Since there's an abundant amount of reviews for this hotel, let me give you my review as a comment on what everybody else experienced.

Before I do, let me mention two things that I haven't found in other reviews:
The hotel has a policy that requires under-three-year-olds to wear swim-diapers when in the pool, regardless of how long they might have been potty-trained. This would have been a surprise to us, since our barely three-year-old had been without diapers for a year, so naturally we wouldn't have brought any. They are available at the gift shop, but probably at a price... Since our daughter is small, though, and had just turned three, and nobody ever asked us about her wearing diapers, maybe that policy is not too strictly inforced..

The second thing I want to mention is the dive base, which we found amazingly thorough! Believe me, being a PADI-base doesn't necessarily mean quality or safety, but this here does. If your last dive was more than two years ago, the have you take a refresher class (one morning, a video, small written test, two hours brush-up in the pool and a shallow dive, all for 80 $) This might be a bit of a nuisance to people who are experienced divers and just didn't get to dive within the last two years. For me it was perfect, as it showed me how much I had forgotten since I got certified or had my last dive. After that, they offer two complementary dives each day, a deep one at 9:30 am and a shallow one at 11:30 am. Service is amazing, you don't even need to carry your gear or set up your equipment (which, by the way, is also included in the price) And yes, alas, the reef is dead. Mostly.

Now back to what everybody else experienced too:
Yes, the hotel is a two hour drive from the airport, the beach is small and the spa is expensive, it is a Sesame-street- sponsoring family resort which therefore has a lot of excited kids and, well, Sesame-Street characters running around, but all these things are information available on their website and should not come as a surprise for the informed traveler, so I think they should not go into the review.

The restaurants are above average, some more so than others - we didn't go to the adult-only, the Tex-Mex was so-so at best, the buffet really good and the Italian restaurant exquisit!

Drinks were interesting, a cosmopolitan apparently consists of white Jamaica rum and cranberry juice, and rarely does a drink you ordered before contain the same stuff as the last time you had it, but they are really yummy! Kingsley even went out of his way to create us a drink in the colors of our national flag (which, since it contains black, is not THAT easy)

Child-care was great.

The X-box-room was mostly empty and all but three consoles seemed to be working fine.

The waterpark is a blast! (Hight restriction is indeed 104 cm, for the big slides, but there are medium-sized ones and kiddie ones, so everybody should be fine. Plus, I think I've seen lifeguards make exceptions.)

Deck-chairs, pool towels, seats in the restaurants and activities were amply available at all hours.

Rooms were nice and clean, no outages whatsoever, hot water at all times and with pressure! (They do have shower-heads, though, that can do massage, trickle, or normal, so in case your water pressure seems to be low, check whether your shower-head is set on trickle!)

Yes, there is wear and tear, but in our opinion not due to poor maintenance or upkeep, but simply owing to the age of the whole complex. While we were there, they were working on something all the time, though, painting etc, so they DO make an effort.

Here's the catch, now: When we were there, the hotel seems to have been only half full (ie at 50% occupancy) Due to a waitress, it was booked solid from December to March and will be again in May. She said March was "very terrible". And I can definitely see how everything would be much less smooth and agreeable, had there been double the amount of people around - and probably at a much higher price than what we paid for!

Which is why I don't give this place its full five stars, even though our experience definitely was five-star-worthy! We have traveled to LOTS of family resorts (the operative term here is FAMILY! It's not a luxury couples-only resort and doesn't strive to be so!) in Europe and the Mediterranean, and this one was by far the best!

We'd go back immediately and any time if there weren't so many other parts of the world we haven't explored and might be worth experiencing too!

We went to Beaches during April vacation, had a blast. Right when you get off the plane beaches employees are waiting for you. You go in to a room and have drinks and then you bring your drinks in a van which i thought was weird but they said it was fine. The ride from airport was very long but did not mine, you could site see. Just hold on they do drive alittle fast and crazy. They ask if you want to stop at a rest area dont be afraid people are nice.The resort was very nice, rooms were great. The resort is seated on a hill so be ready to do alot of stair climbing.Everyone at the resort was really nice. Spa was also nice. Beach is small , we just put towels on chairs early. Pools are clean and nice. The guys that work down at beach are really nice, ask for Greg, he was so nice to us, would get us drinks and would talk to us for awhile. At this resort you are not allowed to tip, i guess if someone sees you the person can lose his job??? Not sure if that is true. Had a really good time would go back. Went with 15 year child and husband, they enjoyed it. Going back in Feb, but going to beaches Negril. If anyone went there please let me know how it was.

Our kids, 6 and 9, had a great time which was the whole point of booking this resort. The Kids Club was excellent and our boys made a number of friends there.

The staff was uniformly polite and accommodatnf although one of my golfing partners had money stolen from his room. He had it out in the open and not in the safe which probably proves too much of a temptation to staff who do not make much money.

It's too badsuch a nice staff has to labor with an aging hotle which is badly in need of a refurbishment. Our room had a number of dirty spots on the floor and curtains and a big chunck of the wall in the bathroom was missing. The hot water would go out periodically as well as the electricity. But never for too long.

The most disapointing thing for us adults was the small, scruffy beach. Certainly not the idyllic Caribbean beach you hope for when paying such a large sum to stay.

The food was abundant but average. The best restarant was Elenor's which does not allow kids under 12. We went there a number of times when our kids were in the Kids Club fr the evening.

I would not book here again. The infrastructure is too old and crumbling and the two hour drive from the airport is a pain. There is little to do outside the resort except for tours. We enjoyed the river tubing and Dunns River Falls.

In short, young kids will have a great time. Adults need to lower their expectations. Again, the staff is great.

We took our family of six to Beaches Boscobel over spring break last month. We were so disappointed with our overall experience.

The people of Jamaica are wonderful, the culture is interesting and robust the country is beautiful but Beaches Boscobel was overall a very disappointing experiencel and we did not want to spend thousands of dollars to be this disappointed.

There is a very small beach, no fish in the ocean for diving or snorkeling, flat tennis balls and broken tennis racquetts if you can even find ones to play with, broken Xbox games in over half of the designated room, the food was horrible and never set up or ready to open on time but all of that is tolerable because you are on vacation.

The real issues game with the Security, yes our room was broken into and all of our money was stolen when we had to change rooms because we got sick and needed to tend to a severe asthma attack from the smell of newly painted walls right before we were placed in our rooms. The lack of response, help and support to even try and get some cash though our bank using the front desk was nonexistent. The management was and is still trying to tell us why it is not there fault and security is still investigating our theft and will get back to us with a full report, right?.

The madness in all of this is that we wanted nothing but to be treated with respect and courtesy. Some help in getting a little cash to tip the people that helped us that needed to be tipped, From the management to the security team (We are not sure what their purpose was) to their customer service it has really been an awful experience for our family in booking and vacationing with Beaches. The management and customer service has spent so much time telling us we in so many ways how they are not responsible for the initial rooms we were put into to the theft in our room and that our opinion does not matter or count but they hope we will be back again to vacation with them. I think we will book else where next time.