All Inclusive? Or not...

Morbyd

Morbyd

Moderator
Right, so the missus and I have decided on Cancun, Mexico for New Years. Warm, sunny, beach, daytrips to Mayan ruins, plenty of nightlife, etc. Seems like a decent plan.

The thing I can't decide is: is it worth going to one of these 'all inclusive' hotels?? The other option I'm looking at includes only breakfast (which I don't usuallly eat).

Obviously, we're going to want to try out different restaurants so we probably wouldn't eat dinners there. Irina can have her breakfasts, though, and I'd get lunch.

The one area which might make up the difference is the free drinks. Seems like a nice option to be able to sip booze all day long while the missus sunbathes, and to load up for free before going out.

So, what have your experiences with 'all inclusive' been like?
(and anyone tried this in Ibiza?)
 
Morbyd said:
Right, so the missus and I have decided on Cancun, Mexico for New Years. Warm, sunny, beach, daytrips to Mayan ruins, plenty of nightlife, etc. Seems like a decent plan.

The thing I can't decide is: is it worth going to one of these 'all inclusive' hotels?? The other option I'm looking at includes only breakfast (which I don't usuallly eat).

Obviously, we're going to want to try out different restaurants so we probably wouldn't eat dinners there. Irina can have her breakfasts, though, and I'd get lunch.

The one area which might make up the difference is the free drinks. Seems like a nice option to be able to sip booze all day long while the missus sunbathes, and to load up for free before going out.

So, what have your experiences with 'all inclusive' been like?
(and anyone tried this in Ibiza?)
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If you intend on drinking plenty def go all inclusive, if not I wouldn't bother, esp if it's for more than a week, you'll get bored.
 
Have been on 3 "all inclusives" 2 in st lucia and once to ibiza

the ibiza one was forgetable, but useful for the days after clubbing nights when we just sat by the pool, drank & necked pills all day!! we only went into the restaurant about twice.

more recently on honeymoon in st lucia, the all inclisive was excellent, we had 4 restaurants all serving different styles,eg french, creole, seafood, asian etc all quality a la carte menus too, not the usual help yourself rubbish. on the drinks front we had international drinks too not just locally produced equilvalent, so if you ordered a bacardi, you got bacardi not local white rum and you could have a choice of draught beers too etc, re sandi's point it can be a tad boring after a while, we were lucky in that we could go off the complex so we did that a couple of nights, we also went to a kind of outdoor concert sponsored by morgans rum, kind of a st lucian v vestival.

one tip though, which may be tough in Cancun.....dont get behind a yank in hte breakfast buffet queue ;)
 
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Rachel went to cancun a few summers ago. If your going for the nightlife its not great - there might be plenty of it but its more the cheesy cheap type.
 
I went to Ibiza all inclusive this summer, we thought it may work out better for us as during the day all we wanted to do was sunbathe and as we had never been to Ibiza before all we had heard was "Ibiza is a really expensive place club wise" So we thought well if we go all inclusive then that saves us some £££ for drinking and partying :lol:

We enjoyed it, we werent really into trying out new places (my friend bit of a skinflint) to eat but saying that when I go back next year I would prefer to go not all inclusive so I can sample some different places/food. Did it in Crete this year and much preferred the self catering. Gets you out and about more. We literally spent our days in the hotel, drank as much of the free bar we could until 11 at night and then went out.

Good thing about it though is you can take advantage of the drinks during the day (espec lots and lots of fizzy drinks and water to ward off those hangovers in preparation for another night out) :lol:
 
jjinit said:
Have been on 3 "all inclusives" 2 in st lucia and once to ibiza

the ibiza one was forgetable, but useful for the days after clubbing nights when we just sat by the pool, drank & necked pills all day!! we only went into the restaurant about twice.

more recently on honeymoon in st lucia, the all inclisive was excellent, we had 4 restaurants all serving different styles,eg french, creole, seafood, asian etc all quality a la carte menus too, not the usual help yourself rubbish. on the drinks front we had international drinks too not just locally produced equilvalent, so if you ordered a bacardi, you got bacardi not local white rum and you could have a choice of draught beers too etc, re sandi's point it can be a tad boring after a while, we were lucky in that we could go off the complex so we did that a couple of nights, we also went to a kind of outdoor concert sponsored by morgans rum, kind of a st lucian v vestival.

