Exchanging for All-Inclusives - Question about meal plan fees

I've never stayed at an all-inclusive before and thought it would be nice to try one. I saw that there was an exchange available through Interval International at the Azul Beach Hotel in Puerto Morelos, it gets good reviews and sounds lovely.

But when going through the booking process I see that there are daily "MANDATORY ALL-INCLUSIVE/MEAL PLAN FEES" that total $154 pp per day, and 50% of that for kids. So the total would be $380 per day for our little family. When I checked to see what the price would be if I booked the resort directly and it was $428 per night total for the same room type. So that only saves us $48 per night.

Is this common with all all-inclusives when exchanging with timeshare points? The daily fee totals more than I would normally spend nightly for a hotel, and about what I would pay for an upscale 4 star hotel. And I found some other all-inclusives in the area, that are probably not as nice as this one, but are well under $380 per day. Just seems silly to use up my exchange points and then have to pay almost $400 per day just to eat and drink, we would never spend that much each day if we were going out to restaurants.

Anyway, just wondering if I'm missing something or if this is the standard way these all-inclusives work.

tonyai5 wrote:

Anyway, just wondering if I'm missing something or if this is the standard way these all-inclusives work.

This is indeed the way many all-inclusive (AI) resorts work. Why the fees are so exorbitant and unreasonable is beyond me other than "This is what we can get away with charging so this is what we will charge."

I am actually a high level member at the azul resorts. The rates members get are lower for the all inclusive than the regular guest if you are booking on your own. But you are also getting more inclusives than if you went as a regular guest. You get free transfers, free in room wifi, free candlelit donner on the beach, free premium 24/7 room service, butler service and more that regular guests dont get. These are in addition to the regular meals, alcohol etc inclusives. Plus these are 5 star upscale resorts..great kids camp and teen club. They also have four el dorado adult only resorts. The member rooms are much nicer than the reg guest rooms and it also depends on which room you are comparing to since no reg guest room is the same as any of the member room

non all inclusive (AI) resorts in the Carribean (copy and paste url):

http://travelwithkids.about.com/od/caribbeanresorts/tp/Caribbean-Resorts---not-AI.htm