Originally Posted by kiwibigdave

A similar question to one I asked earlier this year but a slightly different angle, so a new thread.

In September 2005 my wife and I are travelling from New Zealand to the USA with our daughter who at the time will be 18 months old. We arrive at LAX off a 12 hour flight in Y on a Friday mid-afternoon and depart early morning Saturday for ATL. Approx two weeks later we fly MOB-ATL-LAX arriving late afternoon Monday, and then depart for New Zealand again at 2350 Tuesday.

I'm MR Platinum right now but will have zero status next year. I've got just 64760 points left in the bank and will be happy to burn them all.

So where to stay if we want to redeem two separate nights worth of Marriott rewards?

Inbound we'll be tired enough ourselves but the mystery factor is how the baby will be behaving. If she's going to sleep it won't matter where we stay but if she won't we'd like to have a place with a pool or with some kind of mall within walking distance (and we can walk a long way!) to try and keep her amused. Proximity to the airport for the early morning departure might help.

Outbound we'll be time-acclimatised, coming off shorter flights, and would really love somewhere that is EXTRA friendly regarding checkout time (the thought of a midday checkout and then eight+ hours to kill before LAX isn't too appealing). We're far more likely to want to shop and swim during this stay and proximity to the airport is less important. (Though the cost of being too far away might be.)

So any advice would be much appreciated . . .