rk_texas, I know this is an old thread, but i'm extremely curious about where you ended up booking! Actually, I'm curious about the whole thing! Were you able to get good AA partner flights?? Where are you booked for the hotel? Thanks!

Ritz Kapalua, Maui is supposed to be really good. Maui weather is fine for Sept/Oct.

Rtiz Sharm El Sheikh is another beach idea if you are open to something different. Combine Cairo (Marriott) with the trip if you have the vacation time. Check the weather (but it shouldn't be too hot).

Thailand is an excellent idea but best to avoid tropics during monsoon times.

Thanks for the ideas -- just for clarification, when is the true monsoon season?

Also, has anyone stayed at Marriott's Playa Andaluza?

I contacted RC and they said that I could only use points for a standard room and confirmed that my status pretty much meant nothing, so this makes me lean towards JW's, Marriott VCs, and the like.

Yes, I'd be curious where you booked as well. My wedding is scheduled 9/25 and we are looking for a honeymoon destination as well. This time of year is extremely difficult to find beaches since you have a the hurricane season and monsoon seasons corresponding. I too have plenty of MR points and AA miles so the only limit on where we can go is where there are Marriott resorts!

Any other ideas? My two main choices at the moment are Curacao and JW Phuket. Advantage is currently Curacao since it is out of the beaten path of hurricanes (and has an all inclusive option) whereas Phuket is pretty much a guarantee for monsoon season.

I am also starting to think about honeymoon planning - although I'm yet to propose and organise the wedding. Vacation first, wedding second - don't tell the wife to be ;-)

It will either have to be a non-Marriott vacation such as seychelles, fiji, etc...or current thinking is a South America trip (Beunos Aires, Honduras, Panama, Chile, etc)

Not sure if this is your kind of thing, but we spend a reasonable amount of time on vacation (40+ nights in the states last year and just completed Hawai'i) so was thinking of something completely different. Either that or the Rocky Mountaineer!!!

David

I'd suggest the Ritz in Bali. Beautiful facility on a beautiful beach. End of September would be the tail end of the dry season, so you should be ok weather-wise.

Congrats on the wedding!

Great advice but it is no longer a RC but a Bvlgari partner hotel where points can no longer be used. I realized this after I had already looked at it -- needless to say I was disappointed. I was really hoping the Turks and Caicos or Fiji hotels would be completed but that was wishful thinking.

Thanks for the post and the well wishes!

I do know that this is the "official" policy. But we stayed at the Ritz Kapalua (mentioned earlier) and did not find the "reality" matched the policy. They were great. Also - based on experiences.....non-status at Ritz can be superior to status at a Marriott.....

We spent a week at the Marriott (not Ren) in Curacao a couple of years ago in the fall. Some pluses and minuses if you're looking for a Caribbean holiday in the fall:

Pluses: 1) There's more of a mix of cultures there than Aruba, which sometimes like an outpost of the US (which of course, some people might like for its familiarity). In Curacao, there's a mix of North American, Latino and Dutch tourists and residents and I found that it made the food and environment more interesting. 2) The diving was quite good and quite easy. There's a good diveshop on location and we were comfortable with the safety-conscious operator. We charged our daily dives through our room and got lots of MR points. 3) Decent beach, nice smallish pool and decent food (especially in the bar, surprisingly). 4) It would be a good place to kick back and relax for a week. 5) Our oceanfront room (complimentary upgrade) was comfortable and in good condition (but nothing special). 6) Curacao doesn't have the feeling you get in some tropical getaways that the hotels are rich enclaves and everyone and everything around you is impoverished. 7) It was relatively easy to get to from NYC (on AA, via Miami) with flights arriving and leaving at civilized times.

Minuses: 1) Not a lot to shop for and not a lot of non-beach activities. We rented a car one day and drove around the island. The ostrich farm was fun and we tasted Curacao liqueur. That was about it. 2) Probably one of the reasons Curacao doesn't have such a sharp rich/poor divide is because there is industry on the island (oil processing, I think). So the scenery and views are sometimes interrupted by some rather hideous processing plants.

We definitely would go back again for the diving and if we just wanted to kick back and relax. We wouldn't choose it if we wanted a more active vacation.

Thanks Kate!!! I was actually pondering posting a follow up to this to try and get more Curacao reviews. My SO and I are planning on completing our PADI open water wherever we go, so that will give us plenty of daily activities.

