Planning a honeymoon is an exciting but harrowing experience. After all, it’s a hopefully once-in-a-lifetime event that must reach perfection. Luckily, all-inclusive resorts like Couples Swept Away are standing by to help you create memories and set the scene for romance.
There are four Couples resorts in Jamaica, and each provides a unique experience. Couples Swept Away delivers fun and romance for active couples who enjoy sports, fitness, and adventure. So, if you met your soulmate at the gym or on the track, this may be the perfect honeymoon for you.
Couples Resorts Jamaica
Couples founder Abe Issa, established their first resort in Ocho Rios in 1949. By 1979, the company had developed the “all-inclusive” model, which makes vacations, honeymoons, and romantic getaway trips truly worry-free.
Built on the concept of providing luxury in an authentic Jamaica environment, Couples resorts are, in fact, just for couples. They offer a five-star experience away from work, kids, and the cares of the world so that you and your mate can spend quality time together building, or re-building, a sense of intimacy.
The Couples Swept Away Concept
If you love the active lifestyle, Couples Swept Away has everything you could think of for sheer adventure. You’ll find all sorts of indoor and outdoor sports and activities. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to fit all the options into your vacation days. They’re simply overwhelming.
Watersports
Couples Swept Away offers unlimited scuba diving program in the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean. Check out Jamaica’s beautiful reefs with tunnels and caves hosting bioluminescent sea creatures. Day dives allow you to spot dolphins and sea turns. Dive instructors are Watersports include water skiing, Hobie cat sailing, and windsurfing. Take a catamaran cruise while you watch a sunset you’ll never forget.
Fitness facilities
With 19 acres on Negril’s Seven Mile Beach, Couples Swept Away offers a 10-acre fitness complex. You’ll find 10 facilities for racquet sports, including tennis, racquetball, and squash. You won’t miss one leg day, either with their well-equipped fitness center. A lap pool, running track, and aerobics studio rounds out the options. Couples Swept Away features classes for yoga, Pilates, spinning, and aerobics, too.
Best of all, with all these sports and activities provided, Couples Swept Away also offers coaches to offer instruction at no extra cost. So, don’t miss the opportunity to take the complimentary tennis lessons included in your package.
Wellness spa
After all that exercise, you’ll be able to relax at the spa at Couples Swept Away. Take a couples’ massage class. Other couples’ spa treatments include seaweed wraps, body scrubs, manicures, and pedicures. Individual spa pampering packages as well as wedding packages for both the bride and groom.
Couples Swept Away Accommodations
Couples Swept Away offers a selection of eight suites, all with modern amenities like air conditioning, ceiling fans, MP3/iPod players, coffee maker, and minibar. Many include flat screen televisions, although others remain without for added intimacy and relaxation.
All rooms have a modern tropical vibe, clean and fresh, with plantation shuttered windows and neutral color schemes. You’ll appreciate the suites with verandah’s facing the inviting view of the Caribbean Sea, while you relax on loungers or in the hammock, with a Jamaican rum drink in hand.
Last minute accommodations rates for late summer ranged from $350 to $510 per night. Winter holiday rates, during the season, were significantly higher, ranging from $650 to about $800 per night over Christmas and New Year’s. Like many resorts in the Caribbean, the winter is their busy season, and rates go up at that time and stay elevated until the following summer months.
Dining at Couples Swept Away
Couples Swept Away boasts five-star dining available 24 hours a day. Chefs at the resort utilize local fresh-caught seafood and tropical fruits and vegetables.
The resort features six on-site restaurants ranging from fine cuisine to casual and fun. The Palms offers fresh, gourmet quality dishes in a relaxed atmosphere. Enjoy food with Latin and Caribbean flair on the Patois Patio. The Seagrape Café offers poolside dining and drinks with the ever-important tiki bar. Lemon Grass offers fine Asian cuisine for dinner, while Feathers offers more traditional continental gourmet selections in a formal dining atmosphere.
And since it’s your honeymoon, you may prefer to enjoy a meal together in the privacy of your suite. Couples Swept Away offers an in-suite breakfast menu that includes traditional breakfast fare, along with deli sides like smoked fish. Or go all-in with a traditional Jamaican meal.
For a more memorable experience, an upgrade purchase will provide you with a private romantic dinner on the beach, surrounded by torches.
Couples Swept Away Wedding Packages
As a couples-only resort, Couples Swept Away offers the perfect honeymoon. But one thing Couples Swept Away focuses on doing right is wedding packages. Start your married life in a tropical paradise.
The resort offers a complimentary “One Love” wedding package in their garden or on the beach, including wine, wedding cake, and a photographer. It’s the perfect choice if you plan to elope with just the two of you.
Their Tropical Wedding package accommodates up to 10 guests and includes drinks, cake, and a professional photographer for posed and candid shots. The Sunset Wedding provides a ceremony and reception for up to 20 guests. Or marry on a private island with 40 of your closest friends.
Wedding packages range from free to around $5,000, and each is customizable for your very important day. Add-on options include private receptions and dinners, expanding photography sessions, live music or DJ, and flower upgrades.
