rahmanbar

Wish I could tell you by personal experience, but sorry - when we went last year it was with what was called "Sand Dollar" prom w/one night free + breakfast. Other meals were academic because we either ate off-premisis or simply - burgers (al fresco) at their Seabreeze Bar or take out from their deli for picnic on patio (we upgraded to a Terrace Suite).

1. Go to http://www.paradisebymarriott.com/index.php and look for the "contact us" link, and email or call (800 #) their reservations dept.

2. But if you want to be absolutely certain to get correct and complete answers to your questions here are two managers we met there who are very approachable. They'll give you accurate information and you'll be able to reference them in any conversations you have with the front desk upon check-in.

*Freddy Castillo - Assistant Front Desk Manager (you probably read about him on TripAdvisor - believe me, it's all true). He's at (599-9) 4337707 (Helped us upgrade to the suite - had to pay, but well worth it) He game me his direct email but I can't read his handwriting.

*John Autelitano - Resident Manager (met him at cocktail hr. he hosted.) He's been there from day 1 when it was reflagged from Sonesta to Marriott.
He's at (599-9) 4337705 and has a descrete email address: [email protected]

Have a good time - you will find that it's an exceedlingly well-run hotel and their staff (all levels) are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

aaupgrade

Thanks rahmanbar for the info. I sent John an email last night right after your posting but it immediately bounced back with the message "Delivery to the following recipients failed". So I successfully sent another email to the following email addresses:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

We will see what comes of it, and I will post a follow-up if/when I receive a reply.

rahmanbar

Hmm...that email address was printed on his business card.

Interesting that you didn't get any of the other three returned even though their internet address domains varied (marriott.com vs. marriotthotels.com).

I still think that it would be helpful if the Marriott website's property homepages carried the generic email address of the hotel. That way if, when a guest is checking in, there's some kind of contention, there's a way to check out "just who told whom what."

But that's just MHO.

aaupgrade

Perhaps John is no longer with Marriott. I ended up calling and spoke with Freddy and FWIW, both email addresses above go to him. Although Marriott's email server, or the frequency with which Freddy checks email, is slow as he did not receive my email that was sent at mid-night last night until 1400 today.

Dudleydog73

And the answer was?????

aaupgrade

The answer was that they had discontinued the meal package add-ons that had been previously offerred at check-in. Freddy indicated that they were evaluating whether to offer this type of option again, but did not know whether it would be available by May, which is when we plan on being there. He said he would check with the food & bevereage manager and get back to me. I will provide an update when he does.

Sjoerd

We just returned home after a one-week (7 nights) stay at the Curacao Marriott. We chose that hotel after reading very positive comments here on Flyertalk and on tripadvisor.com.

The positives first: the view from the lobby to the pool and beach area is beautiful. The rooms are OK, the beds are nice to get a good night of sleep.

The bathroom is mediocre: the bath tub is the right size for a midget, and the water temperature was difficult to control. But all still acceptable.

The negatives:
1) attitude of staff. Some of the staff are friendly and helpful, but the majority were not. Bad attitude from the staff started at check-in. (the check-in girl clearly wasn't interested in us, our bags were loaded on a trolley and then the guy disappeared so after waiting for a few minutes we just grabbed our bags and took them to the room)
2) Quality of food. Just one word: terrible. This is a shame for a supposedly nice and certainly expensive hotel. What bland, bad food. We tried for two days (lunch and dinner twice), and then decided to eat elsewhere. Everywhere on Curacao EXCEPT at the Marriott we had excellent food and good, friendly service. I can recommend the following restaurants: La Plage Hook's Hut, Gouverneur De Rouville, De Kleine Wereld, Sjalotte (where they told us they get a lot of unhappy Marriott customers), Tu Tu Tango (great ambiance and food), and Jaanchie's.
3) Chaotic service at the Mariott's Seebreeze bar/restaurant. They forgot our orders not once, but twice, and didn't apologize. Als they messed up the checks a couple of times so we had to sign twice for the same drinks.
4) too few beach umbrellas. One morning around 10 AM we couldn't find a single place in the shade. (and we all know you really need a shady place with the tropical sun) There are relatively few beach umbrellas and experienced sunbathers just claim them early in the morning (around 7 AM) by placing beach towels on the chairs below them. If you are late, just bad luck for you.
5) Check-out. We found some items on the bill that were not ours. It took them a long time to sort it out and all that time they looked at us as if WE were trying to cheat them. When they finally admitted that THEY had made a mistake they took the items off the bill, but left the tips associated with the items on!
6) No attempt at bad-service-recovery. We gave them the complaint form on the 4th day of our stay, but they didn't bother to get back to us.

