Actually, I would probably be thinking more along the lines of leave
the kids at home with the au pair, and shag your wife at Sandals.
Contraception is optional depending on future family plans :-)

Consider Cozumel. It has everything you asked for and much more.

S

Mike Ross <mike@corestore.org> pounded away at his keyboard resulting
in:

<snip>

Places that I have been to that would suit your needs include:
Cozumel - Iberostar or Club Cozumel Caribe or Sun Village (some names
may have changed since I was there)
Grenada - La Source
Santiago de Cuba - Superclubs (was a Delta when I was there)

Dan Bracuk
Is it my imagination, or do Buffalo Wings taste like chicken?
The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/

Florida... Drop the wife and kid(s) off at Disney world each day and go
diving alone... Worked for me a few years ago...

Cozumel is a good choice. People have already given you lots of suggestions
for that.

If you want to go someplace different, consider Curacao, in the Dutch
Caribbean.  It has excellent diving (similar to Bonaire) and several
all-inclusive places. Try a Web search on Curacao +all-inclusive.  I stay at
Habitat, which is neither all-inclusive nor (IMHO) a particularly good place
for non-divers or small children.  I know where two of the AIs are but
haven't stayed there: Breezes and Seaquarium Resort (well, I stayed at
SeaQuarium a decade ago when it was Lion's Dive, but that's probably
irrelevant). Breezes is near the SeaQuarium Resort, which as a (duh)
aquarium, which your kids would probably like.  They could have a dolphin
encounter, pet rays and sea cucumbers, and see a flamingo or two up close &
personal.

Becky

I've never been to a Club Med, so I can't offer an opinion, so much as a possibility
you could look into yourself. Some Club Med locations offer (at least they did once
upon a time) better diving options than others. I think they may have referred to
those as "dedicated dive resorts" or some such. IIRC, one of them was the Club Med in
Turks and Caicos. Club Med probably offers what you're looking for in the way of the
family resort (IIRC, some don't allow kids under a certain age, so those are clearly
not a good choice), and the T&C are known for the diving.

I commend you for taking your kids on vacation at these ages. My oldest is
in grad school and my youngest a junior in HS, but from the time they were
infants they accompanied us everywhere, and since my wife and I had been
divers long before either were born that meant dive vacations as well. We
did not have a vacation together, of any length, without the kids, until my
youngest was in her early teens. No regrets, no second thoughts and now as
the girls have grown we get to see what it meant to them too.

Picking a vacation spot instead of a dedicated diving spot is a very small
concession....in our case it was a fast, incredibly fast, 12 years or so
before my wife and I started taking vacations without the kids. Today it
feels like we missed nothing at all. And today we go where and when we want
predicated on work and money, rather than school and youth sports schedules.

The downside is this: since the kids are seasoned travelers and experienced
divers, and since they know we know there really isn't any specific reason
they can't make most trips with us, we are left with but one option when
telling them why they can't come. Hey girls, we just don't want you along on
this trip!.....which is much better than telling them Mom and Dad want to be
alone for awhile, because the thought of that just sickens them :^)

Sorry I can't help you with resort suggestions but all-inclusives turned out
to not be our cup of tea, so I have zero experience with that type of resort
in the last ten years or so. But I found Cayman Brac, Bonaire, and New
Providence among the Caribbean islands I found most enjoyable and conducive
to mixing diving and family vacations. Divi on Brac was particularly good in
this sense, even though in those days the only place to eat was their
on-property meal plan.

Donna McLaughlin, bless her devious soul, skewed the crab race so my two
kids would win and to this day they still have their "I got the Crabs at
Tiara Beach" t-shirts.........only now they know what it really means. I
still remember her "Now what you going to do Dad" smirk in my direction when
she presented the kids with the shirts.

Most scuba places and people treat kids real special...at least that has
been our experience.