My Experience Booking with Cheap Caribbean for All Inclusive Beach Vacations

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This post is all about booking with Cheap Caribbean.

Booking With Cheap Caribbean

Are you planning a Caribbean beach vacation soon, or maybe just dreaming about planning an all inclusive beach vacation? If so, you may have heard of CheapCaribbean.com and wondered if it is a reputable site. I know I definitely did. Since I had trouble finding reviews and honest experiences booking with Cheap Caribbean, I felt compelled to share my experience and thoughts on booking with Cheap Caribbean. So, let’s dive into my review of this popular all inclusive beach vacation booking site!

*Disclaimer: This post reflects my personal experience booking with Cheap Caribbean. While I’m sharing my honest opinions and experiences, your experience may differ. I cannot guarantee that others will have the same level of satisfaction (or challenges) I encountered. Always do your own research before booking to ensure the platform meets your expectations.

While you are here, Take a look at my other beach vacation content for everything you need for the perfect beach vacay!

BEACH VACATIONS

*Be sure to check out my other beach vacation must-read posts!

Tropical Deluxe Princess Punta Cana: Our Honest Experience and Review (Coming Soon!)
Punta Cana Vacation Packing List: Everything You Need!
Scape Park Punta Cana: What to Know Before You Go!
The Best One Piece Swimsuits on Amazon in 2024
The Ultimate List of Amazon Summer Essentials

Table of Contents

First Impressions: Experience Using the Cheap Caribbean Website

Screenshot from CheapCaribbean.com

The first thing you’ll notice on the Cheap Caribbean website is the bright and vibrant colors, which I found appealing. At the top of the page, you’ll see the package builder, where you can begin building your vacation package. You can easily toggle between Hotel + Flight, or Hotel only options. Overall, the website was really easy to use. There were a few times that the loading time was a little on the slow side, but nothing that made it too annoying.

Cheap Caribbean – OneSearch Feature (A Very Helpful Tool)

Screenshot from CheapCaribbean.com

One thing that I found really useful on the Cheap Caribbean website was the “OneSearch” feature. This feature allows you to search all dates & destinations in one view. For me, this was really helpful, because when I started browsing for beach vacations, I was still unsure of where we wanted to go. Having this option made it really easy to compare the costs between the different destinations. So, if you are in the beginning stages or just tossing around the idea of booking with Cheap Caribbean, I highly recommend using the OneSearch feature, so you can see all your options in one place!

Search Options and Filters

I also found the available search options and filters on Cheap Caribbean really useful. You can easily sort by price, hotel stars, and top resorts. There were so many filtering options, so you can narrow down your list of resorts based on the features and criteria that you are specifically looking for.

Cheap Caribbean Website

Overall, I thought the Cheap Caribbean website was extremely easy to use. I had no problems searching and finding exactly what I needed. The website made it extremely easy to book, pay, and be on your way to the beach in no time!

Pricing Comparisons: Cheap Caribbean vs. Other Booking Options

I know you’re wondering about the pricing on Cheap Caribbean and how comparable it is to other options. Well, when I booked my vacation, I did my homework, and was unable to find prices that came anywhere near the prices I could get on Cheap Caribbean. I checked popular booking website like Expedia, Booking.com, Travelocity and many others. Alternative options like booking our flights separate, or only booking the resort through Cheap Caribbean, were explored. I even checked booking the hotel directly from the hotel website. All of these comparisons just showed that the price I could get by booking the Resort and flight together on Cheap Caribbean, were just simply unmatched.

How to Save with Cheap Caribbean

In my opinion, the real savings are in the package deal when you include both your flight and hotel. I also price watched for a while and found that there weren’t many price fluctuations. So, I don’t really think it is necessary to book super far in advance. I watched the price of my resort all the way up until the week we left, and the price stayed pretty steady.

