- My family, my brother’s family, and some cousins booked a weeklong trip at an all-inclusive resort.
- Traveling in a group had a lot of advantages, including giving the kids some independence.
- That said, traveling with multiple families can take more work and has some challenges.
This past Thanksgiving, my family traveled with my brother’s family, which included his wife and two children, and our adult cousins to Beaches Negril in Jamaica.
The 20-acre all-inclusive resort is located on the western coastline of the island on Seven-Mile Beach and had everything we needed on-site — accommodations, multiple restaurants and cafés, pools, and activities for adults and kids.
Since our three families live in different parts of the US, we each made our own travel arrangements and arrived on the same day at different times.
Although traveling as a big group can be tricky, we’d absolutely do it again — especially if the destination is an all-inclusive resort.
We quickly discovered that multi-family traveling has its perks
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The resort felt like a manageable size, and everyone in our group stayed busy — including the kids, who got a taste of independence on the property.
Since there were three tweens on our trip, our families felt safe permitting them to do some activities together without adult supervision.
They enjoyed the freedom to go to the on-site ice cream shop and the café, play miniature golf and shuffleboard, and participate in resort-organized beach volleyball and dance parties on their own.
We also found that when an adult in our group wanted to do an activity, they would sometimes bring all the children with them. This allowed different groups to bond and for parents to take turns relaxing.
For example, my husband and I took our daughter, niece, and nephew snorkeling while their parents enjoyed some beach time.
Later in the trip, my daughter had a blast with her cousins, aunt, and uncle on the lazy river and water slides while my husband and I went paddle boarding.
It was also fun to divide into smaller groups based on who was most interested in which restaurants.
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One night, a few of us went out for sushi while one group went to the Caribbean seafood spot, and another enjoyed made-to-order Neapolitan pizzas.
As part of a big group, we also got to share and try more dishes when we dined together without wasting food. At the property’s family-style Peruvian restaurant, we ordered nearly the entire menu.
One of my favorite family memories of the trip is still passing around the various plates, tasting many different dishes, and talking about our favorites throughout the dinner.
Still, visiting an all-inclusive resort with multiple families takes work
Most of the resort’s restaurants can accommodate walk-ups, but a few require reservations for dinner. A larger group can definitely make this more challenging and require extra flexibility with restaurant choices and dining times.
Also, here (and at many similar resorts), you can’t make dining reservations before your stay. I suggest trying to do so upon arrival so you have the most options.
If you’re in a larger group, you’ll also want to consider transportation needs if you venture off of resort property, especially if you prefer to travel together.
We were able to book a passenger van for our trips off-site, which was ideal.
Overall, we’d do it all again
We all had such a great time that we wanted to take advantage of the resort’s incentive to book a future trip before departing.
However, we were quickly reminded that it takes a lot of time to agree on which destination to go to next and, most challenging of all, find dates that accommodate everyone’s schedules.
