By DAVID SWANSON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Order breakfast while you’re still in bed at the new Aura Cozumel Wyndham Grand Bay. You’ll have just enough time for a dip in the private plunge pool above your third-floor suite before room service delivers smoked salmon, fruit and coffee.
Check into a suite at Sandals Whitehouse in Jamaica and head straight to the sand while a butler unpacks your luggage and presses your clothes.
Spend the day exploring St. Lucia’s rain forest, then head to the bar at the intimate East Winds Inn for a sunset libation before a dinner of lobster caught fresh that afternoon, and an evening shared with no more than 60 guests.
If you thought all-inclusive options in the Caribbean were limited to huge, impersonal resorts short on island personality and quality dining, you’re in for a revelation.
You can still find plenty of cost-wise hotels geared to travelers who want no more than a beach, a swim-up pool bar and a bill without surprises. But today’s options include upscale resorts with only a few dozen rooms. From the fussiest jet-setters to wallet-battered survivors of the economic downturn, just about every traveler can find a suitable fixed-price Caribbean resort.
As a result, all-inclusive converts are coming from unlikely places.
“I always resisted all-inclusives, and then I stayed at the humongous Iberostar in Riviera Maya,” said Maribeth Mellin, author of The Unofficial Guide to Mexico’s Best Beach Resorts (Wiley, $19.99). “I finally got it: that an entire family of several generations could vacation in the same place. The kids could play in a fabulous pool area, the grandparents could sit in a shaded bar area playing cards, and that there was a huge, wonderful spa.”
To these families, whether they were in Cancún or Punta Cana didn’t matter, Mellin said. “What they cared about was the price and the ability to spend a week somewhere where everyone could have a good time.”
Travelers who do care about location have plenty of choices. Although the vast majority of hotel rooms in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and along Mexico’s Caribbean coast are all-inclusive, set-price resorts also have opened in St. Lucia, Antigua and Cuba. In fact, few islands are without at least one all-inclusive option.
Jamaica, one of the early meccas of all-inclusive vacations, once again is experiencing hypergrowth. By the end of 2009, the number of hotel rooms will climb by 20 percent, and most of the additions are midrange all-inclusives run by Spanish hotel chains. Established firms such as Sandals are countering with the new Grand Pineapple Beach Resort, priced lower than its current Sandals and Beaches resorts. SuperClubs is going a step further: Last summer, it opened its second branch of Rooms on the Beach, a no-frills hotel that includes only breakfast, with rates starting at $100 a night in high season.
Price and style in the region vary significantly, from luxury boutique hotels charging $700 per room in low season to sprawling campuses with basic rooms that cost less than $200. Says Adam Stewart, CEO of Sandals, “All-inclusive can mean anything today.”
In 2007, Sandals replaced the term “all-inclusive” with a trademarked tag line: “Luxury Included.”
But “luxury” may be the most overused word in lodging today, and as the chains compete ever more fiercely for an increasingly cost-sensitive market, quality is often the first item to get trimmed.
“I think it’s better to emphasize value,” said John J. Issa, executive chairman of SuperClubs, the Jamaica-based operator of the Grand Lido, Breezes and Hedonism resorts.
John Long, a vice president for the Spanish chain Iberostar, which operates 100 hotels around the world, said, “At first glance, they all look luxurious.”
So, how’s a traveler to sort it all out? As always, price is one signpost, but not the only one. Here are some of the options.
Family-oriented
Two decades ago, most all-inclusives were designed for couples, and some are still for couples only. Then, Sandals launched the Beaches brand to tap the family market. SuperClubs has the Hedonism resorts with an atmosphere that borders on X-rated, but also has family-oriented Breezes and Starfish hotels. Most Club Meds have shifted to a family-friendly ambience where parents can join their kids in trapeze classes.
The smaller FDR resorts in Jamaica even include a nanny for each family checking in. She takes the kids swimming, teaches them tie-dye or travels with you on day trips to Dunn’s River Falls.
The stakes are increasingly being raised. Kids may think they’ve gone to Disney-World-by-the-beach come Jan. 20, when upscale Beaches unveils the expansion of its Turks and Caicos resort, with 600 new rooms and 16 restaurants. Its Pirate’s Island Waterpark will grow to 10 times its original size, with nine water slides and a surf simulator that replicates white water and surf conditions for boogie boarders.
Some resorts have off-season specials for single-parent families (most all-inclusives base prices on two adults per room).
Euro-style
Spanish-speaking destinations have long courted the European market. So it’s no surprise that if you stay at one of the midpriced, Spanish-owned Barceló properties on Mexico’s Riviera Maya, you’ll find many languages, a breakfast buffet oriented to European tastes (lots of cold cuts and cheeses) and hundreds of lounge chairs lined up in the sand, as on Mediterranean beaches.
Club Med, with French roots, also tends to have a more European style and crowd, although the company has resorts in non-French destinations such as Turks and Caicos and Cancún.
Boutique
If the quantity of restaurants and pools at some all-inclusives overwhelms, smaller hotels such as the Aura Cozumel and East Winds Inn focus on intimate settings.
In Jamaica, just a stone’s throw from a huge Riu resort, 65-room Sunset at the Palms is one of the few in Negril not directly on the beach. The hotel turns this into an advantage, by emphasizing its intimate environment among lush gardens, away from the beach bustle.
Despite having only two restaurants and one pool, the resort consistently ranks at or near the top of Jamaican hotels recommended by Trip Advisor readers.
Dollars-wise
The Spanish Riu chain showcases options for budget-conscious travelers.
Its resorts are eye-grabbing, and Riu calls all but one of its 23 Caribbean hotels “luxury.” But pools and beaches can be crowded, and dining options limited. At the 400-room Riu Palace Riviera Maya, guests line up each morning hoping to snag dinner reservations for the 12-table gourmet restaurant Krystal.
Still, the price may be right. The Riu chain often advertises off-season per-person rates below $100 a night. This includes the chain’s fourth Jamaica property, a resort opened in Montego Bay last year next door to a Sandals.
Something for all
North of Playa del Carmen in Mexico’s Riviera Maya, Iberostar offers almost 2,000 rooms scattered across a minicity of five side-by-side hotels with shopping mall, spa, discos and a shuttle service between them.
Prices and amenities are set at four levels, from the budget- and family-oriented Paraiso Del Mar and Paraiso Beach starting in March at $2,338 per week, double occupancy, to the adults-only, all-suite Grand Hotel Paraiso, priced from $4,186.
A similar Iberostar complex in Jamaica opened a year ago near Montego Bay, with three levels of hotels.
Stealth options
Some hotels don’t wear the all-inclusive badge on their sleeve.
At Curtain Bluff in Antigua, “fully inclusive” includes more than almost any other hotel in the region: meals, drinks, water-skiing, diving and even deep-sea fishing.
What you won’t find is rah-rah theme nights, and at dinner – served in a single restaurant – men are required to wear slacks, a collared shirt and dress shoes.
Nightly winter rates start at $995 plus 20.5 percent tax-and-service fee, double occupancy. The price falls to $645 after May 15.
Me, too
And then there are the traditional hotels getting in on the act.
The dominance of all-inclusives in Jamaica prodded the Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall to create an Escape to Luxury package for summer (from $409 nightly per room) that includes three meals, drinks, tax and gratuities. For a true luxury hotel with room-only rack rates starting at $209 plus 21.25 percent tax-and-service fee, the package is a smart buy.
David Swanson of California writes the “Affordable Caribbean” column for Caribbean Travel & Life magazine.
From: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/travel/thisweek/stories/DN-caribinclusive_0111tra.ART.State.Edition1.e18163.html
Mail this post