All-inclusive – Be sure to watch for the “European Plan”

All-inclusive was an absolute MUST for my trip, so I want to point out that you do need to watch closely on the resorts to make sure they are all-inclusive. While most of them on Cheap Caribbean are all-inclusive, there are a few that are not. For example, many of the resorts in the Bahamas were not all-inclusive. I typically included “All-inclusive” in my search filters, so I was sure I wasn’t seeing resorts that were not all-inclusive. Another thing I noticed is that there are many resorts that have “European Plan” in the title. This means that it is NOT an all-inclusive. The European Plan price only covers the cost of the hotel or resort, but it does not include meals and drinks.

Photo from the beach at my resort in Punta Cana!

Beach Vacation Cheap Caribbean

One-Stop Shop: Booking Flights, Transportation, and Excursions

As I mentioned already, the price savings booking with Cheap Caribbean are in the packaged Flight + Resort options. So, for the most cost savings, I recommend booking the flight and resort all together.

Booking with Cheap Caribbean is seriously a one-stop shop! I was very pleased with the extras that you could add. You can include EVERYTHING you need for your beach vacation right there on Cheap Caribbean website. You are able to add your transportation to and from the airport and you can add-on excursions or even just purchase excursion vouchers that you can redeem and schedule at your resort when you arrive. It was really nice to be able to do everything in one place and in one package. You will have one trip confirmation to keep track of with all your trip details. I was very impressed with the convenience!

Insurance Options: What You Need to Know

Now the fun part…insurance. I have quite a bit to say on this topic, because I learned a lot when I booked my trip. So, you’re in luck because I am going to share some really good tips on the Cheap Caribbean travel protection options.

First, it is really convenient that you can purchase the insurance for your trip as part of your package. Remember when I mentioned earlier that Cheap Caribbean is seriously a one-stop shop? I really meant that, you can literally get everything you need in one place. They make it VERY easy to purchase the insurance, and all the details are laid out for each option.

Insurance Options Booking with Cheap Caribbean

You will have the option to add your insurance after you select your add-ons. When I booked my vacation, I had two options for insurance. *Please note that these options may change at any time by Cheap Caribbean. Please do not base any decisions on the insurance information I am providing below, and instead check current offers directly on Cheap Caribbean’s website.

Option 1: Standard Travel Protection Plus: Full Travel Credit

With the Standard Travel Protection, you can cancel your vacation for any reason, and you will receive a travel credit for the total trip cost, less the cost of the travel protection. You will also get the standard medical and emergency protection.

Option 2: Enhanced Travel Protection Plus: 100% Money Back

With the Enhanced Travel Protection, you can cancel your vacation for any reason, and you will receive a REFUND to your original form of payment for the total trip cost, less the cost of the travel protection. You also get the standard medical and emergency protection.

So, the main difference between the two options is the standard plan you receive travel credits, and the enhanced plan, you receive a refund. Honestly the price difference between these two options when I booked was very minimal. This is the one thing I would change if I could do it all over. We selected the Standard Travel Protection. Our thinking was that credits are perfectly fine, because we are definitely going to go on this trip. We weren’t worried about getting our money back. However, we ran into a interesting circumstance that we had never considered. Keep reading for more details about what happened!

When Plans Changed: My Experience Canceling and Rebooking

When booking a Caribbean vacation, many times you run the risk of weather issues. Our trip was scheduled for mid-August 2024, which is obviously hurricane season. Unfortunately, when you have two kids that are very active in sports, your summers are not very open, and once school starts, it gets even worse. So, we had just a small window in mid-August that we could fit this vacation in. While we would rather have not went during hurricane season, we really didn’t have much choice, and decided to take the risk.

Hurricane Threat

It turned out that taking that risk cost us. We were scheduled to fly out on a Sunday, and that Friday evening, we saw a hurricane was being forecasted to hit Punta Cana early in the week we were planning to be there. With hurricanes, things are constantly changing, so we decided to see how things looked on Saturday and then make a decision. Well, as luck would have it, Saturday morning things did not look good, and we started trying to figure out what options we may have.

