CN Review, and one area of disappointment

Hi all,
Well, it has taken me a while to write this but I've needed some time to recover, as you'll see if you read.

On the positives, we loved the resort itself. We had a garden deluxe room in Building two, third floor. Perfect location and lovely balcony. We loved being back on Negril beach after having been to CSS and CTI the last three times. The beach is awesome and the vendors/musicians add so much. The sea was wonderful. We enjoyed the layout of the resort, with the beach to get some walking in, but all of the restaurants and amenities being so close. Found the popcorn in the games room and enjoyed a bag going back to our room each night. We ate at Lychee twice, Otaheite once -- what awesome food and service. We booked Otaheite for our last night but unfortunately, as I'll add in a minute, we had to leave the resort early. We met some great people -- a couple of teachers from Ontario, who we hung out with, and probably wondered where we vanished to. My husband met a great walking partner (Dave, I believe) who also probably wonder where we went to, as they had a walking 'date' Friday morning. We enjoyed a private dinner in the treehouse (how romantic) and a massage there too. The spa was great -- also got a mani-pedi there with the resort credits we had. Great time -- until Thursday.

My disappointment? (I wonder if they'll print this) was that I missed an important call, and only found out about it by chance Thursday night. Before I left Canada (won't bore you with the details), I had an MRI. I expected the results to take a while, but the radiologist read it the day we left (Saturday) and saw that I had a 'dissection of the right carotid artery'. This, as I found out, is a life-threatening situation. I could have (could still, unless I do everything according to Drs orders) had a stroke because there is a tear in the artery, which has slowed down blood flow on that side. The Drs began calling our house (over 10 times), sent the police, and finally found my in-laws number, who gave them the resort number. Here's where it gets disappointing. They called on Sunday, and again on Wednesday, and I NEVER got the message. By chance, when checking how many resort credits we had left on Thursday night at the front desk, one of the girls said, "Oh, did you get your message from Brian at the hospital". We were uncertain what she was talking about so we called my in-laws, who told us the hospital in our city had been desperately trying to get a hold of us. They "say" they left a message in our room (there was no message) -- they "say" they slipped a note under our door, but there was no note and I don't think a maid would have thrown it out. We were up in the main area every day and Wednesday we were easy to find as we went on a trading places to Swept Away and had our private dinner so had to speak to them or could have been found coming back. As it turned out, I got lucky and did not, and have not had a stroke. When the front desk girl finally told us about this 'call', we had to scramble and rebook our flights for Friday (we lost a day of our vacation) and get back to Canada. We felt like we were on the Amazing Race -- the emergency Dr told us what I had and if I had stroke on the plane, that would have been the worst possible scenario. We did get back safely and to emerge before that happened.

If you ever have recurrent headaches, combined with a droopy eyelid and different sized pupils, get to emerge immediately -- this dissection of the artery I have is very rare, but life-threatening since it slows blood to the brain. I let a manager know of my disapointment in how this was handled before we left Friday morning, who said he would pass it on to the GM. I never heard from her. I then emailed and she did call me, and emailed after that, but both contacts seemed to 'passing the buck' eg. they did try to contact you. I wasn't wanting to sue them or anything -- I just wanted to hear someone say, "I'm sorry we should have checked you got the message". It's like they're told not to do this. I was so ticked off the Friday morning, that the night clerk asked me for my check out card, when he had seen me in tears as we were rebooking our flight to leave early Friday. As far as service, there were so many people we had great service from: Shrekie, Shreika (Lychee), Glasford (who made us an omelette even tho it was before his shift -- awesome guy), and many more.

We really enjoyed the resort/property, but were left with a disappointine taste in our mouth. The lack of communication when (bad) news is heard from home is unfortunate.
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windsorgirl (Christine)
CSA '07,08
CTI '09,10
CSS '10
CN '11

I'm truly sorry to hear about your situation, hope everything works out and you regain full recovery of your carotid artery. I would also like to say that's the very reason I've told my wife I would like some form of communication (cell-phone, skype or whatever) with back home when visiting Jamaica. Things like this happen and has happened to me at work one time. Still doesn't justify the ones at fault, but just helps me re-enforce my need for having contact back home or line of communication not broken. Like I've said before, hope everything works out sending you prayers from the states.

OMG I am so sorry for your health problems but glad that you're still doing great at this point! Sorry you didnt get the messages and when they are life threatening like that then there needs to be more communication and I am truly shocked that you were not getting the messages! I can just picture the look on your face and again I'm sorry and hope they realize how important it is to get ANY message to their customers! Wishing you the best!!

I am very sorry to hear of your your medical condition and wish you all the best, I can say that during one of our visits to CN we did receive an emergency message from my Mother In Law and there was a note in our room to call her. The front desk also suggested to her that she leave a message on our room phone and passed her thru to it where we also received her message on our hotel voicemail. Apparently something went astray in your situation.

