Only if you are a drinker. Otherwise you are paying for everyone else to drink.

I have been to all inclusives in Mexico, DR and Jamaica. Hands down, the food was best at the Jamaican resorts - if you like Jamaican food! Not so good if you want American food. You have to consider that travelling with kids - my kids were not eating curry anything! LOL!!

As far as it being worth it, it was for us. We uhhh enjoy our adult beverages so we were able to get full value for our package.

I have been to:

Beaches Turks and Caicos: had food poisoning for days. Food all tastes the same. All the drinks are watery and shelf liquor is dubious. Great if you love processed food and beer from bottles & cans. Local fish is slightly tastier than opting for cheeseburgers.

A few independently managed resorts in Roatan and Fiji, both with less than 25 rooms. Food was excellent and worth it in both settings as locations were remote.

My coworker refuses to do cruises and all inclusives because she feels like she is paying too much and subsidizing all the people who are lining up at the midnight buffet or drinking rum all day.
I've learned to steel myself for resort pricing - if I want a cobb salad by the beachfront pool instead of getting in a car and finding a locals hangout, I am going to pay more. We usually get units with kitchens now (since we have kids) but we found that getting some kind of resort credit in your room rate helps take the sting out of those pricey buffet breakfasts or the occasional splurgey in-resort dinner but leaves room for us to explore the area restaurants. Works for us since we usually visit offsite attractions anyway.

At the all inclusive resorts we take out a kayak, katamaran thing, use the snorkleing eqmt every day. I like not having to pay for that each time, which I'd guess is very pricey at a non all inclusive.

You have to have the right attitude and reasons to enjoy an all inclusive. We have teenagers who are aways hungry, so for us it is a break. Cheap all inclusive tend to be very loud, with the music blasting and the constant "drum up a party at 10AM" vibe. On the other hand, paying for the eating of teens can be very costly, and time consuming. So much easier to just say -- go to the buffet and get something! DC has some of the finest restaurants anywhere, so it is not great to compare inclusive food with the food in a good restaurant here. We just stick with the basics. Any vacation in the Caribbean tends to be pricey, but a cheap one can be no fun if you do not like the "party" atmosphere. Have you ever been on a cruise? Similar.

If you're not a big drinker, I'm not really sure it's a good value. It depends on you - you'll have to run the numbers. I've found many all inclusives have mediocre food, so do your research. I’ve found doing breakfast in the condo, some lunches, and going out to dinner to be a way to balance expenses & effort and not to an all inclusive. Here’s the run down on the ones I’ve stayed at over the last few years. I didn’t actually pick any of them – it was either for a friend’s wedding, work trip, or we tagged along with my parents. At none of these did I see many fake boobs or tattoos. Paradisus seemed popular with Europeans. All of the resorts I mention here have lovely grounds and many neat places to hang out. I would return to the St. Lucia and Cabo resorts.

Windjammer in St. Lucia – The good: yummy food, quiet private beach, lovely views from the villa, decent drinks (not as watered down). The bad: villas are up a steep hill from the beach so for those with mobility issues, this isn’t the place to go. DH and I had no issue, but my Mom preferred to take the shuttle. One pool is eh, the other is ok.

Paradisus Punta Cana in Dominican Republic – The good: nice beach, Royal Service rooms are very nice (didn’t see the regular rooms), good but crowded pool. The bad: watered down drinks, food ranged from bad to mediocre, towel game for the good chairs is in full effect.

Excellence Punta Cana in Dominican Republic – The good: better food (although still nothing special), staff is nicer than at Paradisus, many good pools. The bad: the beach is very windy and the water is rough, so we didn’t ever hang out there, longer drive from the airport.

Hacendia del Mar in Cabo, Mexico – while this isn’t an all inclusive, it’s a lovely resort. The good: two 5 star restaurants – the food is AWESOME, easy to get the shuttle or a cab into town for other less expensive (yet still very good) restaurants, nice pools, nice condos, costco and walmart near by so you can do breakfast and lunch at your condo. The bad: food and drinks are very expensive, the beach is not swimmable, but it is nice to sit there and you can put your toes in the water, a lot more travel to get there (no direct flights).

I will say, for whatever it's worth, that I never thought I'd like an all-inclusive but we've been to a couple and enjoyed them (and I don't have any tattoos or implants).

I think you do want to aim for a somewhat higher end place. I've found the food to be fine. At breakfast we'll eat a lot of fresh fruit, lunch might be a grilled chicken sandwich, and dinner we can usually find something that we are happy to eat.

Is it high end gourmet? No. Do I enjoy the meals? Generally yes.

Apart from that, it is nice not to have worry about spending more money, and when your kids have had enough you can just get up and leave (often for us the worst time in a restaurant with kids will be waiting for a check, and you just never do that).

We've done both - all-inclusive resort and rented a condo in a resort-like community (multiple pools, beach, playgrounds, lovely grounds, tennis courts, mini-golf).

