I'm currently staying at the Vacation Club portion of the JW Marriott Phuket. I was here last October and bought two weeks at the timeshare.

Biggest change to me is they now have HS Internet in the rooms and wireless in the common areas. In room it is 642 Bhat/day (about $16/day; supposed to be for 24 hours, but seems to be daily) vs. 1000 Bhat/day for common area wireless access. Internet service is sometimes spotty, going out for as long as 2 hours at a time but the last few days has been up all day.

Lots of activities to participate in if you're interested: everything from cooking classes to mountain biking and tennis clinics. Most activities are free, with the cooking classes being an exception. For those of you who have never been here before, there are no motorized sports on the beach - it is a protected environment, so it's really quiet here. There are three main restaurants and a couple of bars and a small, but excellent deli. Vacation Club owners get a discount at most of the restaurants and even the spa (10%), but 20% at the Marriott Cafe (which is EXCELLENT). All the food here is great. The buffets are great!

The Marriott is very remote: you either stay here or spend a lot of time and money traveling elsewhere on the island. There is a free shuttle to both Phuket town and Padong beach, limited to 4 people per room. But you need to make reservations a day in advance (at least), there is a 100 Bhat fee if you don’t show and only a few times per day. Most people will wind up taking the shuttle one way and a taxi back (about 800 Bhat for an air conditioned taxi from Padong Beach). But staying here at the resort all the time isn’t that bad.

A couple of other cool things in the timeshare: you can order a meal cooked in your room; they send a chef and assistant and you choose what you want from a huge list. It was really exceptional. There also is a combination washer/dryer in the unit, but the dryer function is not very good - so they offer a free drying service. Just call, they pick up your wet things and return them dried and folded (or on hangers if you with) within four hours (this is just for the timeshare)!

For those of you who are geeks like me, I also figured out how to wirelessly network three laptops (OK two XP/Intel laptops and a Mac) to the single HS Ethernet connection without using a wireless hub or router. Probably easy to some of you guys, but this was really cool to me and I didn't even think it was possible. Too long to explain here - plus not the right forum. PM me if anyone wants the instructions. Don't bother if you've never been in the control panel of windows, though.

Sorry if this is too long – post any additional questions – I’m here until the 11th.

Billy