All-Inclusive Resorts in Panama

Prices shown are indicative nightly rates that change with season, room type, and availability — always confirm the current rate and exactly what's included before you book.

Why Panama for All-Inclusive Resorts in 2026?

Let’s answer the question everyone actually types first: yes, Panama has real all-inclusive resorts — six of them worth your money — but they are almost all in one place, and it is not the place most people picture. Every genuine all-inclusive in Panama sits on the Pacific side, on a dry, sunny stretch of Coclé Province coast known locally as the Arco Seco, the “dry arc.” The turquoise Caribbean images that pull people toward Panama in the first place — Bocas del Toro, the San Blas islands — have no conventional all-inclusive resorts at all. Not one.

That honesty up front saves you a wasted week of searching. Here is the real map. Four resorts cluster on the Playa Blanca / Farallón strip about 90 minutes to two hours west of Panama City. One sits at Santa Clara, a little further along the same coast with a quieter beach. One — Dreams Playa Bonita Panama — is a short drive from Panama City itself, which makes it the only all-inclusive in the country you can realistically pair with a Canal transit and a night in Casco Viejo. And one, The Resort at Isla Palenque, is a private island in the Gulf of Chiriquí near the Costa Rican border, in a category entirely of its own.

So why book Panama over Mexico, Punta Cana or Costa Rica? Three genuinely good reasons. First, hurricanes: Panama lies at roughly 8–9° north, outside the Atlantic’s main tropical cyclone development region, so the September–October window that terrifies Caribbean planners is a non-event here. Second, money: the balboa is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and American cash circulates as the working currency — no exchange, no conversion fees, no mental math. Third, access: Copa Airlines runs its “Hub of the Americas” out of Tocumen (PTY), which means direct flights from an unusually long list of US cities for a country this small.

The honest counterweight: Panama’s all-inclusive scene is mid-market, not luxury. Outside Isla Palenque, nothing here competes with a Rosewood or a Maxx Royal, and the two biggest Playa Blanca resorts carry Tripadvisor averages around 3 out of 5 — a divisive score you should read carefully before booking. Panama is a value and convenience destination for all-inclusive, and the resorts that understand that are the ones we rate highest.

Booking note: Prices and rates change with season and availability — confirm the current rate and exactly what’s included before you book.

Quick Comparison: Our 6 Panama Picks

Resort	Area	From (AI/night)	AI status	Best for	Our rating
The Resort at Isla Palenque	Chiriquí	$980	True AI (alcohol extra)	Private-island luxury, honeymoons	9.0
Hotel Riu Playa Blanca	Playa Blanca	$155	True AI (24-hour)	Best all-round value	7.8
Dreams Playa Bonita Panama	Playa Bonita	$195	True AI (Unlimited-Luxury)	Families, Canal + beach trips	7.4
Grand Decameron Panama	Playa Blanca	$225	True AI (premium spirits extra)	Large families, groups, budget	7.4
Gran Evenia Bijao	Santa Clara	$195	True AI (24-hour, à-la-carte quota)	Water park, golf, quieter beach	7.2
Las Perlas Playa Blanca	Playa Blanca	$190	True AI (domestic drinks)	Small-resort feel, casino	7.0

Rates are starting prices per night for two adults, all-inclusive, unless noted. Grand Decameron publishes per-person rates from around $112, which is where the $225 double figure comes from — it remains the cheapest bed on this coast.

Playa Blanca and Farallón: Panama’s All-Inclusive Heartland

If someone says “all-inclusive in Panama,” they almost certainly mean this: a five-kilometer run of pale Pacific sand at El Farallón del Chirú, Río Hato, in Coclé Province, with four large resorts lined up along it. The drive from Tocumen is roughly 90 minutes to two hours depending on how badly Panama City behaves; from the small Scarlett Martínez International Airport (RIH) at Río Hato, it is about ten minutes — relevant mainly to Canadian travelers, since Air Transat and WestJet run seasonal charters straight into RIH from Toronto and Montreal.

