I do agree with others that in general a TP award can well provide the most "value" out of Marriott points. And I've said more than once, I do feel the Marriott TP awards are possibly the single best hotel award among all hotel programs.

With that said, I can say that I don't always use my points to order TP awards. I do order other awards. It really depends on what your needs are for a particular trip. In the OP's case, it sounds like the OP would like to take a vacation at a nice Marriott/RC resort fairly quickly. Given the OP only has 250K, unless the OP can find someone or someones to gift some extra points or possibly apply for a couple of Marriott VISA cards and get the bonuses quickly, I'm guessing a TP award might not be the best alternative. Nice beach resorts really aren't found below Cat. 7 which means 330K for a TP award with 120K miles. It might be hard to get the extra 80K very quickly.

If you can't get the points quickly, then you might be better served by focusing on finding the best luxury hotel and location. With 250K, you could get a 5 night Tier 4 RC. There are a number of top end Marriott hotels (Cat. 9) and some nice RCs you could get with the 250K. Of course you would have to still figure out how to get there, but you would be spending 5 nights in some of the best hotels Marriott has to offer.

I'd be looking at the RC in Aruba (or the Marriott there.) Maybe some of their Hawaii properties. Even the Marriott on the Cayman island is Cat. 9 (though the RC there is a Tier 5 and would take a bit more than 250K for 5 nights.) ^