The Marriott Curacao is substantially more expensive than comparable hotels on the island. I don't mind paying a high price for good service. But for reasons given above, the Marriott Curacao is definitely *not* worth the extra money.

Sjoerd

I don't know about the package, but a word of warning about the quality of the food at the Marriott Curacao. It is, in one word, TERRIBLE. Never had such bad food for such high prices. Greasy, bland, without any taste, just very BAD. There are many excellent restaurants on the island with much better food for half of the price (or some places even less). Some of our favourite restaurants were: La Plage Hook's Hut, Gouverneur De Rouville, De Kleine Wereld, Sjalotte (where they told us they get a lot of unhappy Marriott customers), Tu Tu Tango (great ambiance and food), and Jaanchie's.
Service at the Marriott is also quite bad. (see my other post)

aaupgrade

Sjoerd,

Thanks for your input and I am sorry the hotel and food did not live up to your expectations. What other Caribbean properties, preferably Marriott, would you recommend as being a better choice than this one for food, service, and value?

Currently we are booked at this property on a diving package that is really difficult to beat. It puts the room rate at $79 a night for two people after taking into account the cost of diving that is included in the room rate. Regarding your experience with their food; I will pass it and the trip advisor reviews on to the others in our group taking part in this trip and we will make a group decision. My guess is that we will probably not do the meal package for a couple reasons. It was marginally better at $60 for breakfast and dinner, and knowing our group, most of them are going to want to explore restaurants in addition to the Marriott.

One of the main reasons for booking this property was the value; but it was an added benefit that most reviews, but not all, spoke very highly of this property, its service and also its food. So as long as there is good food at other restaurants, that should suffice. I am not too concerned about the service issues as most seemed pretty normal for the Islands.

Regarding the other restaurants that you said you liked, what were their cuisines?

aaupgrade

Update on availability of the meal packages. They do not currently offer the aforementioned meal packages add-ons, but did indicate that they would do so for our group at the prices noted plus their 19.84% tax. As mentioned in the previous post I have deferred the decision to go with the meal package to the others in our group.

Sjoerd

This was only our second trip to the Caribbean, the first one was to Cuba where I don't think there is a Marriott. But the fact that most hotels in Cuba that we stayed were better than the Marriott Curacao should be telling you something.......

That is an excellent rate of course. We paid close to US$ 300 / night incl. all taxes etc. For US$ 79 I would stay at the Marriott, and just go to a nice restaurant for food.
I don't think the Marriott is worth US$ 200 or 300 a night, but would stay there for US$ 150 or less (incl. taxes) a night.

Mixed international. We had good seafood, excellent local style chicken, excellent beef dishes. Wonderful soups, salads and desserts, too.

tatmtr7

We will be spending a week in Curacao at the Marriott this month. Any suggestions as to restaurants on the island ? I have reserved a car at the Marriott as it appears to be a small island and perhaps easy driving. Sorry that I couldn't use the search as I am sure this property has been discussed before. Thanks to all who posted about the bonus transferring points into miles. I just did my transfer yesterday and received the extra miles.

rahmanbar

Since the search function is down I'd suggest, as far as the restaurants that you check out the forums on Fodors - (You'll find a link to their Caribbean Forums) on
http://www.fodors.com/forums/

As far as the Curacao Marriott - we loved it (went last summer) and as I recall it received favorable mention by others here.

You'll find a huge number of trip reports on http://www.tripadvisor.com and the vast majority were enthused about it but there were some who weren't

BillMorrow

In addition to the forums on Fodors, I'd strongly suggest you try the forums on Trip Advisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ForumHome . In the few months that they been up, they have surpassed Fodors and become the best 'destination specific' travel message boards on the net. They have a few quirks: no search(sound familiar), no editing of posts and low number of messages per page of thread.

Overall, they have the highest level activity of any similar site and you will want to add the Trip Advisor Forums to your bookmark file.

Sjoerd

We spent a week at the Curacao Marriott in early February and did NOT like the hotel.

Main negatives:

1) too few beach umbrellas. People claim them early in the morning so if you don't wake up early just bad luck for you;
2) horrible food. Bland, overpriced, tasteless, huge portions, just awful;
3) bad service. Some of the staff are nice, the majority is not;
4) expensive. Everything about twice to 3 times as expensive as elsewhere on the island.

We like the following restaurants: Tu Tu Tango (great food and ambiance). De Kleine Wereld, Gouverneur de Rouville, La Plage Hook's Hut.

If you go to tripadvisor.com, you'll see that most Americans and Canadians are (very) positive about the hotel, and almost all non-North Americans are very negative.