Questions About Marriott's St. Kitts Beach Club in October including not Guaranteed room and travel insurance and things to do

[shaxs]

Hello,

Due to one of my friends not realizing that his son's birthday was during the time we booked our trip to St Thomas, we rescheduled the trip to October4th and moved it to Marriott's St. Kitts Beach Club. We were able to get a 3 bedroom which I am pretty excited about. Wish flights were cheaper and its a long trip from the west coast, but I am really looking forward to it. I do have a few questions.

When adding the reservation to my Marriott Bonvoy account, Main section says:

3 Bedroom Villa, Bedroom 1: 1 King, Bedroom 2: 1 King, Bedroom 3: 2 Queen(s), Sofa bed, Balcony
1 Adult
MVC POINTS BULK

Under Room Request and Accessibility it says:

Not Guaranteed Room 1: View Request Sold Out/Ng Gtd.

1) There will be 4-5 adults. Do I need to update that number before going or does it matter?

2) Should I be concerned with it saying "Not Guaranteed Room 1: View Request Sold Out/Ng Gtd." ? We invited a few more friends based on the new 3 bedroom size and I need to make sure we get a 3 bedroom when we get there.

General Questions:

3) I understand October is technically Hurricane season. I did not get the travel insurance at checkout due to some of the Allianz reviews I read here. If a hurricane comes through and the property is damaged or closed prior to travel, do we get our week back?

4) Do we need a car or is there decent ways to get around? We will have 4-5 guys so that makes rentals and probably taxis a little more difficult.

5) Anything we should know about or do while we are there?

Thanks again everyone for all the help an answers these past few weeks!

 

[jwalk03]

1- I never list more than 1 adult on my reservation. Makes no difference.
2- That is a standard message that is always there on every exchange. You will be given a 3-bedroom if that is what your confirmation is for.
3- Hurricane season is half the year. I frequently travel during hurricane season with no issues. That said its a risk- if the resort were to be completely closed they may offer some time of replacement week (or maybe not). Totally at their discretion. But again its very unlikely this will actually happen.

I have only been to St. Kitts as a cruise stop so no info on 4 & 5. I did buy a day pass for the Marriott hotel once and its a wonderful property and has a great pool and beach to enjoy!

 

[Hindsite]

4) Don't bother with a hire car, use Lynn's Taxi and Tours to get you to and from the airport, set up the Nevis tour for you, do the Island Tour and take you out and about and to dinner as needed. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063778322613

5) Take USD cash as well as card(s), many places don't take cards and the local currency can be hard to obtain. Nevis tour (cash $160ish for 4 people). The resort is cashless, you can charge to the unit or pay with cards, but no cash.
The pizza shack on the resort is good, you can order from the hotel restaurants and have it delivered to the unit, much more convenient than waiting for a table and cheaper if you have your own drinks.
There is a supermarket just outside the resort that stocks most of what you are likely to need, given it is an Island and there are sometimes you can't get everything you might want.
For local cafe style food and coffee, Rituals coffee is about 10 mins walk away. Just a few more mins along the road is a posher restaurant called Rock Lobster.
If you fancy another 10-15 mins walk you can get to the dozen or so bar/restaurants on Frigate Bay on the other side of the island.
I think the 3-beds are all top floor corner units, so very nice and seemed to have a very large wrap around terrace. I don't think I saw elevators, but the concierge will take all your stuff to the unit if needed.
I'm not sure whether Oct is still low season, so some places might not be fully open, but there will be plenty to do. Zip-lining, horse riding, sugar cane train.
Reggae beach is a tourist hot-spot, it just looked overcrowded to us, there are plenty of other coves and beaches to go to as well. I'm sure there are watersports and sailing trips as well if you want
Its difficult to go wrong when you're on a resort with a huge Marriott conference hotel, most anything will come to you if you want.
Enjoy!

 

[Fasttr]

Agree with the others, with a party your size, using the plentiful taxis is likely the way to go. Most are minivan style, and can hold 6 fairly easily. There is a taxi stand a couple doors down from the Marriott where they wait, so they are always plentiful and ready to pick you up right outside the front doors of the hotel at any time of the day/evening. If you have a couple in your party who want to explore something specific on their own, there is a Hertz car rental kiosk in the Marriott hotel where they could easily rent a car for a day or two if so desired.

As for exploring, we took a half day tour of the island (approx. 4 hours) with https://www.thenfordgreytours.com/ They were a great choice, and even customized their standard Grand Tour of St. Kitts tour by adding a couple stops in lieu of the normal time allotted for staying at a beach. With being there for a week, we figured we could do the beach thing all we wanted, so opted for a couple extra sight seeing stops. They were great to work with, and the tour hits all the highlights like Romney Manor and the Caribelle Batik shop, the amazing Brimstone Hill Fortress, and many more. They offer group tours, or private tours with just your group. We opted for the private tour, and really enjoyed it.

We did consider the sugar cane train tour, http://www.stkittsscenicrailway.com/ but figured stopping at spots vs wizzing by them on a train was likely the better choice. If you have a train lover in your group, that may move the needle in the other direction.

