Beaches, Negril has
200 rooms and suites. Their basic room with two double beds is around 230 sq. ft. What sets this apart on our list are the
five pools staffed by lifeguards. The resort also has fun
pajama parties for the kids and lessons in
sandcastle building. (Hey, where is the sign-up list for adults?) One of the funnest features is their true
Japanese restaurant where the food is prepared tableside.
Kids love this!
Parents - you get
butler service if you're in any of the two-bedroom suites. Your
butler will arrange private dinners and custom activities. Beaches, Negril also offers couples' spa services such as
"Scrub-a-Dub-Dub: Two in the Tub" (woo-hoo!), and all-adult beach volleyball.
If you're familiar with the
Beaches' Caribbean Adventure with Sesame Street program, with those zany characters, you'll be happy to know the same program is here.
A trend that Beaches is in tune to is that of bringing children along on the
wedding and
honeymoon. Beaches appropriately calls this
FamilyMoon and has packages for the family with free group portraits, T-shirts.
Kids can spend afternoons cooling off in the
Pirate's Island water park with its
204-foot spiraling slide, their "too-awesome"
Splash Deck, and my favorite, the
394-foot lazy-river ride.
Like our
Turks & Caicos Beaches, Beaches, Negril offers an up-to-date video game room and kids activities based around themes. However, at Beaches, Negril, their
Kids Kamp for kids 12 and under distinguishes itself from other resorts in the Beaches system by painstakingly working the cultural rhythm of Jamaica into kids activities. For example,
Dance Class with Zoe focuses on calypso or reggae.
Elmo becomes a storyteller of Jamaican legends.
Expect your little ones to be greeted by a kids' coordinator with
Big Bird cookies and a drink!
One of our best friends left the coziness of her small USA city to live in the enchanted Turks & Caicos. Why? Because she loves to dive! It's known as one of the premiere dive locations in the Caribbean, and Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort introduced their Bubble Makers program - not yet available elsewhere - for young would-be divers, teaching them basic underwater-breathing skills. Using real scuba apparatus, kids 7 and 8 become familiar with the equipment in a pool while hunting for underwater toys at a depth of 6 feet.
Manager says he can't keep parents away - they want to participate, too! There is a more advanced version, called Seal Team, for 9 and 10 year olds. A five day National Geographic scuba program teaches children 10 and up how to actually ocean dive - and how to identify fish and reefs.
Then there is the Beaches Kids Kamp for children 5 and under. They are separated from the 6 to 12 year olds and have their own play space. We thought highly of the Beach Science program for the kids 4 to 7, which mixes education and fun and encourages budding scientists to dig for sharks' teeth, or to launch amateur rockets off the beach.
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