If you’re interested, we were new to hurricane tracking and we started following “Mike’s Weather Page” and he was awesome!! He has so many cool resources available!

Our Solution to the Hurricane Threat

One idea we had was to choose a different location, where there is not an active hurricane threat. So, we got back on Cheap Caribbean and started scouring and researching our options. We were able to put together a really good package to go to Cabo for pretty much the same cost. We definitely had our hearts set on Punta Cana, but we knew with our limited availability, it was probably best to just choose a new location.

Requesting the Change with Cheap Caribbean

So, once we determined exactly what we wanted to switch to, we called in to Cheap Caribbean to see if they could change it for us. The customer service representatives at Cheap Caribbean were very courteous and kind as we explained our dilemma. They agreed to cancel our current vacation and use the travel credits towards booking our new trip to Cabo. They had our new vacation package ready to go, and we were feeling pretty confident. Then, when it came time to pay/finalize, the representative wasn’t able to get it to process. Our customer service representative spoke with management, and determined they were not going to be able to make the change. Apparently, it takes 2 to 3 business days to post your travel credits to your account.

So, even though they knew we had the travel credits coming, they could not book the trip without the travel credits already available in our account. It was a major let down. We knew this meant we were going to have to completely cancel and start unpacking! 😒

MAJOR TIP!!!! Get the Enhanced Travel Protection!! If we had, we could have simply cancelled our trip, and rebooked a new one. We could have received a refund for our original trip, and been headed to Mexico!

Overall, I was seriously impressed with Cheap Caribbean’s customer service. I could tell they really wanted to make it work for us.

One last customer service experience worth mentioning. We also used our travel protection insurance about a month after we initially booked when we noticed some bad reviews on our original resort. Cheap Caribbean changed our resort for us, without questions. A+ service!

Photo of our resort in Punta Cana.

punta cana resort

What I Booked: A Closer Look at My First Package and Rebooking

Let’s dive into the details of what I booked and why. I am one of those people that has to research relentlessly, and that is exactly what I did. I had looked at so many resorts and locations that my head was spinning. After considering all the gorgeous beach vacation options, we settled on Punta Cana. The vacation we were going for was an all-inclusive getaway for relaxation. We wanted to spend our days lounging at the beach and in the ocean. We wanted to hang out at the pool and spend most of our time at our resort. Many of our past vacations were fun filled, but busy. We wanted this one to be a laid back, do nothing, plan nothing, just enjoy paradise. Punta Cana fit that bill for us!

Choosing Our Punta Cana Resort

Once we chose Punta Cana, I researched and used the filters on Cheap Caribbean to narrow it down to the resorts we felt best met our needs. We wanted a gorgeous beach, clean resort and rooms, and multiple pools! The resort we ended up going to was the Tropical Deluxe Princess – Family Suite (Punta Cana). I will say that we absolutely LOVED this place. It was everything we hoped it would be!

Panoramic video of the beach at Tropical Deluxe Princess, Punta Cana

Photos of the Tropical Deluxe Princess Resort, Punta Cana

punta cana beach
Tropical Deluxe Princess Punta Cana Pool

Selecting Flights

Since we were packaging our flights with our resort, the next step in the booking process was selecting the flights. Cheap Caribbean made that a breeze. There were tons of options to choose from, and we were able to select the flights that worked best for us.

Add Extras – Excursions and Transportation

When you have your flights selected, you’ll be presented with the options to add on extras like transportation and excursions. We added the shared transportation with Amstar. The cost was reasonable and saved us from trying to locate or book separate transportation. We also added on an excursion voucher, so we could book an excursion at our resort. We didn’t want to preschedule an excursion because we weren’t sure what day or what excursion we wanted. The excursion voucher was a great option for us.

Choose Travel Insurance

The final step is to add your Travel Protection. While both options are great, if I could do it over, I would pay the slightly higher cost for the Enhanced Travel Protection, for the reasons previously discussed. The whole booking process was simple!

