Check out Jamaica's Family-Friendly Jewel Runaway Bay Resort

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When the brand new water park opens here in March 2015, it will only enhance the family-friendly focus of Jewel Runaway Bay, an all-inclusive Jamaican resort between Ocho Rios and Montego Bay.

I think this resort is a great value – and great choice – for families. Because it’s mid-sized, and not a mega-resort, it has a personal and friendly feel. Yet it still has all of the amenities you’d find in a big resort.

During our stay in January, we didn’t experience any of the common beach resort problems. We always found plenty of pool and beach chairs (no getting up early to reserve spots), and never waited in line to eat, or compete for dinner reservations.

It was all totally chill. Do what you want, when you feel like it.

There was nothing terribly Jamaican about it, other than a lot of people saying “Ya mon.” But for a vacation where we mostly wanted to rotate between the beach and pool, it was perfect.

This was our first time staying in an all-inclusive, and while I’m not sold on this style of travel (I like to explore!), I loved not having to lay out money every few hours to pay for everyone’s food and entertainment. All the food, drinks, activities and day care are included. Even the WiFi here is free, although the signal isn’t great. Still, free WiFi is a rare perk in Caribbean resorts.

The best thing about Jewel Runaway Bay? It brought the stress and cost of traveling with kids way, way down.

What works for families:

Everything! This resort is all about families. The star attraction is the new water park. It has a 3-story water slide for older kids, a play area for little kids, and a lazy river for all ages. It wasn’t quite finished when we visited in January, but my kids stared at it longingly, saying, “That is gonna be so awesome!”

The resort’s adjacent Red Ruby Ranch – accessed by golf cart through an under-the-street tunnel – runs all sorts of unique kids programs, like horse grooming and nighttime laser tag. The kids club for little kids has dress-up closets, and they do activities like planting flowers and making pizzas.

My kids loved the tween/teen room, an air-conditioned space where they took sun breaks to play Xbox and shoot pool.

Around the three swimming pools, kid-friendly food is

served all day and night (soft-serve ice cream cones, nachos, etc.) so my kids could grab a snack whenever they wanted. It was so nice to let my 11- and 9-year-olds walk around without the fear of them getting lost, and knowing they weren’t far away. That’s a big perk of a smaller resort like this.

The spa, while not fancy, was family-friendly and offered a lot of kids’ services. While I was having my nails done, my daughter was in the same room having her hair braided with beads. We saw a family come in, with kids in the 10-15 age range, and go for massages together.

Boat trips were available, but we opted instead to snorkel off the beach and use the free, two-person kayaks. Size-wise, they were fine for kids and adults. So we did a little paddling in the calm morning ocean, a family activity I recommend. Even if you just want to go for 20 minutes, that’s fine with the water sports staff.

Among the all-day-and-night resort activities, we liked the beachside bingo (with prizes), the magic show, the evening crab races ($3 per bet – we won twice!), and dancing along with the steel drum band. They jammed!

Tip: Grab a few slices of banana bread from the breakfast buffet, walk over to the beach, throw out a few crumbs, and watch schools of fish swim right up to you. It was our daily post-breakfast ritual, and one of our favorite activities at the resort. Each day we had different schools of fish snacking on our food, including cool-looking needlefish.

What doesn’t work for families:

The resort’s concrete walls make the WiFi signal weak, so you can’t stream Netflix (or other services), which could impact your downtime or nighttime entertainment. Go out on your room’s balcony for a better signal. The pools are not lit for nighttime swimming, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. We did, but we were the only ones I ever saw in the pool at night during our 4 nights there.

Room cost:

Prices start at $279/night for double occupancy.

The Hotel:

It’s an older hotel, so if you want new and sleek, this is not your place. But it’s clean, comfortable, homey, and has everything a big resort has. The 266-room resort is spread out, so it doesn’t feel crowded. Everything’s within a few-minute walk.

Besides three pools, the hotel has a beautiful, clean beach with shallow water. We fed schools of fish while standing in waist-high water near the shoreline, and snorkeled off the beach (not a ton of fish, but enough that it’s worthwhile). The beach is long enough to take walks up and down it, but I wouldn’t call it a large beach. It’s well maintained, though, and the water is gorgeous see-thru blue. It’s a private beach, so there are no vendors going from person to person hawking bracelets or wood carvings. Another big plus: I never felt uncomfortable leaving my valuables unattended when I went into the water (I’ve been to other places in Jamaica where that wasn’t the case).

Being a family resort, evenings are low-key. It’s unlikely you’ll be kept awake every night by loud, drunken parties. There is entertainment and live music, but it wraps up early.

The Rooms:

The bathrooms could use a remodel, but the rooms are large, clean and comfortable with private patios facing the ocean (or the new water park). We slept four people comfortably in one regular room, with plenty of room to spare. The resort recently added new beds, sheets and towels, which is nice. The in-room refrigerators are stocked with free drinks, and there’s a large flat screen with a lot of cable channels.

Amenities:

The aforementioned Red Ruby Ranch is the resort’s most unique feature, and a big part of the all-day kid programming. We saw people of all ages playing beach volleyball, golf and tennis, plus pool and checkers at the open-air beachside bar. The decent-sized workout room – open 24 hours – had typical but not-new gym equipment and TVs, and offered a few classes.

The concierge could not have been nicer or more helpful whenever we had questions. And the activities desk was always staffed with people ready to arrange everything from a tour of Bob Marley’s home to a swimming with the dolphins outing (for an extra cost).

Dining at Jewel Runaway Bay

Food options here consist of a huge buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus several restaurants. The food at the resort is good, not great. But it’s plentiful, varied, and easily accessible. The buffet had a lot of different options, including freshly made fruit smoothies, Jamaican fish specialties like saltfish, and a table full of cute little bite-sized desserts. We never felt like we were eating the same thing day after day. We just ate A LOT (as is known to happen at all-inclusives).

Our favorite restaurant, Platinum, is their fanciest restaurant and specializes in fun food presentations. I don’t want to give away all the surprises, but to give you an idea: the Cheesecake Checkerboard I ordered for dessert came on an actual checkerboard, so my son and I played checkers while we ate it.

We also were fans of the Court Jester Pizzeria, with tasty crust and good topping options. And the green tea ice cream at Jade Samura, their cook-on-the-table Japanese restaurant, was so good that I couldn’t stop reaching my spoon into my daughter’s bowl.