Best Kid-Friendly Hotels in Jamaica

Partnered with Sesame Street, the Beaches brand of resorts offers Muppet-led activities for kids. Beaches Negril comes with a great water park, a pristine, calm beachfront, an extensive, supervised kids' club, and enough entertainment to keep kids totally occupied. The buffet's Kids' Corner comes with quartered grilled cheese, pizza, waffles, and french fries at all three meals. Even the a la carte restaurants have kids' menus -- a rarity among Jamaica all-inclusives.

Kids under 16 eat and sleep for free at this classic luxury resort. Anancy Children's Village has a series of colorful cabins that house supervised activities like video games, arts and crafts, and stories with nap time. From a great playground to a mini-golf course to horseback riding stables to a private dolphin cove, Half Moon's 400-acre property offers ample resources for families, including full-time nannies. Rooms are large, and multiroom villas are also available.

Sugar Mill Falls -- a complex of waterslides, waterfalls, and swinging bridges in a massive lagoon-shaped pool -- is an instant family favorite. Private perches outside the falls help parents keep an eye on their kids. The Kids' Klub, a fenced-off and supervised playground with slides and swings, offers daily activities.

Muppet-themed playgrounds, nurseries, kids' camps, and live shows where staff don furry costumes to entertain mesmerized munchkins make the Beaches Sandy Bay an excellent family pick -- especially with its incredible soft-sand beach -- but it lacks a water park like its sisters. For slightly older guests, the Xbox Oasis above the kids' camp features 18 arcade-style Xbox consoles. For larger families, suites feature master bedrooms for parents in addition to kids' rooms with two twin beds.

Also steeped in Muppet-led sing-alongs, with signposts marking every corner "Sesame Street," the resort has two major advantages over the Beaches Sandy Bay: its huge water park and a nearby golf course for parents. There's also a Fun Club where kids can get their hair braided and learn to tie-dye shirts.

The enormous pool and the smaller kids' pool at the Gran Bahia all-inclusive mega-resort are overflowing with happy tots. Kids can snorkel out on the beach or dance at the mini-disco, and the large, well-organized kids' club helps parents get some alone time. Rooms are large and equipped with couches big enough for kids to crash on.

The kids' club contains lots of games, a small playground, and two shin-deep pools with animal-shaped floaties. Staff members regularly try to get children involved in group activities, and they'll even spend two hours losing to an 8-year-old at Connect Four on a rainy day. There is no water park, but the main pool is enormous and filled with various sports activities.

All three pools are only four feet deep, and kids love the Sunset's elaborate, castle-like water park, with its huge waterslides and its shin-deep play pool for younger swimmers. The kids' club features afternoon relay races that take over the lobby, and Club Mongoose serves as a drop-off center with video games and supervised flop space. Basketball hoops, miniature golf, swing sets, face painting, and various other attractions abound.

Private nannies are available 24 hours a day ($12 per hour before midnight, then $15 per hour), and kids can play at the supervised activities center or take lessons at the free kids' tennis clinic. Younger children can play in the one-foot-deep baby pool, and lifeguards are on the beach. Kids' menus are available for every meal -- picky eaters can live on chicken fingers with ketchup and chocolate milk shakes (should you allow it) -- and in addition to the large standard rooms, private villas are available with various room configurations.

The playground is old and rusty, but families love the lagoon-shaped pool, supervised kids' clubs, and the various sports -- from basketball to Ping-Pong to boccie -- that can be played in the large interior courtyard. Kids' menus are available at every restaurant (including in-room dining), and the large rooms come in several family-friendly combinations.