T Q,
Congrats! I just got back from the property this past week - GREAT time, very nice. Couple of things:
- i wasn't traveling with kids, but if i were i would much rather be in the vacation club units - so you did great there. like everyone has said, it shares the same property and all. That being said, we had a great room in the hotel and were upgraded to a partial ocean view, which I thought was terrific (though my platinum status helped, i was using a rewards stay too).
- if you get to the property earlier than checkin (which I think is like 4pm) be prepared to wait till 4pm. Even though i'm Platinum, we still had to wait. So bring some suits and go to the pool - we should have gotten ours out of our luggage (which was taken away by the bellmen).
- i was going to suggest if you hadn't gotten the condo-like room to try the other vacation-club property that Marriott opened up in Kauai recently. I went by it and I thought it was pretty nice. Great location - in Poipu.
- be prepared to request a late checkout if your flight is much later than noon. If you've got a high status, they may be very generous for accomodating that.
- lastly, someone in another Kauai post suggested getting this book called 'Ultimate Kauai Guidebook' and I cannot say how happy we did so!! Awesome book!