We also took a water taxi https://www.islanderwatersportsnevis.net/ from Reggae Beach to Nevis (takes about 7 mins) and then took an ATV tour with Funky Monkey Tours https://www.funkymonkeytours.com/ The tour was some on the road, some off the road, so a nice mix. They basically have a full bar on the back of the ATV, so its "free" drinks for the entire tour (local beers, rum, vodka, gin, whiskey, you name it). We had a lot of fun seeing Nevis that way. They dropped us off at the Sunshine's Beach Bar & Grill https://www.facebook.com/sunshinenevis/ so we could try the word famous Killer Bee drink (its worth the visit).

As for restaurants, we mostly ate breakfast in the villa, but we did eat two mornings at the Sweet and Savory Bistro, just across the street and a bit left from the Marriott. We enjoyed it both times. For reference, its in the same plaza as the Ram's Supermarket mentioned in a prior post (pro tip on Ram's for groceries, you can take a cart back to your villa to unload your groceries, then you can leave the cart in the front of the Marriott, and Ram's comes a couple times a day to collect them. Makes transporting the groceries much easier than carrying them).

For alcohol for the villa, there is a shop right in the Marriott hotel....easy peasy.

We ate out for dinners....a few times at different beach bars (which often have great food....best shrimp fajitas I believe I have ever had was at The Monkey Bar....walkable from the Marriott) and we ate a few times at more formal restaurants. Of those, we enjoyed Marshall's https://marshallsdining.com/ and if you really want an experience, Orchid Bay Beach House https://www.orchidbaybeachhouse.com/ should not be missed. Its a bit pricier at $115 per person, which includes a welcome drink, but its a night you won't forget. Arrive early, certainly before the sunset, as the experience feels like the owner invited you over to his cliff side house for dinner. Its really special. You select your menu after you make the ressy. The number of selections you are allotted for each course is based on the size of your party (the more in your party, the more items of each course you can sample). As for on site restaurants at the Marriott, we ate at the Italian restaurant, and enjoyed it, but heard lots of bad reviews from folks in the pools about the steak restaurant on site, so we skipped that.

Hope you have as nice of a time on St. Kitts as we did.

 

[Dean]

3) I understand October is technically Hurricane season. I did not get the travel insurance at checkout due to some of the Allianz reviews I read here. If a hurricane comes through and the property is damaged or closed prior to travel, do we get our week back?

Owning a timeshare is the same in principle as owning a home or condo. If the resort is unavailable for your stay, you may lose your week completely, it's just one of the risks of timeshares that everyone should be aware of. I'm not a big believer in travel insurance as it's often a poor return. That said, I do get the MVC product only because of the volume of trips and weeks we take and it's economy of scale. I do sometimes buy medical insurance for non US trips. I figure if I can't lose a week here or there, I shouldn't be in the game. But an island medical evacuation can be quite the large sum and that type of insurance is much cheaper than trying to cover flights and accommodations.

 

[bazzap]

3) I understand October is technically Hurricane season. I did not get the travel insurance at checkout due to some of the Allianz reviews I read here. If a hurricane comes through and the property is damaged or closed prior to travel, do we get our week back?

Although St Kitts has been hit by hurricanes over the years, to the best of my knowledge the MVC resort has been minimally affected at worst.
We have owned there for some 15 years and stayed in October, which is at the end of the hurricane season, and never really experienced any significant impact and certainly not a resort closure.
You should be fine.

 

[hpy2go]

Lots of great feedback and advice given here. You may find some useful information in this thread: https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/help-with-st-kitts.344141

 

[bucs0721]

Does anybody have an email contact for either the MVC St. Kitts or hotel?

 

[Hindsite]

These are what I got earlier this year in response to the pre-arrival questionnaire and questions. The check-in for the timeshare is on the other side of the lobby from the hotel check-in.
mvcskbkt.prearrival@vacationclub.com
Nicola.Benjamin@vacationclub.com

 

[Fasttr]

Does anybody have an email contact for either the MVC St. Kitts or hotel?

This is to the pre arrival team.... mvcskbkt.prearrival@vacationclub.com

 

[WBP]

I would avoid Allianz Global Assistance (travel insurance) at all expense. They are awful.

Read this:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/allianz-travel-insurance-richmond-6?osq=travel+insurance&override_cta=Request+a+Quote

We have had a faulous experience with these two sources of travel insurance. You must tell them that your accommodations are a prepaid timeshare.

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We do not travel anywhere, without this coverage:

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[GrayFal]

Go back to your confirmation page on interval.

Here is my confirmation for an exchange…see the unit/view code?
In my case the code means ocean front.

@dioxide comprised a list of view on the Marriott Board.
Look for your code and you will see where you are going to be.

Three bedroom units are fantastic, all are on the third floor - no elevator buildings - gigantic deck!!!

Marriott II Unit Codes

Moderator Notes 7/20/15 - At Dioxide's request this post has been edited to delete outdated info and link instead to his most-current compilations in Posts #232 and #233 in the thread. As well, the thread has been linked in the Weeks FAQ in this forum. Thank you again, Dioxide! I am working...

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