How to choose an all-inclusive resort

Start with elimination, not selection

Most people choose a resort by browsing photographs until one appeals, then looking for reasons to justify it. That is backwards, and it is why so many resort weeks end in a review that begins “it was lovely, but”.

The efficient method is to eliminate. Six questions, asked in this order, will remove most of the market before you have looked at a single image — and the ones they leave are genuinely worth comparing.

1. How long is the trip, and how far is the transfer?

Ask these together, because neither means anything alone.

Published transfers in the resorts we document run from 2.7 km — about ten to fifteen minutes in Montego Bay — to 90 km and ninety minutes at Ocho Rios. Double the figure and subtract it from your trip. On ten nights, ninety minutes is a morning. On four nights it is roughly a quarter of your usable daylight, taken from arrival and departure day, which are already the shortest.

This single question eliminates more unsuitable resorts than the other five combined, and almost nobody asks it first.

2. Who is the resort actually for?

Not “adults-only or family” — that label is doing less work than you think. Ask which of four arrangements it is: a strict adults-only property with a published minimum age; an adults-only property that admits sixteen-year-olds; an adults-only hotel inside a family complex; or a family resort with adults-only zones.

All four get marketed under the same two words. The worst case differs enormously between them, and the worst case is what the label hides.

3. What does the operator publish about children?

If you have children, the kids club age band is the fact that decides whether the resort works. Across the resorts we document, most operators do not publish it at all. One publishes four to twelve; one publishes four to twelve plus opening hours, which is rarer still and more useful — a club closing at 5pm is not childcare for dinner.

If the band is unpublished, the children’s programme is an unknown quantity, and you should price the resort on its pools and food instead.

4. What does the rate exclude?

Read the exclusions list first, before the inclusions. If there isn’t one — and frequently there is not — that is itself a finding. Assume premium spirits, spa, signature dining events, and anything leaving the property are extra until told otherwise.

5. What are the mandatory costs on top?

Separate from exclusions: charges you cannot avoid. State or city lodging taxes, environmental levies, and any resort fee. Most operators publish nothing here. Budget for it anyway, and confirm at the point of booking, where these charges usually do appear.

6. Is the water provision what you actually need?

Pool counts are not comparable between resorts. Four pools with distinct purposes — a lap pool, an adults-only pool, a children’s pool — can serve a mixed group better than eleven undifferentiated ones. And a “water park” at one resort is a multi-slide complex; at another it is a children’s pool with a slide.

Ask what each pool is for, not how many there are.

Then, and only then, look at the photographs

By this point you should have two or three resorts left, and the choice between them is usually about which limitation you mind least. That is a much better question than which photograph you liked most, and it is the one that determines whether the week works.

Last verified 2026-09-13.