The strip’s best all-rounder is Hotel Riu Playa Blanca, and it is our highest-rated mainstream pick in the country at 7.8. It is 573 rooms of well-drilled RIU competence: a genuine 24-hour all-inclusive where the Maui-style sports bar keeps pouring around the clock, four pools with real separation (main, swim-up bar, adults-only, and a kids’ pool with slides and a tipping bucket), and four restaurants — the Balboa buffet plus XIAN, Il Palazzo and Chiriquí — with no per-stay à-la-carte quota we could find. Cleanliness is the single most consistent praise point in guest reviews, year after year. It is also, honestly, noisy: pool speakers, entertainment and periodic construction on the surrounding strip are the number-one complaint, the bedding is basic, and the Tripadvisor average has slipped to 3 out of 5 across 5,800-plus reviews even as Booking.com holds at 8.4. One point of correction, because bad listicles get this wrong constantly: Riu Playa Blanca does not have a casino. From $155 a night, it is still the best-value bed in Panama.

Next door, Grand Decameron Panama is the volume play — one of the largest all-inclusive complexes in Central America, with 852 rooms in the core resort and around 1,170 across the whole Decameron estate. You get nine restaurants (Cowboy Steakhouse, Mezcal, Esquina Asiática, Panamai and beachfront El Pilón among them), six pools, a three-lane waterslide with 230-, 196- and 43-foot flumes, an outdoor cinema and a nightclub, from roughly $112 per person per night. That waterslide setup is the biggest at any Panamanian all-inclusive, and the Trademark Collection affiliation means it earns Wyndham Rewards points — rare at this price. The catch is 1997-vintage bones: dated furnishings and inconsistent food are recurring 2025–2026 complaints, value-for-money scores sit at 7.4, and the standard plan covers domestic brands only, with imported spirits behind a paid All-Inclusive Plus upgrade. Buy it for scale and price, not polish.

The third option on this sand is the one that will confuse you. Las Perlas Playa Blanca is the resort most Americans still search for as the Wyndham Grand Playa Blanca — and before that, as Royalton Panama. It is no longer a Wyndham. Under its current name it remains a genuine, low-rise 230-room all-inclusive on the best-positioned patch of the strip, seven kilometers from Río Hato airport, with suites and penthouses that have real balconies and kitchenettes, an on-site casino, and a footprint you can walk end to end in ten minutes. But it has effectively fallen off the major booking channels, carries almost no recent verified reviews under its current name, and published facility counts contradict each other between sources. We rate it 7.0 — a decent resort you are buying with far less information than the Riu across the sand.

A fourth property, the independent Playa Blanca Beach Resort, sits on the same beach with one of the largest saltwater pools in Central America and a marina. It is a genuine all-inclusive and the cheapest branded-adjacent option here, but we haven’t reviewed it in depth yet — expect noticeably more dated facilities than its neighbors.

Santa Clara: Quieter Sand, Panama’s Best Water Park

Twenty minutes further along the Arco Seco, Santa Clara is the low-density alternative to the Playa Blanca crush, and it holds one resort worth your attention.

Gran Evenia Bijao is the important listing on this page, because it is the resort everyone still searches for as the Sheraton Bijao — and the Sheraton flag is gone. Marriott’s brand and Bonvoy earning both ended when Evenia Hotels took the property over around 2023, yet travel-agent pages, points blogs and OTA backends still describe it as a Marriott all-inclusive. If you were planning to earn or burn Bonvoy points here, stop: you cannot. Our review lives at the old slug because that’s what people type, but the resort you’d be booking is Gran Evenia Bijao.

What you get for roughly $195–$300 a night is 293 rooms on the quiet Playa Bijao, a genuine 24-hour all-inclusive (the Maui Sport Bar runs around the clock and it is the only meal plan sold), a Mini Club for under-12s plus a separate Teen Club, a nightclub from 10pm, a nine-hole golf course within the surrounding Bijao Complex, and the best water park at any all-inclusive in Panama — real slides plus a children’s water-play zone. For families whose main criterion is “will the kids be entertained,” this is the strongest single answer in the country.

