. It was okay. I
saw an eel and some pencil looking fish and a lot of fans. We took the Sunset Booze Cruise one night.
That was a lot of fun. It
was the only time we heard music all week.
They took us to the Pickled Parrot, which is a bar near the cliffs of
Negril. They have a cliff that is 22’ high, a rope swing and
waterslide that go into the 25’ water.
I did it and I did it sober! They
also had some caves, but we ran out of time for me to do that. They don’t have a boat dock.
If you want to go on land, you have to jump off the boat and swim.
We saw the best sunset of the week from the boat while we were headed
back to Couples. We had dinner
and then headed for the hot tub again. The
hot tub was our thing to do all week after dinner.
We usually stayed in fairly late.
One hot tub is lighted and the other not.
Only one night did it turn clothing optional.
The last night we did watch the show on the beach. It
was pretty bad, but they tried to give you some entertainment.
Watch out for Dexter, one of the entertainment coordinators.
He has more energy than anyone I have ever met.
He put the hyper in hyperactive! One
day we rented the wave runner from the local who hung out at the ropes.
We only used it for about a hour though, and I wasn’t all that
thrilled by it. Ken got a charge
out of driving in the waves and such, but I was too nervous about finding an
unexpected reef. Every day
we would take our belongings and place them on chairs at the c/o beach on our
way to breakfast or to exchange towels. We
wanted to make sure we had floats, because we found out very quickly that this
was our favorite thing to do all week! The
bay was calm enough that you could take your drink with you, but enough waves
that you “waved” along. Watch
out for the Lido ski boat though! He
can really mess up a perfectly good drink!
We had heard so much about Rick’s Caf that we figured we could not
miss it being so close. So we
took the shuttle for the sunset trip. The
road in Negril is no wider than a typical ally in the States.
Couples took 1 bus and 5 vans (15 passenger) that I am aware of.
When you pull into Rick’s there are taxis and other resorts there.
It was very packed. Watching
the cliff divers was interesting. It
was 33’ to the water. I couldn’t
bring myself to do it. Then it
was time to leave! What a
nightmare! Everyone was trying to leave at the same time, just as the
sun had set. This was not a good
idea. If you want to go to Rick’s
go during the day and watch the sunset from about 200 yards past water sports
on Couples beach or from the catamaran.
This
resort is wonderful. We were
concerned because we could not find out much information about it before we
left. We did know that it only
had a piano bar, so we were afraid that it would be too quiet.
However, we figured we were in Negril and there are numerous places to
go. We were right about being
quiet. Our #1 complaint of the
week was that we heard no music besides the house band at dinner.
We took our own cassette am/fm radio for the beach and were glad we
did. We did not make the piano
bar, which opens at 11 pm. We
were always in the hot tub meeting new people.
The
c/o beach is located at the south end of the Couples property and is next to
Grand Lido Negril. It has a
self-serve bar consisting of 3 liquors (rum, vodka & gin) with mixers (oj,
Coke, diet Coke and Ting). They
also had a cooler full of beer (Miller the week we were there).
There are no beach games and very little conversing.
The area is quite large and the 8 to 10 couples that were there were
scattered. We did meet two
couples that we spent time chatting and later in the week took pictures for
their vow renewal. They had a “nekkid”
reception down the beach at sunset with just the 6 of us.
After sunset, the party broke up, but we stayed and made some more
memories! Hehehe
#1:
Complaint was no music
#2:
The wicker on the chairs at the Tappas Bar & Grill (take a towel or
shirt to sit on)
#3:
The bed (my personal problem)
#4:
Our flight home on Ryan International (not much you can do about it if
you are scheduled on a charter flight.)
Well,
I hope I haven’t rambled too much. We
had a great time and learned from past experiences that any vacation you take
is what you make of it.
Contact
us if you have any questions.
Ken
& Janet