Just got back from staying at Frenchman's Cove May 30-June 5. We rented a car from Budget at the airport, which is about 15 minutes from the hotel. I managed to make it to the hotel with only one near miss (looking the wrong way since they drive on left vs. right side)! If you look at all the rental cars you'll notice that they all have dings/dents/scratches on the bumpers. I understand this now given the tight, winding roads, uneven parking spaces on the island, and knuckleheads from the mainland like me getting confused. Even with this I highly recommend renting a car. There's much to see on the island and getting out and driving is the way to go. Fuel was about 40-50 cents higher than back in the States, not as bad as I thought it would be.

Back to the hotel: One thing I really like is not having to pay for parking or having a mandatory valet service. I had no problem with finding parking the whole time I was there and the hotel even had individual covered parking on the bottom floor on each building (first come first serve). Check-in was confusing however. There's one small area on the ground floor near the pool and the main check-in area was tucked away in a room on the fifth floor of the lower building. I understand that the facility will have a much better check-in situation once the construction is done, which is good because it stinks right now. We were put in a room directly over the construction to start and there was no way we could enjoy the balcony with all the banging and clanging going on starting at 7:30am, so we requested a move. After some arm wrestling we were able to get a better room in the higher up building, a much better location. I wouldn't say the folks working the check-in bent over backwards to make the change, but overall the result ended up in our favor. In general, that’s the way my experience has been on this trip and an earlier trip to the Westin on St. John. The staff is more typical of a 2-3 star hotel than a 4-5 star hotel. When I pay this kind of money I want to feel like the staff will go above and beyond, not reluctantly doing me a favor. There are exceptions of course, but overall that’s been my experience.

The room was fabulous - very modern and spacious. I’ve stayed at the Maui Ocean Club a few times and I think these rooms are nicer. Really the only thing I would point out negative about the room itself was there was no garbage disposal – garbage left out near the front door got a little ripe after a while as a result. There’s only one set of elevators in the middle of the building we were in, so you had to hike it a bit to get to rooms on the ends but not a big deal. With two balconies (one bigger and one smaller) per bedroom, there’s plenty of opportunity to enjoy the great views of the bay and cruise ships coming and going. I recommend getting a room as high as you can for the full effect.

The pool was very nice. It had a small slide and this may rub people the wrong way but I liked the fact there was no Slide Nazi, testing kids for height requirements like at the Maui Ocean Club. My 4 year old was able to go down about 1000 times with me waiting to catch him at the bottom, we weren’t able to do this in Maui. OK, maybe the Slide Nazi would have been a good thing now that I think about it. The hot tub would have been great had the water not been only a few degrees warmer than the pool. C’mon folks, this is supposed to be a “hot” tub! This was not the case at the Morningstar pool in the adjacent hotel. I liked the movie nights (two nights out of six we were there) poolside. What a great setting for watching a movie, sitting in a warm pool in the tropics. The beach was small and cozy but you can’t do much swimming with younger kids because of the dead coral. When we went to get the sales pitch, the salesperson said the hotel had gotten or was in the process of getting approval to rip out the coral and rebuild the dilapidated dock that’s there. That will be a big improvement, unless you’re a coral hugger. The benefit of staying at the Cove is you also have access to the facilities at the Frenchmen’s Reef and Morningstar hotels next door. In my opinion there are not many better settings than the pool at the Frenchmen’s Reef. It overlooks the ocean and bay and is quite nice. I really liked the overlooks below the pool on the southern tip of the property, plenty of good pictures available there. The Morningstar pool is so-so. The Morningstar beach is terrific. Waves just the right size, chairs with umbrellas readily available without having to rent, crystal clear water, plenty of room, etc. You can access the other hotels using a shuttle service, but we just walked it by finding a little unmarked path on the south end of the Cove. Takes five minutes, and you can work off all the fu-fu drinks you’ll be pounding while you are there. On that subject, there needs to be a formal path established between the hotels, not sure why this hasn’t been made a priority.

For the most part food and food service was OK everywhere I went in the hotels, but it is all pricey. A few downers: “Windows ..” in the Reef hotel, supposed to be upscale – I order Macaroni and Cheese for the kid and I swear it is straight out of the box Kraft, just can’t stomach paying that much for Kraft. Also when you say you want water to drink make sure that they are not pouring it from a bottle because they charge you for bottled water even if you just wanted tap. A few uppers: the breakfast at Sunset Cove was really good, as was the Nachos (again pricey). An observation: everywhere we went, whether at the hotel or anywhere on the island we had to beg for the check, what’s up with that? We went to the god awful Pueblo market about five minutes away from the hotel to stock our refrigerator. The place was definitely not up to standards but you’ll get by using it I guess. Ask around for better places to go, we should have. Off site, three restaurants we really enjoyed were Hook, Line and Sinker in Frenchtown (great food) and Iggie’s at Bolongo Beach (atmosphere) and Wendy’s (price).

We went to the Owner’s Party one night and compared to the Maui Ocean Club it was severely lacking. Hardly any appetizers. I know, I know, what I am complaining about because it’s free, but just trying to compare apples to apples here.

A few other notes about the Island: Magen’s Bay is an absolutely beautiful beach with no waves and Mahogany Run is a fun golf outing, just remember to wear a collared shirt (not a non-collared golf shirt like Tiger Woods wears) or they will make you buy an overpriced shirt to play. C’mon Mahogany Run, if Tiger can wear shirts like these I think you can bend the rules a little. We had pretty good luck with Artistic Jewelers in town buying jewelry, they seemed to be a little more legit than most places, but definitely shop around. Oh, and never fly American Airlines, but that’s for another blog.

Overall, I would recommend Marriott Frenchmen’s Cove, they have a few kinks to work out, but with the ability to take advantage of the adjacent hotel’s facilities you get an unexpected bang for the buck. Also the island has enough to offer to keep you busy if you want to get off-property and see the sights. Man, I want to go back now …