Set against that: Evenia markets the property as five-star and guests firmly disagree, the Tripadvisor average on the new listing sits at 3 out of 5, 2026 reviews repeatedly flag deferred maintenance, and the number of à-la-carte dinners you get is rationed by length of stay with same-day reservations in narrow windows. We rate it 7.2. Book it for the water park and the quieter beach, and go in with realistic expectations about the finish.

Playa Bonita: The Canal-and-Beach Combination

Playa Bonita sits on the Pacific approach to the Canal, and its single all-inclusive exists for one reason: proximity. Dreams Playa Bonita Panama is roughly 20–30 minutes from Casco Viejo and the Miraflores Locks — call it closer to an hour from Tocumen, because you cross the whole city — which makes it the only resort in Panama where “Canal in the morning, swim-up bar in the afternoon” is a genuinely realistic day.

It is also the best family resort in the country on paper: 307 rooms in eleven seaside towers, five outdoor pools including an ocean-view infinity pool and an adults-only Preferred Club pool, seven dining venues by name (Market Café, Portofino, Bordeaux, Oceana, Seaside Grill, Barefoot Grill and Coco Café), and the only combination of an Explorer’s Club for ages 3–12 and a Core Zone teens club in Panama. Hyatt’s Unlimited-Luxury plan means no reservations at the à-la-cartes, no per-stay dinner quota, and top-shelf domestic and international spirits included rather than upsold.

The trade-off is the beach, and it’s a big one. The Pacific’s enormous tidal range exposes hundreds of yards of rocky mud flat twice a day, so this is not a resort for people whose holiday is defined by sand. The 2006-vintage buildings show humidity wear, no-see-um sand flies bite at dawn and dusk, Tripadvisor sits at 3 out of 5 across 4,300-plus reviews, and the Bridge of the Americas snarls badly at 6:30–8am and 4–7pm if you’re timing city trips. We rate it 7.4 — Panama’s most useful all-inclusive rather than its prettiest.

Chiriquí: The Private Island

At the opposite end of the country and the price ladder, The Resort at Isla Palenque is our highest-rated property in Panama at 9.0, and it is not remotely comparable to anything above. Eight beachfront casitas sit on a 400-acre private island in the Gulf of Chiriquí with seven beaches and less than 3% of the island developed — a National Geographic Unique Lodge of the World and a Cayuga Collection member. With 12 to 20 guests on the whole island, having a beach entirely to yourself is the normal condition, not a lucky morning.

The rate — from around $980 a night for two — includes all three meals, non-alcoholic drinks, guided island tours and the round-trip boat transfer from Boca Chica. The Dock to Dish certified seafood and produce from the resort’s own organic farm is the single most praised thing in guest reviews, and humpback whales calve in the gulf from July to October, sometimes visible from the sand. Casitas run 65 square meters with indoor-outdoor bathrooms, garden bathtubs and suspended terrace daybeds.

Two caveats keep it off a perfect score. Alcohol is not included, which at $980 a night for two is a genuinely jarring exclusion and one that adds up fast. And getting there is a project: fly PTY to David, drive to Boca Chica, then take the resort boat — not something you do on your arrival day. There is also one restaurant, Las Rocas, for every meal, so stays past five nights can feel repetitive, and the cancellation policy is unusually strict. If you want a Panamanian honeymoon that feels like nowhere else, this is the answer; if you want swim-up bars and a nightly show, it emphatically is not.

Bocas del Toro and San Blas: Why the Caribbean Side Has No All-Inclusive

This is the section that will save the most people the most time. Panama’s Caribbean coast is the one that looks like the brochure — and it has no true all-inclusive resorts.

Bocas del Toro is a laid-back archipelago of guesthouses, over-water bungalows and small independent hotels where you eat and drink à la carte. Red Frog Beach Island Resort on Isla Bastimentos is the property most often miscategorized: it is a room-only or breakfast-included resort with a good beach restaurant, not an all-inclusive. Selina’s Bocas properties are hostel-hotels with pay-as-you-go everything, and the word “resort” in a name means nothing here. Bocas also gets substantially more rain than the Pacific side — the Caribbean coast’s annual rainfall runs far above Panama City’s — and it lacks a dependable dry season.

