Trip Report - CSA, Jamaica
 

My wife and I vacationed at Couples Swept Away, Negril, Jamaica from 4/28/07 through 5/5/07...below is my report;

General:
4 years ago we vacationed at Couples Negril. We love it...best vacation we ever had. We thought we would just go back to CN but decided that it would be fun to try CSA to experience the difference in the resorts. Bottom line...we'd never go back to CSA.

The Resort:
The resort is beautiful but not very well planned out. The two main dining areas are located at opposite ends of a large resort. All we did was walk. This may seem trivial but climbing the stairs at this resort is like going to a step class. Every step is tall...like 9". It feels like you are climbing a ladder.

Being "Green";
The resort claims to be "Green" at every turn. Every where you look you see some pamphlet that says..."CSA is Green". But how does being "Green" benefit us...the paying customers? Well it doesn't. It just saves them money and makes your vacation a bit uncomfortable. It means having a bath faucet that is barely a trickle. I will admit that the shower was fine...powerful and hot...well most of the time. We had no hot water from Wednesday afternoon until noon the following day. It took 2 calls to the Concierge to get it fixed. Also, the lighting in the rooms and in the dining area's is minimal. The dining rooms are so dark in some spots you can't read the menu. The maid that cleaned our room every morning would turn off every light and turn off the air conditioning. The maid that turned down the bed in the evening would do the same. So...every time you returned to your room the vents in the doors were open, the room was very humid, no paddle fan, no air conditioning, no lights. I'm not against trying to conserve energy and being a good steward of the environment...but this is a resort. We go here to relax and have fun. This resort seems to think saving money on air conditioning is more important than the comfort of it's clients. I left a note for our maid on Tuesday to leave the air running and to not shut off the porch light. We had a ground floor unit and we entered our room via the porch door. We would come back to the room at 10pm and the porch would be pitch black which made it extremely difficult to find where to put the door key.

The Food;
The food was the biggest disappointment to my wife and I. When did Jamaican food become "cuisine"? Let me tell you...the food of a 3rd world country is not "cuisine".
Breakfast was the best of the meals but it wasn't great. I've had better fruit from Kroger. The served the pineapple without removing the core and it was never sweet and ripe. The melon was hit or miss..sometimes decent but generally not. The sausage was terrible. Jimmy Dean heat/serve is better.

Lunch/Dinner;
The Palms dining area served a buffet. It was lousy. Weird food...no fast food stuff. The salad bar was ok...however it was made up of a lot of different types of beans...so if you wanted a bean salad you were in business, if not...well, good luck. The tomatoes for the salad bar were barely ripe and cut into quarters. I think for a supposed high class resort this is a poor way to serve tomatoes.

Dinner:
We would have liked to have one of the restaurants serve a buffet at dinner. If nothing else, just to speed things up. Dinner will take a minimum of one hour every night...sometimes longer. The food was decent but had very few choices. My wife does not eat much meat and she had a difficult time finding things to eat on the dinner menu. We only ate at one of the "fine" restaurants at the resort..the Lemongrass. It was our first day at the resort...I had made the reservation the night before. The earliest I could get a reservation was 8:45 pm. After traveling all day we were tired and very hungry. We arrived at 7:30 and asked if we could possibly be seated any earlier...we were told matter of factly that "no, we will be able to seat you at 8:45 as scheduled and not earlier." We returned at 8:40pm...asked if we could get seated. The girl responded.."your reservation is at 8:45?" We said "yes". She said "your table will be ready then". That's it. No accomodation at all. The food at Lemongrass is Thai. It is good and the service was ok. My wife said it was her best meal. We had slow service but the girl serving us was friendly and we thought was working as hard as she could...it just that everything is slow and you need patience.

The service:
Generally the service was "decent". The bar tenders worked hard all day and at times you had to wait to get served...they are always very busy. But the drinks I had mixed were always excellent. The bar tenders always polite and friendly.

One thing that I didn't like but may seem trivial to some of you is that the employees when not working would walk around the resort talking on their personal cell phones. I think this is rude and the resort should review this policy and change it. These employees would still be in their uniform and you couldn't tell if they were working or not...they'd just walk by talking on their cell and you'd maybe get a nod. I just don't like this behavior. I can get this type of service at any cheap fast food restaurant in the states...I don't need to pay thousands of dollars and travel many miles just to get the same treatment.

Resort and Rooms;
Our room was the least expensive room on the resort but it was nice. It was clean. The bed is a bit hard but comfortable. I slept well every night. The room could use some color...it is very bland. Our room did not have a television which we missed greatly. On hot days it would have been nice to come into the room and watch a movie for a few hours to allow your body to cool off. We missed the television at night also...just as something to do just before falling asleep. I wasn't aware that our room did not have a TV until a few day before arriving. I tried to upgrade our room but no rooms were available. I would've paid extra for a room with a TV. At Couples Negril our room had a TV and we were in the least expensive room they had..so it did not dawn on me that we wouldn't have a TV.

The Beach/Water:
The water is awesome. Wow! The best thing about the resort. The beach is ok. The sand is soft and white and clean. Plenty of trees to provide shade when needed and plenty of lounge chairs. My only complaint about 7 mile beach is that it is busy. I was approached most every day by some rastafarian asking if I wanted to buy "some smoke". There were vendors walking the beach with megaphones announcing some "beach party" that night...it was going to be "hot, hot, hot!".

