As usual, I booked up my December week a bit too late and had to spend a while on the net visiting all the usual suspects to try and find the right dates and hotel. I was looking for Highland Beach, 1st week Dec with First Choice but ended up at the Whispering palms with jewel in the crown. No problems with that as it reads like a nice place and it was only once I studied my invoice in detail that I realised I was on an all-inclusive deal. If this was Greece or the Canaries, such a thing would involve a hefty supplement and as I hate doing all my eating and drinking at the hotel, I would avoid it.
Checking more carefully with Jewel in the Crown, only about 3 of their hotels offer such a thing and it seems at places like the Whispering Palms it is not possible to opt out. Still, the price was still within my budget and as I wont be availing myself of the offer, I am not worrying too much. As far as I know it simply meant that I would get a free beer before going out for dinner.
Now all inclusives do suit some people. If you have two or three kids then they will get cokes and ices all day without raiding mum's purse. Those who drink steadily from after breakfast till bedtime will also find it useful, all the more so if their idea of a good holiday is to wallow beside the pool till sundown. However, as far as I can tell, most people go to Goa to sit on the beach with a shack at their back and the waves crashing in front of them. There is also the view, widely held by me and most others, that dinner is always better cooked and with more variety and nicer ambience at the many top restaurants in Goa.
So to sum up my view...all inclusives wont work as most visitors want just bed and breakfast.
BUT the thread on beach shack licences contains the conspiracy theory that hotel owners are behind the delay in building them this year as it will make people stay in the hotels. An all inclusive deal supports this. Perhaps the whispering palms owner has made the compulsory all inclusive deal because he knows that the other expenses that families spend on might be done at the hotel rather than outside it. It was also interesting that the Spokesman of one of the warring factions of shackowners thinks that the majority of tourists come on all inclusive deals. I know this is not the case. I am interested in what others views are and whether all inclusives is the way to go in Goa.