San Blas (Guna Yala) is a different proposition again. The Guna-run island lodges — Yandup, Kuanidup, Coral Lodge and similar — sell multi-night packages that bundle a rustic cabin or over-water hut, all meals, boat transport and guided island-hopping. Functionally that resembles all-inclusive, but it is not resort all-inclusive: no swim-up bars, no entertainment programs, no branded liquor, no à-la-carte restaurants, and access is by 4x4 and boat rather than a hotel transfer. Prices run roughly $150–$450 per person per night. Treat San Blas as an expedition, book it through a reputable operator, and set expectations accordingly — it is one of the most extraordinary places in the Americas, but it is camping-adjacent, not a Riu.

And to close one more loop: Le Meridien Panama is a city business hotel with à-la-carte dining, despite appearing on several low-quality “best all-inclusive Panama” lists. It is not all-inclusive. Neither is any Sandals, Beaches or Bahía Príncipe property, because none of those brands operate in Panama at all.

What’s New for 2026: Rebrands and Names Old Listings Get Wrong

Panama’s small resort market has churned brands aggressively, and stale listings are the single biggest source of booking mistakes here.

• Sheraton Bijao is now Gran Evenia Bijao. Evenia Hotels took over around 2023; the Marriott flag and Bonvoy earning are both gone. Any page still selling it as a Marriott all-inclusive is out of date.
• Wyndham Grand Playa Blanca is now Las Perlas Playa Blanca. It was Royalton Panama before it was a Wyndham. It has also largely disappeared from Booking.com under the new name, so verify what you’re booking and from whom.
• Secrets Playa Bonita no longer exists. It was adults-only, closed in June 2016 for renovation, and reopened that October as the family-friendly Dreams Playa Bonita — now under the Hyatt Inclusive Collection. Do not book expecting an adults-only resort.
• Grand Decameron Panama and Royal Decameron Panama are the same resort, sold under both names depending on the OTA. Compare rates across both spellings before you commit.

Is Panama Safe?

For the coastal resort zones, broadly yes. Panama is one of the more stable countries in Central America, and the Arco Seco resort strip, Playa Bonita and Chiriquí are unremarkable from a safety standpoint — the practical risks are petty theft and, on the Pacific coast, the ocean itself, where rip currents and huge tidal swings deserve more respect than most visitors give them.

Western governments do maintain regional exceptions rather than country-wide warnings. The Darién province on the Colombian border is subject to the strongest advisories and should not be visited by tourists. The Mosquito Gulf stretch of the Caribbean coast and parts of Colón city also carry elevated-crime advice. None of these are anywhere near the resorts on this page. Panama City itself is fine in the areas visitors use — Casco Viejo, Punta Pacífica, the Amador Causeway — with normal urban caution after dark. Check your own government’s current advisory before you travel, as these designations do change.

When to Go

Panama’s dry season runs roughly December through April, and on the Pacific side that is a genuine dry season — the Arco Seco earns its name because the Azuero Peninsula and the continental divide shield this coast from the prevailing Caribbean moisture. December to April is peak: sunniest, driest, breeziest, and the most expensive. Christmas, New Year and Semana Santa are the three windows that sell out.

May through November is the rainy season, but read that word carefully — Pacific-coast rain is typically an afternoon downpour rather than an all-day washout, and resort rates drop meaningfully. September and October are the wettest months and also, usefully, the cheapest, and because Panama sits outside the hurricane belt you are not gambling on a storm the way you would be in Cancún or the wider Caribbean in the same weeks. July to October is also humpback whale season in the Gulf of Chiriquí, which makes an autumn Isla Palenque stay unexpectedly good value.

Temperatures barely move all year: high 80s Fahrenheit by day, low 70s at night, year round. What changes is humidity and rain, not heat.

