Couples Swept Away in Negril, Jamaica

My then-fiance and I had a few requirements we agreed upon when we were planning our honeymoon for August 2004. In no specific order, they were peace and quiet after a hectic (but fantastic) Chicago wedding, a complete lack of obligatory small talk with other tourists, absence of screaming children, and presence of palm trees. We decided to book our six-night honeymoon with Couples Swept Away in Negril, Jamaica.

Located a 90-minute bus ride away from the main Montego Bay airport, Couples is an all-inclusive resort with a health-club atmosphere but none of the guilt. While the grounds are expansive and sprinkled with small complexes, each with four rooms, the focus of the resort is very much on the intimate. Each patio is provided with a bench or hammock, and each table in the three different restaurants will seat two. Both having been to "mega resorts" where each meal is an opportunity to make friends with the eight others sitting at your table, we enjoyed having just each other and keeping our honeymoon to ourselves. The food was absolutely fantastic, ranging from chicken to lobster to tropical fruits and vegetables to omelettes, and all were followed up by a dessert table easily thirty feet long. Dinners at Couples are much more formal than lunches, and summer dresses for women and collared shirts and closed-toe shoes for men are required several times per week.

A short walk across the street, Couples owns a health complex complete with spa and salon, weight and cardio rooms, fitness studio, Olympic-size swimming pool, and racquetball courts. While many classes and activities were offered at Couples Swept Away, my husband and I took comfort in the fact that we did not feel obligated, whatsoever, to participate in any of them. (While we visited, however, all honeymooners were offered a free half-hour massage, which we agree now may have been one of the highlights of our trip.) Yoga classes, reggae concerts, tennis lessons, snorkeling trips, piano bar sing-alongs, and boat rentals were all part of the "daily grind," but we preferred to bodysurf up and down Seven Mile Beach.

There is only one caution I would mention to those considering a trip to Couples: the accommodations are slightly more rustic than what might be offered at a similar resort in the United States. Telephones were available in every room, but there was only one television, located in the sports bar by the swimming pool. While the rooms were meticulously cleaned and nicely decorated, the rooms were essentially "open-air" -- a small air-conditioner worked diligently but did little to cool our room in the August heat and humidity with screened windows. We suspected the reason for the open windows was to regulate pressure in case of high winds; Jamaica in August was the perfect atmosphere for tropical storms, one of which came through while we were staying there.

In looking back at the week we spent at Couples Swept Away, we remember that it well fulfilled our criteria for post-wedding relaxation. While Couples was perhaps not as luxurious as the brochures suggested, the natural beauty of the beach and ocean, the resort's fabulous food and plentiful attractions, and, of course, each other's company, were enough to make us feel at home.