The advantage of the resort is that you do not have to worry about food at all - you've already paid for everything and there's a wide variety of food available. The downside is often that the quality of the food isn't that great. And, if you stay a whole week, it does start to get a little repetitive. (we stayed at a resort with 5 restaurants - we ate breakfast in the same place every day - the only one that served breakfast. There were 2 different options for lunch. Then all 5 open for dinner.)

At the condo resort, we had to shop for food & cook - so it felt like less of a vacation. But we probably spent far less money. We're not huge drinkers, so we just bought a bottle of rum and a bottle of wine and we were set for the week. We did eat dinner out 3 or 4 times.

One other consideration - if traveling with kids - they can be exhausted after a day at the pool/beach. All-inclusive meant easy access to quick dinner. Not all-inclusive meant dealing with cooking and/or going somewhere for dinner and needing them to behave in a public setting...

Basically, there's a lot of pros/cons!

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm if you don't drink or care about it, or if you like good food they may not be for you. I personally don't care for them, our work sends us every year so I have a fairly objective view.
I see it as a quantity vs quality thing. For example-we have stayed at all inclusives in St Lucia, Dominican repub, and Antigua. I literally could not get a salad in Dom Rep-all they would give me was a little pile of shredded cabbage.
The food was a little better in St Lucia, more fruits and veggies, and Antigua had the highest quality food, but still not the high quality that you would expect here in the states.
Some resorts aren't allowed to tell you about stuff off the resort-Secrets resorts are bad about this-so you are stuck there or with their contracted people for outings.
Galley bay in Antigua was pretty nice, very quiet-not much for partiers.
Secrets resorts and Sanctuary at Cap Cana were both pretty cheesy-lots of young (very young!) newlyweds with lots of fake boobs and tattoos. Forced to listen to Celine Dione and billy ocean pumped in over the pool speakers all.day.long!
The food is yucky versions of American food-microwaved burgers, frozen fries, pizza, etc
It wasn't a good fit for us, if I am out of the country I want to eat local food and fresh fish, etc. and yes, the drinks were watery but since we were drinking in the sun all day long I guess that's a good thing.
But it's hard to drown out the loud cheesy dj trying to get everyone to do the limbo on the pool deck, do the Macarena, etc

Fake boobs and tattoos pretty much sums up an all inclusive. I've been to several and they were all like this. If you're okay with that, I agree with the PP that it's nice to not stress about what you're spending while you're there. Keep in mind that it's certainly not a romantic atmosphere if you're looking for that.

Putting aside whether you will 'get your money's worth' - there is something (big) to be said for paying for your vacation up front and not thinking about it again. No matter how hard I try to just relax, I am one of those people who cringes to spend $9 on a latte at a resort, and I get majorly grumpy when I buy my 4YO a $19 hamburger poolside. Possibly if I added all of these little things up it wouldn't cost any more than what we pay for all-inclusive, but the not having to think twice about ordering the burger is priceless. YMMV.

OP,

It varies from resort to resort. Do you know where you want to go?

I've only been to one all inclusive, but I found the food (with the exception of breakfast) to be pretty bad.

Hmmm if you don't drink or care about it, or if you like good food they may not be for you. I personally don't care for them, our work sends us every year so I have a fairly objective view.
I see it as a quantity vs quality thing. For example-we have stayed at all inclusives in St Lucia, Dominican repub, and Antigua. I literally could not get a salad in Dom Rep-all they would give me was a little pile of shredded cabbage.
The food was a little better in St Lucia, more fruits and veggies, and Antigua had the highest quality food, but still not the high quality that you would expect here in the states.
Some resorts aren't allowed to tell you about stuff off the resort-Secrets resorts are bad about this-so you are stuck there or with their contracted people for outings.
Galley bay in Antigua was pretty nice, very quiet-not much for partiers.
Secrets resorts and Sanctuary at Cap Cana were both pretty cheesy-lots of young (very young!) newlyweds with lots of fake boobs and tattoos. Forced to listen to Celine Dione and billy ocean pumped in over the pool speakers all.day.long!
The food is yucky versions of American food-microwaved burgers, frozen fries, pizza, etc
It wasn't a good fit for us, if I am out of the country I want to eat local food and fresh fish, etc. and yes, the drinks were watery but since we were drinking in the sun all day long I guess that's a good thing.
But it's hard to drown out the loud cheesy dj trying to get everyone to do the limbo on the pool deck, do the Macarena, etc

We are considering an inclusive resort in one of the Carribean islands (haven't decided where - not to digress, but recommendations would be great...maybe another thread for this request), but not sure if it's worth it. Do you really eat that much food and drink all that alcohol to justify the price? I don't drink much so I certainly wouldn't benefit, but b/c we would have paid for it I might feel obligated and just have a rum and coke or something, but that is really about it. DH enjoys social drinking, but not sure if he would drink enough either to justify a higher vacation package price. And are drinks typically watered down? The cheap brands?

How much does resort food cost a la carte? We eat late breakfasts so usually skip lunch when on vacays so, again, not sure if an inclusive resort would be the best deal for us. And I suppose tips and taxes aren't included in an inclusive package?

Recommendations and thoughts welcome from those who have BTDT.