I did not travel with any kids, but there were many families at the Omni during my stay. One couple even had two year old triplets with them. From my observations, it looked like the families were having a great time. The pools are a great depth for kids, as they are only 3.5 feet deep. There is also a more shallow pool area for toddlers. The restaurants and snack bars had all sorts of frozen tropical drinks without alcohol for kids, and the menus looked kid friendly with burgers, pizza, etc. They also had a place to paint pottery and several children looked like they were enjoying doing that. I think the resort is a good size for people with children as it does not involve a lot of walking to restaurants, snack bars, or the pools from the rooms.
I did go AI, and I am glad we choose to do that. It was nice not to have to stop and think, "Oh, I shouldn't order that. It is too expensive." With AI, you can get room service, which is fun for a late night snack or a breakfast out on the balcony. Plus, you feel free to order all the food and drinks you want. We weren't big drinkers, but still we figured we got our money's worth out of the AI. A soda was $2.80, as was water. Alcoholic drinks were around $6-8. The dinner buffet was $25 (without drinks), and breakfast and lunch buffets were not much less. Snacks at the pool/beach seemed to run about $9 or more. We ate at DaVinci's (the fancy Italian restaurant) twice, and our bill was about $110 for two each time.
The timeshare people were not bothersome at all at our hotel. Initially, the Omni host sits you down when you check in and tells you about the dining options and the resort. The host only mentioned once that if we would like to go to an informational breakfast we could get more information on their vacation club. We politely declined, and it was never mentioned again.
I am a member of the Omni club. We had already booked an oceanview room, and I tried to use my coupon to upgrade to a better room, I guess it would have been a junior suite. They said they had none available (I hear this is a common occurence) and I kept my upgrade coupon, but they did give us a wonderful upper level floor with a balcony (which is nicer than a terrace) right in the middle with a great view of the ocean. I highly recommend the oceanview rooms on the upper levels, as it is really spectacular to sit out on the balcony and look at the beautiful sea.
Our room was spotlessly clean. The Omni staff seemed to work really hard to keep the place clean. A man was even out scrubbing the tile in the pools with a brush at 5 a.m. to make sure the pool was spotless. I thought the restaurants also looked very clean, and I was very happy with the care they took of the hotel.