Getting There: PTY, Río Hato and Transfer Times

Tocumen International (PTY) on the eastern edge of Panama City is the gateway and Copa Airlines’ “Hub of the Americas,” which is why a country of four million people has direct US service from Miami, Orlando, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver and more. From the UK there is no direct service; connect via Madrid, Amsterdam, Miami or Bogotá, typically 13–16 hours door to door.

Transfer times from PTY:

• Playa Bonita — around 45–60 minutes, but you cross the whole city; avoid arriving in the 4–7pm crush.
• Playa Blanca / Farallón — roughly 90 minutes to 2 hours on the Pan-American Highway.
• Santa Clara — about 2 hours.
• Isla Palenque — a domestic flight to David (about an hour), then roughly a 50-minute drive to Boca Chica and a boat. Plan an overnight in Panama City on arrival.

Scarlett Martínez International (RIH) at Río Hato is the shortcut most travelers never hear about: it sits about 10 kilometers from the Playa Blanca resorts and 7 from Las Perlas. Air Transat and WestJet fly seasonal charters there from Toronto and Montreal, and Wingo begins Bogotá service in October 2026. If you’re Canadian, check RIH before you default to PTY — it turns a two-hour transfer into ten minutes.

Note that most resorts charge for airport transfers as an extra and require advance booking; Grand Decameron is explicit about this. Private transfers from PTY to Playa Blanca run roughly $120–$180 each way for a car.

Money, Tipping and What All-Inclusive Actually Covers Here

Panama uses the US dollar as its circulating currency; the balboa exists in coin form and is pegged 1:1. There is nothing to exchange and no conversion fee, which is a small, real convenience Mexico and the Dominican Republic can’t offer Americans.

On alcohol: every resort on this page except Isla Palenque includes drinks, but the tiering varies more than you’d expect. Riu and Gran Evenia Bijao run genuine 24-hour service. Dreams includes top-shelf domestic and international spirits at no extra tier. Grand Decameron and Las Perlas include domestic brands only, with imports behind a paid upgrade — worth pricing out if you drink specific labels. Our guide to what all-inclusive alcohol actually covers explains the tiers in detail.

On tipping: gratuities are technically included at Panamanian all-inclusives, but the local norm is to tip modestly anyway — a dollar or two per drink round at a busy bar, $2–$5 per day for housekeeping, more for a bartender who remembers your order. Small bills are gold; bring a stack of ones and fives. Our all-inclusive tipping guide has the numbers by role.

For entry, both US and UK passport holders visit visa-free for tourism. British nationals may stay up to three months; carry a passport valid at least six months beyond your departure with a blank page, be prepared to show accommodation details and an onward ticket, and note that border officers may ask for evidence of at least $1,000 in funds or a credit card. Complete the digital immigration and customs declaration before you fly.

Who Should NOT Book All-Inclusive in Panama

Three groups should look elsewhere, and we’d rather tell you now.

Couples wanting adults-only. Panama has no adults-only all-inclusive resort. Not one. Dreams has an adults-only Preferred Club pool and Gran Evenia Bijao has a late-night club, but if you want a child-free property, book Aruba, St. Lucia or Mexico instead — this is the single clearest gap in the Panamanian market.

Beach purists. The Pacific here is grey-gold rather than turquoise, and the tidal range is enormous. At Playa Bonita, low water exposes hundreds of yards of rocky flat. Playa Blanca is far better, but nobody should book Panama expecting Turks and Caicos sand.

Anyone whose priority is resort polish. Outside Isla Palenque, Panama’s all-inclusives are functional mid-market properties built between 1997 and 2011, and the review scores reflect it. If a dated bathroom or an inconsistent buffet would ruin your week, spend the same money in Mexico. If you’d rather have hurricane-free dates, dollar pricing and the Canal an hour away, Panama is quietly excellent.

Panama All-Inclusive FAQ

Does Panama have all-inclusive resorts?