one tip though, which may be tough in Cancun.....dont get behind a yank in hte breakfast buffet queue ;)
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Where did you stay? we stayed at the Almond back in March. 8)
 
Robo said:
Rachel went to cancun a few summers ago. If your going for the nightlife its not great - there might be plenty of it but its more the cheesy cheap type.
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Traditional honeymooners clubs, resorts, restaurants and leisure activities all the way
 
sandi said:
If you intend on drinking plenty def go all inclusive, if not I wouldn't bother, esp if it's for more than a week, you'll get bored.
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We're going for a week. The places I'm looking at are around the center of the resort area and I'll be renting a car so we would always pop into downtown or other areas for dinner and/or shopping. We're also planning 2 day trips to see Mayan ruins and such. In other words, I don't think boredom would be a problem... at least not for the missus, as long as the beach is nice (and for me if there's cold beer at the beach bar :lol:)

A bit worried about what Robo says though... I figured there'd be a lot of cheesy bars & discos, but I also thought a town that large (500k people) would have at least a couple of serious clubs :?
 
Morbyd said:
A bit worried about what Robo says though... I figured there'd be a lot of cheesy bars & discos, but I also thought a town that large (500k people) would have at least a couple of serious clubs :?
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In Spain most big towns don't have a serious club
 
sandi said:
Yes same place, :lol:
Did you like it? The seafood restaurant there was yum. 8) although it felt like you were about to float away. :lol:
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we loved it, yeah the seafood restaurant was the nuts, we ate there quite a lot, we had a ground floor room and that was right outside our door. one night the sea was quite choppy and wifey got soaked by a big wave :lol: the Le Jardin was nice too, we ate there just as much also had our special "honeymoon celebration dinner" in there. I used to wake up to the sound of the waves lapping the beach not 50ft from my door.....it was great.

I also discovered "mr smart" a very helpful chap who ran a small giftshop just beyond the complex....up the rugged path down the back of the "bambou" restaurant, he could "get you things" ;)

did you ever get the barstaff to do you a "BBC"??
 
Morbyd said:
We're going for a week. The places I'm looking at are around the center of the resort area and I'll be renting a car so we would always pop into downtown or other areas for dinner and/or shopping. We're also planning 2 day trips to see Mayan ruins and such. In other words, I don't think boredom would be a problem... at least not for the missus, as long as the beach is nice (and for me if there's cold beer at the beach bar :lol:)

A bit worried about what Robo says though... I figured there'd be a lot of cheesy bars & discos, but I also thought a town that large (500k people) would have at least a couple of serious clubs :?
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Don't count on the clubs being serious. It's a college and HS spring break getaway.

As far as going all inclusive, it may be worth it if you are going to be spending a lot of time around the pool/hotel. If not, drinks are pretty cheap in Mexico. The food/water might be worth getting the all inclusive option, however.
 
bripmon said:
As far as going all inclusive, it may be worth it if you are going to be spending a lot of time around the pool/hotel. If not, drinks are pretty cheap in Mexico. The food/water might be worth getting the all inclusive option, however.
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Here's the great part: almost everywhere I've looked at, someone in TripAdvisor noted that all inclusive doesn't include bottled water :lol:

I've heard Cancun is pretty expensive compared to most of Mexico. The hotels certainly are...
 
Morbyd said:
Here's the great part: almost everywhere I've looked at, someone in TripAdvisor noted that all inclusive doesn't include bottled water :lol:

I've heard Cancun is pretty expensive compared to most of Mexico. The hotels certainly are...
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have you read my review of almond morgan bay st lucia? :)
 
In TripAdvisor? No, not yet :lol:

But out of curiosity, I did check... the place is all booked up for New Years.
 
Been o an all inclusive in Cozumel, an Island just off Cancun, not a fan off all inclusive's, as generally they indicate super large Hotels to make this scenario commercially viable, which I'm not a fan off! But generally, you get, what you pay for, and under 'all inclusive holidays', yr limited with choice!

Mexico however is flaming hot, the sun is right up above you, you've been warned!!
 
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