I am so glad you made it home and to the hospital safely. What a scary time that must have been for you and your husband.

Hopefully you are on a full mend and ready to return to paradise for more romance!?

Please do not be upset about the resort (any place actually) not admitting they potentially made a mistake when it comes to anything with a medical connotation. I was a District Manager for a large retail chain for several years, worked my way up from a clerk. The one thing I hated more then anything was not being able to reach out to people who had either been hurt in our stores or had some type of medical issue while in our stores (properties). To do so even in the slightest capacity could be construed as admittance of responsibility.

If something like this would have happened in my District I guarantee you procedures for delivery of messages would be discussed with all associates to insure this did not happen again. Which I would pretty much guarantee is on the to do list of a certain VP at the moment.

First and foremost, I hope all goes well with you and I'm glad you made it home safely.

We found a few things we weren't impressed with as well, but certainly nothing to compare with your experience. The problem comes, I think, with success. Couples has a good overall formula and since the economy has rebounded, their success has rebounded as well. With that has come some complacency and a lack of attention to the small things that make a difference.

While we didn't find things quite as good as our previous trip, this years trip was still outstanding and there is no other resort that offers what Couples does. We do worry that with success things may slip further, but we must be hopeful they won't.

Sadly, I'm not surprised they didn't acknowledge the mistake as our experience was that negative feedback isn't accepted well. They probably were/are worried about liability as it would be pretty obvious to anyone that a call from a doctor to someone in Jamaica, regardless of getting any details, should be treated as an emergency and a note or phone message would not be sufficient.

Good luck with your treatment and I hope your next visit will be better.

From what you've said, it seems like the Couples staff took their "soon come" nudge nudge wink wink attitude to the wrong level. Hopefully the Manager had a meeting with her team and read them the riot act - you'd think that if someone received a message from a doctor or hospital that this would be accurately and swiftly conveyed to the recipient.

And BTW, I think it shows real guts (or maybe the Moderator is asleep at the wheel) for Couples to have this posted on their site. Kudos to them as a resort for posting info on an apparent misstep.

Glad to hear you're doing well....this is apparently a lesson learned for us all - don't take for granted that people will actually do their job - it's better to have a cell phone or Skype for emergencies...

Good Health and Prayers to you and your family.

Thanks so much everyone for your concern and positive thoughts. It truly was unfortunate all round, in terms of timing of the MRI. The Drs here, when realizing it was potentially life-threatening, did everything right. Just just said they "couldn't find us", (we were beach bums, right in front of the Heliconia restaurant/bar), and had tried to leave messages etc. It was clear to me they didn't want to admit any sort of responsibility, yet really an "I'm sorry, it shouldn't have happened" was all I wanted, instead of the "we did our best" line. I wasn't looking to sue or anything .. sheesh. I'm just lucky, (so far, so good), with the way things turned out.

As some of you said, the trip home was scary. I prayed a lot and hoped to get back without having a stroke, and God willing, we did. We went, as the Drs said, straight to emergency. I must have ticked off people waiting in Emerge, when I walked in on a Friday night at 11 (by the time we got back), with crocs and a tan, and walked up to the window, straight back and was admitted immediately ..lol. Then my week long stay in the hospital began, to force my blood to thin on IV, to potentially avoid a stroke (hopefully). In the meantime, I wait for my body (artery) to heal itself, with another MRI to come in the fall.

For the last two summers, we've "Secret Rendezvous"ed twice, but think we'll stay in North America this summer, just in case. I'm sure we'll be back some time though, hopefully maybe early 2012. We loved Couples Negril. The beach, food, and people were great. Once they realized we hadn't got the message, one of the young ladies on the front desk was very helpful and accomodating. The Emerge Dr needed to call us back; we waited on the swings and they called us to the phone. They let us take the phone in a back office, and make all of our calls to rebook our flight, and called for a pick-up for us the next morning.

We hope to be back some day. I guess as someone else said in a post, "it's good to have a way to communicate back home". The Drs wouldn't have had that, and my in-laws "don't see why they need that internet stuff" .. lol. Maybe in 2012, if all goes well and my body heals itself. In the meantime, it was a vacation, and journey back we won't forget.

PS: my husband was the best -- first real serious stressful time we've had (married only 4 years in July) and I couldn't have asked for more support, care and concern. :-)
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windsorgirl (Christine)
CSA '07,08
CSS '10
CTI '09,10
CN '11

Questor, I'm wondering where you live to say that the economy has rebounded. We're in Phoenix and have a very high unempolyment rate along with so many forclosures and short sales. I'm curious if you live in USA or overseas.
Eileen

Eileen according to their profile, Questor lives in Nova Scotia