It was annoying...but I tuned all this out and soaked up the sun and I can say without reservation...the beach is fantastic. I did like the beach at CN better just because it was smaller and there weren't the vendors like at CSA.

In Closing:
We generally had a fine time. The resort is clean, the people friendly and helpful. It just wasn't as nice as CN and I didn't think it was very luxurious. I can get better food out of a can in the States...this shouldn't be. The "Green" policy is a joke. The owners of CSA should be thinking more about the comfort of those shelling out the dollars than saving 2 cents on lighting or water.

Jamaican cuisine is one of the reasons I go there, also the reason I don't go to AI's. Thai food in Jamaica? Give me a break.

Next time, rent a place where you get a cook and have them make you homemade Jamaican food, you'll never go back to an AI again! You'll save a lot of money too. Or, at least go to a good jerk place or get some patties on the beach.

"The food was the biggest disappointment to my wife and I. When did Jamaican food become "cuisine"? Let me tell you...the food of a 3rd world country is not "cuisine". "

That's kind of a harsh statement. Could you explain? Was it all Jamaican food all the time? Were you led to believe that the style of food would be different? I understand your comments about quality, but otherwise isn't it part of the fun of traveling to try local food?

Eyeski,

Thanks for your response to this. Stated much more succinctly than I would have done ;-)

If you choose to do an AI in Jamaica, you are missing the best of the country.

There is nothing to compare to a good Jamaican cook...and there is usually a little history to go along with the meal. Years of tradition and a true mixing of cultures, make for some memorable meals !

Speaking of cell phones....think about the impolite usage in this country before criticizing others.

Marion

A perfect example of why to avoid All Inclusives. You can spend less money on dinner and drinks at restaurants all over negril that provide better food than the stuff i have eaten at AI's. Skip the AI's and experience the true Jamaica

It never ceases to amaze me how other tourists (not travellers) and/or travel agents brainwash newbies to Jamaica about how they shouldn't leave the safety of their AI because it's so dangerous.

You miss out on so much of what makes Jamaica my favorite beach vacation:

Friendly (yah, sometimes too friendly, but a polite no tanks usually takes care of that ) natives who love to regale you with stories.

Interesting, well-spiced "cusine" using fresh, local ingrediants.

Reggae music

The great beaches and water

Rum/ Red Stripe

I could go on, but it would just get me depressed that I'm not there right now!

eyeski: We'll be there a week from Saturday....sorry to depress you more! :)

I can't wait to be asked to buy a few things on the beach, most of which a polite "no" suffices for the rest of the trip.

Funny, I read the post and my first thought was about the food...."the food of a 3rd world country is not "cuisine". "

Oh it sure is...but not at most all inclusive resorts.

I've had some of the best meals I've EVER had in Jamaica. Fruit with breakfast served on our porch at Catcha Falling Star so sweet you can hardly bear to eat it...the freshest kingfish prepared with delicious dipping sauces at Mar Blue...Jamaican fused with Thai, ironically, at Culloden Cafe in their coconut soup...Little Ochi's huge curry crab and festival...grilled lobster with garlic butter at 3 Dives...

Wow, I'm hungry.

That was a very thorough and useful review, thanks for taking the time.

jimmie: Yes...all Jamaican...all the time. The hamburgers served at the little pool cafe tasted awful. They served a hot dog also but someone I met on the beach said "pass on the hot dog...it's awful". I tried the burger when I first arrived just to have a snack after a long day of travel...awful. The same cafe served a jerk chicken for lunch. It was a thigh full of bone and I had to peel it off the bone just to get a tiny bite. The jerk was good...and the chicken was decent but this is a 5 star resort and I'm pulling chicken off the bone? C'mon folks. You wouldn't get that at KFC
And no..my travel agent didn't tell me anything about the food. I am basing my opinion using Couples Negril as a comparison. I went to CN 4 years ago and it was fantastic...food, beach, the entire trip.

MarionCK: I agree...cell phone etiquette in the US is awful. That's why I went to Jamaica and a 5 star resort...to get away from that for a week. No luck.

One more thing about the food. The best meals I had at CSA were at dinner. The Lemongrass served us a great meal. Also, the resort put on a private dinner for returning guests to Couples...it was fantastic. Great service, good food and we really met some great people and had a lot of fun.

I'm not trying to kill this resort. CSA is beautiful. The beach and water is fantastic. The people that work at the resort are wonderful and helpful. I just think the food in general disappointed me and I think the resort could improve in this area...and I base all this on my last trip to CN where I had better food...that's all.

Also...the guys walking the beach didn't really "bother" me...I just didn't care for it. I realize it's part of the ambiance but it's less at CN than CSA...at least it was the last time I was there and I just love laying on the beach listening to the waves and catching the breeze. I don't like this wonderful feeling distrupted by "come to the beach party tonight...it's going to be HOT, HOT, HOT"...blaring at me through a megaphone. There isn't much the resort can do about it...but, I don't like it and if I could find somewhere where I could have the same beach, water, breeze and didn't have to put up with that noise I'd go there in a minute.