Vow renewals
For those who have already made that leap of faith, and want to relive and re-commit, Couples Swept Away offers a very reasonable vow renewal package. Add four friends for sparkling wine and wedding cake and renew your vows in the tropical gardens or on the beach.
Couples Swept Away Reviews
Now that we’ve covered the options that Couples Swept Away offers, let’s see how well they live up to their promises. It’s one thing to boast of pristine accommodations and gourmet meals, but does Couples Swept Away deliver as promised?
Industry Reviews for Couples Swept Away
The low-rise one-story buildings with cedar wood furniture contrasted with crisp white linen textiles gives Couples Swept Away a fresh, modern look. The wood floors of each suite open to private balconies. The small buildings scattered over the grounds give Couples Swept Away a South Pacific feel.
Travel review site Oyster claims that Couples Swept Away isn’t as intimate or romantic as they expected. The atmosphere is low-key and relaxed, even with the unlimited free premium liquor included in your cost. Although they lauded the accommodations as being much more modern than other resorts in Negril, the resort didn’t offer the privacy and seclusion they’d hoped for.
Frommers recommends Couples Swept Away as one of the better hotels in Negril, Jamaica, which is high praise indeed. They noted that this resort goes above and beyond to offer upgraded services as part of their all-inclusive package that other resorts charge for.
Where Couples Swept Away really shines, according to reviewers, is in the dining room. The resort offers 24/7 dining options from al fresco to fine cuisine. And many reviewers say this is the resort’s strongest features.
Customer Reviews for Couples Swept Away
One of the most significant disadvantages in checking out consumer reviews is also one of the sad facts of human nature. On the whole, people tend not to leave a review unless they’re upset. This means that most online reviews lean toward the negative. Most happy customers rarely take the time out of their busy days.
Overall, however, happy customers took enough time out of their day to give Couples Swept Away a 4.5/5.0 average rating on Trip Advisor.
Most of the customers found it easy to slide into “Island Time,” and appreciated the natural beauty and the generous warmth of the Jamaican people. Others fussed about troubles checking in, and complained about wear and tear on the facilities and the intrusiveness of the steel drum band on their slumber. Tropical climates are hard on everything and anything man-made, so you may find the fixtures a bit care-worn for a resort, even if they’re only a few years old. And Island Time may not suit the modern North American’s idea of prompt service.
The Competition for Couples Swept Away
You’ll find a number of other couples’ resorts as well as family resorts in the nearby area of Negril, Jamaica.
The Spa Retreat
The Spa Retreat boutique resort sits on the West End Cliffs and offers handcrafted stone cottages and tropical gardens for your getaway. Instead of an all-inclusive package, they provide separate meal packages for dining at the resort. This gives you some leeway to explore the local restaurants and nightspots, and the cost is counter-balanced by the lower per-day room rate.
The Spa Retreat also offers a few wedding packages, including one with a per-person rate that includes a sit-down dinner or Caribbean buffet. A quick comparison with a calculator reveals that The Spa Retreat may be a more affordable option with more options.
The difference lies in location. Couples Swept Away sits directly on Seven Mile Beach, while The Spa Retreat overlooks the Caribbean from the high and rocky cliffs. The two resorts simply have very different atmospheres.
Nirvana on the Beach
It sounds like the perfect spot for a honeymoon. Nirvana on the Beach is much less luxurious than Couples Swept Away. However, you could say it’s more authentic. With a selection of cottages, suites, and rooms to rent during your stay, Nirvana offers stunning tropical gardens and a very casual atmosphere. Nirvana has something special that doesn’t seem obvious to a casual viewer on its website. The accommodations don’t appear all that inviting. However, customers give it overwhelmingly positive reviews, and it runs neck-and-neck with Couples Swept Away in ratings.
Couples Negril
Couples Negril is Couples Swept Aways’ older, more conservative big sister. Focusing more on their luxury brand than an active lifestyle, Couples Negril offers a more traditional experience. You’ll find a variety of suites or rooms for your visit, with several restaurants on the grounds. Couples offers the same wedding packages at both the Swept Away and the Negril properties. And room rates were comparable for both resorts.
The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly
A quick overview of the accommodations, industry reviews, and consumer reports provides a snapshot of Couples Swept Away’s high and low points.
Pros
- Right on Seven Mile Beach
- Great food at all hours of the day
- Call brand liquors included in the package
- Plenty of things to do onsite
- Relaxing look and feel to the property
- Modern conveniences to hand
Cons
- Not as quiet and intimate as one would hope for a honeymoon spot
- You’ll need to bring the romance with you; the resort only provides the stage
- Too close to commercial traffic
- Several customers complained about check-in issues and room availability
Ready to Book Your Trip to Couples Swept Away
Couples Swept Away provides a lovely background for your romantic vacation. While it may not be to everyone’s taste, you’ll find the accommodations welcoming and relaxing and the activities expansive. Perhaps, even exhausting.
While not everyone wants to spend their honeymoon battling the elements of nature or reaching peak physical fitness, some people love Couples Swept Away for this very reason. It also makes a superior vacation choice for established couples who love outdoor sport and scuba diving.
And with reasonable rates for an all-inclusive package that includes excellent dining and top-shelf drinks, you can’t go wrong with this Jamaican resort gem.