Since we ended up having to cancel our vacation due to the hurricane threat, we received travel credits. I believe we cancelled on Saturday, and our travel credits were available to use by Tuesday. We waited about a month before we rebooked, as finding new dates was no easy task. When we were ready to book, we were able to simply rebuild the entire package, and then select our travel credits as our payment method. Redeeming the travel credits was straight-forward and simple!

Top 10 Beach Vacation Must-Haves

Since booking with Cheap Caribbean is a breeze, the next step is to make sure you have everything you need for the perfect beach vacation. Here are my TOP TEN Beach Vacation Essentials!

  1. Waterproof Beach Bag – This is a MUST! We carried our beach bag everywhere. Here is the one I purchased and LOVED: Best Beach Bag
  2. Waterproof Phone Cases – I bought a multi-pack of these and we wore them around our neck. You are going to want to take photos, and you can wear these in the water to get the best shots! I can vouch for these waterproof phone cases: Waterproof Phone Cases
  3. Water Shoes – We did not pack these, and wished we would have. Our excursion was to Scape Park and shoes were required on the zip lines. We had to get our tennis shoes soaking wet. Don’t be like us… bring water shoes! Adult Water Shoes | Kids Water Shoes
  4. Beach Cup – You can’t drink the water in Punta Cana, so if you are vacationing to a beach location where you can’t drink the water, be sure to bring an insulated beach cup. They will fill these for you at the bars/buffets. These BrüMate Era Leakproof Tumblers (#ad) are my Favorite!
  5. Sun Care Essentials. Important Tip! Bring your own sunscreen. The prices of the sunscreen at the resort shops is unbelievable! This sunscreen is my favorite: Sunscreen SPF 50
  6. Bug Spray and Itch Relief. While we did not have any bug issues, many travelers note sand fleas and mosquitos. We packed bug spray and anti-itch cream to have on hand.
  7. Cheap Sunglasses. Don’t bring expensive sunglasses. I also recommend bringing multiple pairs. Our family lost two pairs in the ocean! Grab a multi-pack of sunglasses, and you’ll be all set. Multi-pack Men’s Polarized Sunglasses | Women’s 3-pack Sunglasses
  8. Sun Hat/Straw Hat. These beach hats are so cute and a MUST for a beach vacation! Sun Hat for Women | Sun Hat for Men
  9. Flip Flops/Sandals – Be sure to get fast drying beach sandals or flip flops. I ended up with blisters from constantly putting on my flip flops that were fabric and never dried. Check out these great options for everyone in the family. Men’s Beach Sandals | Women’s Beach Sandals | Kids Beach Sandals
  10. Swimwear. Obviously, you need to bring your favorite swimwear, but I have to share these seriously awesome swimming trunks that I got for my son. They have compression boxer briefs built-in, so no chafing. Check them out here: Boy’s Swim Trunks

Is Cheap Caribbean Worth It? Would I Book Again?

Absolutely, Yes! I would go through Cheap Caribbean again in a heartbeat. Honestly, I know I will book again. I was pleased with their website, the booking process was simple, the customer service was great, and their pricing was unmatched.

Conclusion: Final Thoughts and Recommendations

While I had some challenges with my vacation and had to make changes, booking with Cheap Caribbean was a good choice for my family. When we did go on our vacation, everything was great and we didn’t encounter any issues. I am very pleased, and will definitely be a repeat Cheap Caribbean customer for my beach vacations!

Tropical Deluxe Princess Punta Cana Beach

This post was all about booking with Cheap Caribbean

Have you ever booked with Cheap Caribbean? Do you know other booking sites that are good options? I would really love to hear from you! Drop me a comment below.

Other Post You May Like:

Tropical Deluxe Princess Punta Cana: Our Honest Experience and Review (Coming Soon)
Scape Park Punta Cana: What to Know Before You Go!
Punta Cana Vacation Packing List: Everything You Need!
The Best One Piece Swimsuits on Amazon in 2024
The Ultimate List of Amazon Summer Essentials

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