We just returned from a wonderful week at the Marriott Frenchman's Cove. The property was just beautiful, right on the water, the infinity pool overlooked the beach and the water. It is located along the cruise ship channel and you could watch the ships go by morning and evening, it did not matter how many times you saw one, it was always fascinating - they are just huge! Last year, we stayed on the east side of the island near Red Hook and you cannot see the cruise ships from there, so it was a new experience for us.
Every member of the resort staff was friendly, you never passed anyone who did not stop to greet you. The reception staff were nice, we were able to check in when we arrived, even though it was 2 hours before the scheduled check-in. Having said that, if the resort is 100% booked, they will not let you check out late, but they will hold your luggage for you and you can shower in the fitness center, so it is not a big deal. We stayed in a 2 bedroom villa in the St. John building, the rooms are large, the kitchen is nice although we could have used a few more dishes and pots and pans since we eat a lot in the room. The St. John building is at the back of the property, so you had 3 elevator rides to get to the pool/beach, but this was not a big deal and our children actually liked pushing the buttons! We think that the Virgin Gorda building would be the best and may try to request it when we go back, it would be one less elevator ride.
The beach was small, but nice and never crowded, at first our daughter did not like the rocks, but once she had some water shoes, she didn't even notice. There were games on the beach including a bean bag toss and a golf ball game, there was a floating trampoline-like thing in the water and also a floating iceberg that you could climb and slide down (although this is too difficult for small children, we only saw adults able to climb it). If you wanted a bigger beach, you could go to the Morningstar beach next door which you could walk to rather easily or take the shuttle. We usually walked there and shuttled back. The waves at the Morningstar Beach were bigger than the other beaches.
The pool at the Frenchman's Cove was nice, there were beach chairs sitting in the water, and nice steps around most of the pool. The highlight for our family was the water slide, our 2 and 4 year old loved the slide! There is also a baby pool which our 2 year old loved and a hot tub. The restaurant on site was good, we ate lunch and dinner there. There is happy hour 2 for 1 drinks from 4 to 6 every day which was nice, they had live music most days.
We rented a car because we like to get out and explore and because our kids are in carseats, but this resort has so much I am not sure it would be necessary. You can take taxis most places ($6/person downtown) and there is a water ferry that will take you downtown (takes 12 minutes, $14/person), it leaves every half hour from the Frenchman's Cove dock.
For grocery shopping, we had the most luck at Pueblo, went to Cost U Less, but didn't have as much luck as we had last year, too many items in bulk. We also liked the Fruit Bowl, they have a salad bar and better produce.
For restaurants, for a nice adult dinner, we highly recommend The Banana Tree Grill which is located at the Bluebeard's Castle resort (short taxi ride) and we also liked Big Papi's Bar and Grill downtown (located in Hibiscus Alley), they actually had portable mini DVD players to entertain the kids while we ate - we had pizza there and it was excellent.
For side trips, we went to Coki Beach one day which has good, easily accessible snorkeling and took the car ferry from Red Hook to St. John - we love St. John. We also did the snorkel trip on "the Cat" arranged through the resort and loved it, we swam with the sea turtles and saw beautiful fish and coral.
Overall, we had an amazing vacation, this resort is just beautiful and I am not sure that you will find anything nicer than this.
- Marriotts Charlotte Amalie
- Marriotts Hotel Frenchmans Cove
- Marriott Charlotte Amalie
- Charlotte Amalie Marriott
- Marriotts Frenchmans Cove
