If you reserved a hotel room (not timeshare) I'm not aware of any rooms that front the ocean and from what I've seen, and stayed in they are partial ocean views. The hotel wing is mostly perpendicular to the beach and the view is mostly the pool, but the beach can be seen to the left from the Balcony. You may want to call the hotel to confirm since maybe some rooms close the beach end of the building have more of an ocean view.
I upgraded a reward to partial ocean view during my first stay at the resort and it was a real stretch to call it partial view. They refunded my upgrade fee.

Enjoy!

Correct, we have a hotel room, not timeshare. The hotel offers 4 types of rooms: Garden view, Pool view, Partial ocean view and Ocean view. The Ocean view rooms are $50 more per night than the Partial view. I will call and clarify the difference. We are staying for 7 nights so the cost is not insignificant.

I assume upgrades for MR Plat are not likely during the holidays.

This hotel doesn't do a good job honoring the upgrades. I'm a gold and didn't get upgraded last year and was told no better rooms were available. However, when waiting for our room to be ready and at lunch, I checked the Marriott site and saw better rooms. When I brought that to their attention later magically, an ocean view appeared.

Just spoke with someone at the hotel and asked if "ocean view" means full view since they have "partial ocean view" rooms. Got a very straightforward answer about the view over the pool and the surrounding property. A full ocean view is a "deluxe" room. I don't see this option on reservations. Was told that perhaps they are sold out. He put an upgrade request in my res.

Will see what happens. Anybody know about Deluxe rooms at this property?

We had a recent stay for one night a few weeks ago. The location for this property was perfect (especially in hindsight given a 2 hour delay getting to Kauai because of a mx) for the first night of the trip since we just grabbed the shuttle to the hotel and headed back to the airport for a rental car in the morning.

It's been about six years since my last stay at this property (have stopped in several times the past couple years), but other than refreshing the rooms I didn't quite see any major changes from the recent renovations. I suppose that could be a good thing since IMO the property itself was always a gorgeous one. Booked a pool view and, as Silver, that's exactly what was expected and assigned. Absolutely no complaints, but it was a "arrive at 9pm, leave before noon" type stay; I'll definitely use it again for future visits, especially when either arriving late or flying out relatively early the next day.

I've not yet had the opportunity to dine "at" Mark's, but they do the catering for Captain Andy's Napali Dinner Sunset cruise and they do a very nice job.

It took a bit of friendly persistence but we scored a comped upgrade to a deluxe room for 7 nights! Full view of the bay and out to the ocean. On the same floor with the same view as the Presidential suite.

Is that the 2-floor suite in the upper right-hand corner of the building (as seen facing the building from the ocean?) I've tried a couple of times to see if they would give me an upgrade to that room, but no dice. :D

This might help you visualize it as well:

https://www.marriott.com/hotelwebsit...erty%20Map.pdf

You may have to be logged in first to view it, but my testing suggests that you don't.

All other rooms (in white) and the building/wings to the left are all timeshares.

there are also a few rooms not show on the back of the building, overlooking the front entrance, so these rooms have to be above floor 5, which is the level of the front entrance. I believe there are only 8 floors in the main (back) building/wing, and 12 floor timeshare building/wing on the front of the beach/lagoon.

The suites in blue on the end of the tower on the right are nice: I got upgraded to one once when I bought an extra night one day before a timeshare week use.

Billy

The suite I'm talking about is the one pink room on the upper-right of the middle building.

I also was once upgraded to one of the suite rooms on the far right building (perpendicular to the ocean). That was a long time ago though. It was when the movie "Six Days Seven Nights" was being filmed. It seemed that almost the whole hotel was filled with film crews, but the hotel seemed empty as they were always away working. But the hotel upgraded us to one of those suites on the end of the building with a very nice view of the ocean/lagoon.

Yep. :D

The first upgrade offer was a suite for an additional $100 per night. I declined. Then the front desk agent offered a deluxe room. Let's just say that if the Presidential suite was occupied, we would probably know it.

I don't think this pdf is quite accurate. The pink room in the building parallel to the ocean takes up two floors. We are not on the top floor so the ocean view rooms (not timeshares) are not restricted to the top floor.

I'm about to book a 7 night rewards/cert stay here but only base level (gotta get in on the Cat 5 option before 3/15). Any chance of a Gold upgrade on a reward trip? Perhaps a silly question since there are many variables.

Thanks for all the reviews. Really looking forward to getting away.

I'm sure there will be a chance that you could get an upgrade. But as you inferred whether you get one or how nice an upgrade is very dependent on a number of variables at the hotel (i.e. how long your stay is, how full is the hotel, time of year, who you talk with, when you talk with them, how nice you are, how many Plats/PPs might also be checking in during your stay, etc.)

Based on my past experiences there, even as a Plat, don't hold your breath for a suite room. The most likely "best" upgrade you have a chance to get is probably to an Oceanview, higher floor room. That is what I have normally received (both as a Gold and a Plat) when I stayed there in the past. (Though I was upgraded to a suite room there once, but that was about 10 years or more ago.)

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not looking/hoping to get a suite by any means, but I would like to get bumped from the garden view to pool or partial ocean if possible. I just really don't want to be looking at the parking lot of anything because of the rewards redemption. Otherwise, since its a resort, that's about all Gold brings. I booked the room as Silver and am unexpectedly Gold a bit early, so I will probably send a note through the concierge system.

Any other tips for this hotel are, of course, welcome.

I used to own a timeshare at this hotel, and have been there many times, altho not in the last 3-4 years. Fortunately(long story), I was able to sell the timeshare and haven't been there since. That said, I really liked the hotel & staff. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

* Location. What's not usually mentioned is that this hotel is literally 5 minutes or less to/from LIH airport. If in rental car, three left turns out of the airport has you entering the hotel grounds. VERY convenient.

* As mentioned above, the only actual beach front rooms are in the timeshare bldg. Hotel stuff is recessed, and even the leading edge of the hotel rooms don't have the full ocean front view one might think. This hotel was originally a Westin, and after the big cyclone, Hurricane Inik, blew out much of the island in 1992, Marriott picked up this hotel. So, it may not fit the typical Marriott hotel/resort layout. BUT, it's still very enjoyable.

* So, if you really want an oceanfront room, you'll need to reserve one of the timeshares, or perhaps go to TUG/ebay and rent one from an owner. I had one of the corner two bedroom/kitchen timeshares and it was great. Anything other than timeshare is gonna be views only...

I'd go back again, bearing in mind the above, but since my next trip to Hawaii is likely to be HNL, I don't know when I'll hit Kauai again. Nice play to go chill out, tho :)