This year, FTF’s annual awards honor successful family retreats. In the hectic 21st century workaday world, adults and kids are endlessly busy with jobs and school, meetings and homework, personal trainers and afterschool activities. Weekends are full of household chores, more homework (for parents and kids) and separate relaxation activities. Sometimes it’s hard for families to keep track of everyone’s schedules, and although many try, most are no longer successful at eating dinners together regularly.
When it’s time to get away from this routine, more and more adults are in search of a vacation where they can spend precious family-together time. This doesn’t mean sleeping in the same hotel room and going separate ways during the day, but securing family bonds by experiencing both new and favorite pursuits together.
FTF “Top 10 Getaways for Family Togetherness” have been selected for focusing on the kinds of activities that put the “family” back in family vacations. By offering a variety of outdoor adventures, watersports, cultural learning opportunities, crafts, classes, spa treatments and old-fashioned fun, kids, parents and even grandparents can reunite, create memories and, hopefully, return home inspired to find ways to nurture these connections.
Beaches Family Resorts, Caribbean
888/BEACHES
For seasoned all-inclusive resort-goers, the name “Beaches” has a special ring. Beaches has been a leader in the family market in the Caribbean for years, and it just keeps getting better. With four properties in the Caribbean (Beaches Turks & Caicos, and three Beaches Jamaican Resorts: Negril, Sandy Bay, and Boscobel), the chain continues to grow and change, in a good way, as traveling families do the same.
Picking up on the trend that parents and children at all-inclusive resorts now spend more time together and not apart in separate programs, Beaches has flown in the Sesame Street characters to help facilitate this family together time. The song and dance shows, character parades and breakfasts are irresistible. With parents and grandparent participating, special programs like Story Time with Elmo, Bake with Cookie Monster, and Make Music with Bert & Ernie add educational relevance for the tiniest toddlers. And though adults can still drop kids of all ages off at the superior Kids Camp, the camp’s increasingly modular activity set-up allows moms and dads to stick around and fit in as well.
From the Baby’s First Vacation nursery, supervised by “Ultra-Nannies” with comprehensive professional training, to sports and social events for teens, there are a variety of child care and entertainment options at every property. Also included in one price are unlimited watersports; XBOX stations; up to eight restaurants serving Thai, Italian, Caribbean and more; golf; nightly entertainment, and of course, pools and beaches (including Pirates’ Island with waterslides at Beaches Negril and Turks & Caicos), so you’ll have all the fixings for a no-stress vacation. For a treat, Red Lane Spas welcome teens for their own treatments as well as adults.
Beaches resort rooms come in all shapes and sizes. Most rooms, whether deluxe, premium, or suites, sleep up to five guests. Boscobel features luxury family suites with one king or two double beds plus one double pull-out sofa. Rooms at the Disneyesque French Village at Beaches Turks & Caicos adjoin to make one, two, or three bedroom suites that hold up to five, eight, or 11 people, respectively. Personalized butler service is even available for the most high-end suites.
Beaches’ rates are reasonable for an active family ready to take advantage of all that is offered. Land-only, family-of-four rates range around $3,000 per week, depending on number of nights stayed, number and ages of family members traveling, and accommodation style. Look online for low-season specials and single parent months when the single supplement fees are waved.
| What’s the difference between the four Beaches Resorts? Beaches Negril is about a 1-hour 20-minute drive from the Montego Bay Airport, Jamaica, on a new highway. There are no elevators within this compact property, but no stairs either, so families with physically-challenged travelers can use the handicap accessible rooms on the ground floor. The first, and best known, with a new waterpark that is already a hit. Beaches Sandy Bay, Jamaica, is not beachfront. However, many rooms in this all-suite property have seaviews, and it is less expensive than the others. Known for its charm and very European feel, the recently renovated resort features three different a la carte restaurants, and reciprocal privileges with nearby Beaches Negril. Popular with British and Canadian families and less so with teens, who seem to prefer Negril’s more active scene. Beaches Boscobel, Jamaica, was developed on the site of the original Superclubs Boscobel Resort, a perennial family favorite that became run down. A tiring, two-hour drive from the Mo’Bay airport in lively Ocho Rios, it offers easy shopping, a golf course, and the wonderful Dunn’s River Falls for local excursions. Popular with grandparents because it has elevators to upper level rooms.
Beaches Turks & Caicos is the largest resort, and it's very close to the TCI International Airport (but more expensive to fly to from most US cities). This resort has larger family rooms clustered in three different Euro-styled villages, and a large pool complex with pirate ship and many play areas. This is the property for snorkel and scuba lovers. |
