Save New Zealand for a trip you want to rent a car and go exploring. Sydney is a week of relaxing city fun. Darling Harbor is good for a week of evening dinings.

Are you really going to pick a place because there is a Marriott? Perhaps SO should be EASED into the way of the FTer ;)

If you change your mind I stayed here for a week and the view was incredible.

We just came back from Punta Islita in Costa Rica. You might want to look at that and it's sister property El Silencio in the cloud forest. Punta Islita is an Autograph Collection property and they treat plats well (and they treated this gold very well). El Silencio is not Marriott but quite unique.

Honeymoon! Need some recommendations!
 

Happy Monday!

My fiance and I are getting married next September and we are looking at a Marriott to help us out. At that point I will have close to 350k-400k points to use.

I have stumbled upon the Ritz @ Kapalua and JW Khao Lak or JW Phuket. (PS- How expensive is the food near Phuket at hotel)?

I am a Marriott Platinum and I am already secured for next year so that helps out a bit.

I have read about some of the Caribbean locations too but we are doing a cruise 4 months after our wedding.

I have stayed at the Ritz @ Kapalua (Maui), Wailea, and Waikiki beach..

Any recommendations would be great!

We would be flying from the states..

It seems Ren Phuket is preferable to JW nowadays.

PHUKET! Ren or JW....They are resorts but will provide wonderful breakfasts. As a plat honeymooner they will treat you very well.

With that many points, I think you can get a travel package for 7 nights and 120k miles. Thats enough for one business class award ticket to Thailand.

And as a Plat you should get free internet which will allow you to email your wife with pictures of how great Thailand is. :p

you mean his soon-to-be-ex-wife?

Well, I thought it was implied that SHE would get the award ticket. THEN you would buy another. But the last two posts made me laugh. :D

There isn't much near the hotel. Food is relatively inexpensive on the island, but the offerings near the hotel are sparse and you will be stuck there unless you rent a car or take a taxi everywhere. I felt like I was in prison there, so took a taxi to Surin Beach and rented a motorbike for a week. This is why I've never returned to the property. I'd much rather stay at one of the Courtyard properties (that, unfortunately, don't exist anymore).

Honeymoon! Need some recommendations!
 

Take her to the Cleveland Marriott... Romantic getaway.

FWIW I'll cast a vote for the JW Phuket. Mrs DL and I spent a week there as part of our RTW honeymoon in May-June (all this travel has to have some benefit, right?). We had already spent two weeks in Europe doing museums and sightseeing and it was time to sit back and veg for a week. The JW was a perfect venue for this course of activity (inactivity?).

I will second Mr Vker's advice and comments. With your stash of MR points you can redeem a Category 7 Travel Package reward for 330,000 points, which gives you a free week at the JW plus 120k-132k air miles. I did this and used United miles for our trip into Thailand...we used Thai Airways, but ANA or SQ are also nice if you can find the award seats.

I also popped for a THB 4000/night upgrade to an oceanfront suite. The basic rooms at the JW are nice but the suites are awesome. We had a large balcony with a hot tub, dining table, and two chaise lounges. The bathroom had a shower sized for two and a bathtub which probably could have accommodated four. The suite itself was over 1000 square feet plus the terrace. We were on the top floor and had complete privacy on our terrace. :D The ground floor units have a small private pool and easier access to the main swimming pool, but are not as private.

The staff is very attentive and responsive. When we checked in at noon our suite was not ready, so the management put us in a standard room for the day and moved us to our suite that evening, comping the suite upgrade for our entire stay.

As a Plat you'll get their excellent breakfast buffet. The service at the resort was impeccable (as in most places in Thailand) and my new bride got her off-the-menu plate of fresh cut mango every morning without asking. We ate at all the resort's restaurants and did a fair amount of room services. You can even arrange to have a chef come and cook your dinner tableside on your terrace. None of it was cheap...we probably spent about $100-150 a day on food and beverages but we did get a 25% Platinum MR discount.

My prior Phuket experiences were similar to CO-PLAT's so I had rented a car for the week, but it turned out to be unnecessary. We went out exactly twice, both times for dinner at other resorts. It was, for us at least, an ideal honeymoon spot.

Ren Phuket gets another vote. ^

Just spent the last four days of our two week honeymoon there in August. Got upgraded to one of the four (?) oceanfront villas as a Gold! (It was dead empty in August...that probably helped)

As others stated...it is far removed from everything. You would probably be disappointed if you flew all the way around the world and just stayed in the resort...but that is what we wanted at the end of our action packed two week honeymoon adventure. After our bout with food poisoning a few days prior...we didn't even want to try to leave the resort to eat. The villa was an amazing experience. We couldn't bring ourselves to leave it to do excursions.

I know you said not interested in the caribbean, however, MRS and I really enjoyed Scrub Island!

If your choices are Ritz Kapalua or one of the JWs in Thailand the only reason to choose Thailand would be the exotic locale. The Ritz is by far better in every possible way. The JW Phuket is only comfortable if you stay in a suite and as others have written it's in a remote location with very little food options outside of the hotel. The hotel food is average to good, but nothing when compared to the Ritz.

Basically you have the choice of luxury or location. If you want a relaxing luxurious honeymoon go to Maui. If you want an exotic honeymoon in a faraway land ( :) ) then take a suite at the JW Phuket.

Can someone explain the Category 7 travel package?

That seems intriguing...