Sandals Resorts

Sandals has been in the all-inclusive business since 1981, when Gordon "Butch" Stewart bought a tired hotel on the beach at Montego Bay and rebuilt it around one idea, that a Caribbean holiday should arrive fully paid for. More than forty years on, the company he started runs 17 resorts and still operates out of Jamaica, now under his son Adam. The formula has been copied endlessly. It has rarely been beaten.

The reach is the first thing that stands out. Sandals spreads across eight islands, with seven resorts in Jamaica alone and others on Saint Lucia, Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Curacao, and Saint Vincent. That gives you a real choice of coastline and character without leaving the brand, from the Pitons rising behind the beach in Saint Lucia to the quieter water off Curacao. Every property is couples-only, adults 18 and up, which keeps the tone calm and the pools free of inflatable armbands. Families are pointed to Beaches, the sister brand built for them.

What all-inclusive actually covers here is the part people underestimate. The nightly rate folds in the room, every meal across the resort's restaurants, unlimited premium drinks, land and water sports, and the tips, so there is no folder of add-on charges waiting at checkout. Watersports go well past the usual kayaks, with scuba diving included for certified guests, one of the few luxury brands to treat diving as part of the deal rather than an upsell. Roundtrip airport transfers are handled too. The flight is the main thing you still book yourself.

Sandals also has a habit of doing things in the region first. It opened the Caribbean's first swim-up pool bar back in 1984, and in December 2016 it introduced the Caribbean's first overwater villas at Sandals Royal Caribbean, private bungalows on stilts with glass floor panels and steps down into the sea. Those overwater suites, along with the swim-up rooms, are the categories people save for, and the top tiers come with a dedicated butler trained and certified for the role, staff who handle everything from unpacking to booking your dinners.

There is substance behind the beach too. The Sandals Foundation, set up in 2009, funds schools, reef protection, and community projects across the islands where the resorts operate, so the money coming in does some work locally. It is the kind of detail that is easy to skip past on a booking page and worth knowing when you are choosing between brands that otherwise look alike.

The one honest caveat is popularity. Sandals is a known quantity, which means the best resorts and the overwater villas book out early, especially over winter and around Valentine's, and the crowd skews heavily toward honeymooners and anniversaries. If that is exactly your trip, it is a feature rather than a flaw. Either way, this is the brand that wrote the rules for luxury all-inclusive, and it still plays the game better than almost anyone in the category. Start here, and judge every other all-inclusive brand against what it does.