I'm in this boat right now. I'm trying to talk the wife into visiting this coming October. I currently have a $125/night rate where the 4th night is free. That means my 4 night total will have a rate about $94/night. AND it includes free full breakfasts. ^

BTW, this is not a pre-paid rate and is cancellable up to 3 days prior to arrival.

Wonder if you can use that $100 Marriott Travel Stimulus Voucher on this deal to get the price down even further?

(actually, I don't see anything that says you can't in the terms....)

I was there shortly after it opened, about 5 years ago, and it was a very nice property, so it should still be in very good shape.

The pools and beach were fine. It was one of the only real beaches on the island - it's a quite rocky geography and there's not much beach/sandy bottom ocean around the island. I suspect the sand at the Marriott was imported - it was fairly expansive.

I felt safe on the island - it's at the very beginning of commercial development, way behind Grand Cayman, Jamaica, USVI, etc. That also meant there was nothing in walking distance, though that may have changed. I would suggest renting a car so you can get out and about on your vacation.

If you do want to stay on property, the restaurants were decent, iirc, but we only used them once or twice.

As with most resorts, there is no lounge.

We had fun - certainly a different experience than the big tourist islands when you are driving down the road to a beach through cows, monkeys, goats, etc., you feed the monkeys while on the beach, and put your beach chair down about 15 feet from a 700lb pig.

You can get a small feel for what we saw here - http://richs.smugmug.com/gallery/510...50453235_5Ng9n

The second picture has the Marriott beach out in the distance. The last picture is of Nevis - worth the day trip. (Say hi to Elvis for us, if he's still sailing)

I'll definitely check on that. An average $69/night rate sounds very enticing.

See answers below:

Have a great time.

Hi, My husband and I along with our three sons (23, 20, 18) vactioned at this property in july, 2005. The property itself is very nice, rooms are good sized and clean, pool very nice, beach onsite but somewhat rocky. We're beach people but chose the pool instead. In fact, I never saw anyone other than walkers on the beach. There was a nice restaurant for breakfast, but always crowded, always a 15-30 minute wait. As with every island I've visited, service is slow by my standards, but after a couple of days slow turns to unhurried. We had dinner at the seafood restaurant on the property one night. Nice atmosphere, agonizingly unhurried, good (not great) food, and very expensive. The casino was good sized with high minimums on the table games. My husband and sons wanted to play craps together. Every night the table minimum was $25 with no players, the employees standing there looking bored. Every night we asked for a $10 minimum since no one was playing at the $25 rate. Never happened. I never saw anyone playing craps for the 5 nights we visited the casino. We also played a couple of rounds of golf. The course is BEAUTIFUL. Well worth it. Some parts are windy, but views/service were first class.

There was NOTHING to walk to back in 2005. I suggest cabs, and while they aren't cheap, some parts of the island looked a bit rough. Visited the old fort on top a hill, can't remember the name. Well worth it for the view alone.
Took a tour of the jungle, and while it was hot and strenuous, we all had a great time. Fabulous scenery, monkeys tossing have half eaten mangoes at us from the treetops...never saw the monkeys, but all of the mangoes had a bite mark.

Hope this helps

I stayed there a few years ago. St. Kitts is a very friendly island. The locals are very proud of the fact they've managed to maintain their quiet island appeal, however it is changing as more and more developments pop up. We did not rent a car and had great experiences with all of our taxi drivers. We were running late for our ferry to Nevis, and I was looking in my purse for the fare - the driver insisted that I pay him when I returned because he didn't want me to miss the ferry. He was there waiting for us at the end of the day.

I think you'll enjoy the resort. There is a small grocery store within walking distance and that's about it. The amenities are great. Some people don't care for the larger resorts but I enjoy the convenience, and the St. Kittian hospitality abounds, even at a large property like the Marriott.

I used points and I still got upgraded to a very nice suites with views of caribbean.

Wife and I were there last year for three nights. I did not find the resort particularly appealing. There were large tour groups coming and going constantly, employee morale seemed rather low, service in the restaurants was very slow and quite expensive, our room overlooked a huge airconditioning compressor, and I could hear noise in the courtyard down below overnight. On the other hand, my wife thoroughly enjoyed the hotel premises. She's more the participatory type and went on walks and events that the hotel had organized. We did form a bond with one cab driver who was quite kind and gave us some inside looks at the island-state. His uncle was minister of tourism and he was dtermined to show us a good time when out and about. He urged us to stay a couple more days so he could introduce us to his uncle. Certainly a nice gesture.

We have been ther twice in the past two years and love the place. It is as Aruba was 30 years ago...and they are just gearing up to tourism. Everyone is very friendly and go out of their way to accomodate. There are a number of great restaurants and the ones at the Marriott are very good. The Marriott has a very nice beach with terrific views.

THe hotel is very nice and there are about 75 timeshare units.

Here is a link to more info on SKB
http://myislands.myeyez.net/index.shtml?17

Any recent stays here? Looking to book a reward here in november...

We stayed here on points in February 2008. It was ok,but I would not return.The condition of much of the property was rundown and in dire need of repairs.. several of which I would consider dangerous,such as open electrical connections,broken walkways and the like.

The golf course was wonderful and the Kittian people are very friendly.We walked to the Caribbean side of the area and found good swimming and inexpensive food.If you go there,bring your own towels/and or blankets,as the locals will charge you for the use of their chairs and lounges.

The week we were there was extremely windy,to the extent we could not use the beach some days.
The food onsite is ok but expensive.

We attended a timeshare presentation which was calm until the end when we declined to purchase..they were pretty rude actually.

Our room was in one of the outbuildings and was quite spacious and attractively decorated.I believe most of these units are in the process of being converted to TS units.

We will be there in 4 weeks, and I'll post an update when we return if that helps. Most of the feedback I've received from previous guests is positive.

I have been there 3 times for 7 days per trip, we loved it. The service is not the best because hospitality is new to the island. But they try and the island is beautiful. Message me if you need anything else.

Has anybody stayed at St. Kitts in a balcony room? We have the two following room types available to us for booking and I'm not sure which we should go with. I don't expect we will spend a lot of time in the room but a nice room is always a great bonus. Is the Balcony room worth the upgrade cert?

Guest room, 1 King or 2 Double, Garden view, Garden Houses, Whirlpool

Guest room, 1 King or 2 Double, Resort view, Balcony

Thanks!

I was there in Feb. We got it for free. The only use we had was:

1. Drying scuba stuff
2. Me reading before wife got up.

YMMV