I've read a ton of reviews on Trip Advisor and I've heard a wide range of reviews on the Marriott's accomodations. Can you give a little more detail on them?

On a side note, I did send the hotel an email asking about any upcoming rennovations and also inquired as to an upgrade. They replied with a very polite email giving me information and also letting me know they would be more than happy to upgrade me. Overall, I'm already impressed on their customer service.

Ideally we would be visiting the Maldives, Seychelles, French Polynesia, Borachay, or somehwere else exotic, but Marriott just doesn't have coverage for getaways, so we're trying to look at second best alternatives. It helps that Curacao has an all inclusive plan as well.

Thanks to everyone for the input! I am hoping to make a decision in the next week or so based upon reviews on here, as well as additional suggestions for other places and methods (thanks sophie!).

There certainly was nothing wrong with the Marriott accommodations - I'd characterize them as typical 4*. We had a 2nd floor ocean-facing room with a balcony - this was an upgrade from our booking (due to Gold status). The room was very large, with a comfortable bed. I think there was a tile floor - not unusual in the tropics. The bathroom was medium-sized. The room wasn't sumptuous or super up-to-date in its furnishings, but it was just fine. My recollection is that the rooms do not look like the guest room samples on the Marriott webpage - i.e., no carpet, I don't remember blue walls. The room didn't have the style of a Ren or of an upscale hotel like the Marriott in Cairo, but as I said, it was perfectly fine.

I didn't get a good sense of whether the dive op would be a good place to do your PADI Open Water. While I certainly thought the divemasters and land-based crew were good for a resort operation, I just didn't see anything that would indicate that they are good, or not, as instructors. However, I think Curacao would be a good place to learn to dive, whether you do it at the Marriott or somewhere else on the island.

I would suggest you take your training at home and use your time there for diving instead. OW is just an entry level and you should do some diving to gain a little experience before you go diving open ocean. Join ScubaBoard.com and check there about diving advices.

Thanks for the updates Kate. I noticed that this property has very few suites, so I'm guessing when they said that they would be more than happy to give me an upgrade, it would be to an ocean facing room. One more question for you -- did you use the spa while you were there? Wondering how reasonable (or not) the prices are. I'm guessing they are the same as normal Marriotts around the world, but I figured I would ask in case I would be happily surprised. (i.e. enter JW Phuket where the Marriott spa prices are expensive, as normal, but they also have massage huts on JW's beach where you can get an hour for 400bht or $10)

iztok -- Our schedules are quite busy and it really limits our ability to do this prior to our departure (especially with me travelling right now). I would like to do the studying portion at home though since that is feasible, and then go do the pool-like conditions and open water dives down there. I'm also assuming that OW will work for Curacao's diving since I can't imagine we would need more than 60 feet, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Marriott Honeymoon - your help is appreciated!
 

Hi Everyone -

I've been doing a lot of reading on this site to help me better understand the seven Marriotts where the all-inclusive option is available. It seems that a lot of folks play the wait-and-see approach with regards to the food inclusions/restrictions; meaning, they wait until they get there and read the info on a sheet given to them by the staff. Well, that's great and a decent approach, but given that my fiancee is an ex-chef - and I myself am somewhat of a foodie - the food is somewhat important.

So, any advice or info you can pass along? I'm thinking of simply calling each of the seven hotels and requesting info on their all-inclusive options.

Also, we're going to need to work off all of those extra calories. So we're also hoping to take in as much as we can in and around the hotel. Meaning, swimming, diving, snorkeling, horseback riding, etc. I've been reading up on each site's specific entry at Marriott.com as well as TripAdvisor, but cannot find a true consolidation other than the Excel spreadsheet I've started.

So again, any and all advice is welcomed.

The seven hotels are the following:

Tier 1 -
- CasaMagna Marriott Cancún Resort
- CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa
- Curacao Marriott Beach Resort & Emerald Casino
- Los Suenos Marriott Ocean & Golf Resort

Tier 2 -
- Frenchman’s Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort
- St. Kitts Marriott Resort & Royal Beach Casino
- Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort

Lastly, it's a real shame that the all-inclusive option is only available in the Caribbean-area. I'd love to see this offered in Europe or Hawaii as those were potential Honeymoon destinations.

Thanks much!