I certainly never heard that feeding the fish inshore from the beach damaged the reef, as we attempt to be relatively ecologically conscious I'm sorry to hear that. The main damage we saw to the reef was people standing literally on top of the coral and occasionally not picking up their trash. I wished that there was more signage in terms of people respecting the natural environment there.

I agree that the Marriott does not have the widest stretch of beach but it was a more relaxed environment than RC with two 10 year olds. RC definitely has them beat though if you want a beautiful stretch of sand. We liked walking up there sans kiddos for an amazing pina colada. We spent a lot of our time in the water snorkeling or taking walks down the beach so it didn't bother us as much that the immediate beach was not enormous. That location is also a nice base to walk to restaurants, head to other locations etc.