Yes — six that we rate, plus a handful of smaller independents. All the mainstream ones are on the Pacific coast: four on the Playa Blanca / Farallón strip, one at Santa Clara, and one at Playa Bonita near Panama City. There is also one luxury private-island all-inclusive, Isla Palenque, in the Gulf of Chiriquí. Crucially, the Caribbean-side destinations people associate with Panama — Bocas del Toro and San Blas — have no conventional all-inclusive resorts at all.

What is the best all-inclusive resort in Panama?

For most travelers, Hotel Riu Playa Blanca at 7.8 — a well-run 573-room resort with a true 24-hour all-inclusive, four pools and reliably excellent housekeeping, from $155 a night. If money is not the constraint, The Resort at Isla Palenque is the country’s best resort outright at 9.0, though it is a remote eight-casita private island that excludes alcohol from the rate.

Is all-inclusive in Panama expensive?

No — it is one of the better-value all-inclusive markets in the Americas. Real rates start around $155 a night for two at the Riu and around $112 per person at Grand Decameron, which undercuts comparable Cancún and Punta Cana properties. The exception is Isla Palenque at roughly $980 a night for two. Rainy-season dates from May to November drop prices further without the hurricane risk you’d take elsewhere. Check current all-inclusive deals before committing.

Are there adults-only all-inclusive resorts in Panama?

No. Panama currently has no adults-only all-inclusive resort. Dreams Playa Bonita operates an adults-only Preferred Club pool and Gran Evenia Bijao has a 10pm nightclub, but every property is family-friendly. Couples wanting a child-free week should compare our adults-only all-inclusive picks in Aruba, St. Lucia and Mexico.

Which Panama resort is best for families?

Gran Evenia Bijao has the best water park in the country plus separate Mini and Teen Clubs; Grand Decameron Panama has the biggest waterslide setup and the lowest price for large groups; and Dreams Playa Bonita has the strongest structured kids’ and teens’ programming and the easiest access to Canal day trips. Our wider best all-inclusive resorts for families guide compares these against the Caribbean and Mexico.

Is the Sheraton Bijao still a Sheraton?

No. It has operated as Gran Evenia Bijao under Evenia Hotels since around 2023. The Marriott flag is gone and Marriott Bonvoy points cannot be earned or redeemed there, despite many travel-agent pages and booking listings still describing it as a Sheraton all-inclusive. The resort itself is still open and still a genuine 24-hour all-inclusive — read our Gran Evenia Bijao review for what actually changed.

Can you visit the Panama Canal from an all-inclusive resort?

Realistically, only from Dreams Playa Bonita, which is 20–30 minutes from the Miraflores Locks and Casco Viejo. From the Playa Blanca and Santa Clara resorts it is a 90-minute to two-hour drive each way, which makes for a long but doable full-day excursion — most resorts sell one. A common and smart itinerary is two or three nights in Panama City or at Playa Bonita for the Canal, Casco Viejo and the rainforest, then a transfer west for a beach week on the Arco Seco.

Final Recommendations

If you’re booking one week in Panama and want the fewest regrets, take the Riu Playa Blanca. It is the best-run mainstream all-inclusive in the country, the 24-hour service is genuine, the housekeeping is spotless, and at $155 a night it costs less than most of what Mexico offers at the same quality. Pack earplugs and accept that the entertainment is amateur-hour.

If you’re traveling with kids whose happiness depends on slides, Gran Evenia Bijao at Santa Clara has the water park nothing else here matches — just book it knowing it is no longer a Sheraton and no longer earns Bonvoy. If you’re a big group or watching every dollar, Grand Decameron Panama is unbeatable on price per head. If you want the Canal and a beach in the same trip, only Dreams Playa Bonita makes that work.

And if this is a honeymoon, an anniversary or a milestone, spend the money on Isla Palenque. Eight casitas, seven beaches, 400 private acres and food good enough that guests write about it first — it is the best resort in Panama by a wide margin, and one of the best small resorts in Central America. Budget separately for the bar tab, and give yourself a night in Panama City on either end of the journey. Then pair it with a few days in Costa Rica next door and you have one of the more interesting two-week trips in the hemisphere.