Booked the bargain air, now Hilton, Marriott or another resort?

[Kksmama]

I'm SO excited, this will our first trip to the area and we really lucked out with airfare from Tampa to Curacao. Hotel/resort rates look to be very reasonable, at least for the week in May that we are coming.

My husband, 16 year old daughter, and I all dive; our 11 year old and 9 year old children will probably get certified when they are 12 and 10... but that isn't until after our trip. So we want to stay in a place that will be fun for them, and allow two divers at a time to do some shore diving or a boat dive while one of us hangs out enjoying the beach and snorkeling with the younger kids. Based on others reports here (thank you all!) I think the Marriott or Hilton would work, and I think that either would quietly allow us to put a rollaway in the room for the fifth person (the systems only allow reservations for 4).

Which resort would you choose, does one have better shore diving, more spacious rooms, nicer grounds, or a better dive op than the other (we have our own gear, will just need advice, weights, and tanks)? We'd choose an oceanfront room with included breakfast at either. At Hilton, I'm a Gold Honors member so we often get nice perks (free internet, upgrades when available). Hilton has slightly cheaper rates than Marriott, but is non-refundable upon booking.

Is there a different resort I should consider? The Hyatt looks nice, but I didn't like the sound of navigating a channel to do shore diving, nor the 50 minute time limits on boat dives. I don't think Breezes would be a good value for us with the included food/drinks, and they look to be sold out for the rooms we'd want. We don't need any "kids clubs" or childcare, but would enjoy an atmosphere where there are lots of other families around and things to do.

I think we'll rent a car for the week, though if either hotel had free airport transportation maybe we could get by with only a few days car rental?

All suggestions welcome!

 

[diversteve]

I've been to both as we stayed in Piscadera Bay for a week a few years ago. Never stayed at either hotel but visited both twice - once for dinner and once just to hang out with my group/hit the casinos.

The Marriott is nicer than the Hilton from what I saw. The Marriott has a nice beach, pool complex and several decent restaurants. It starts high on a hill and drops down to the waterline - there's a couple story waterfall the stairs surround. The Hilton main building looked to be from the 70's. The grounds on either seemed equally nice. Both had smallish casinos on property. I would guess the Marriott is a lot newer also. Neither is what I'd call beachfront though - although both would have beach/water views. Since the Hilton is a big square hotel, the backside rooms would look up the hill at our resort - duplex condos that were behind it. Most of the Marriott rooms that I saw were in short towers and appeared to either face the water or the resort grounds - but IDK...

By the beach on the Hilton there's sort of remnants of a damaged pier/walkway slightly offshore. It's kind of odd, it leads off the ironshore next to the beach out a little bit and there's a "y" but neither goes much further. And there's another freestanding segment that looks like it might have at one time connected to it b4 it fell in or was washed away? It's just odd to see it right off the beach. It wouldn't affect the beach though - just the view.

We ate at the Marriott's beach restaurant one night so I know it had a great view. I also ate alone at the Hilton one night - food was better at the Marriott. But the restaurants weren't the same price range either. Marriott has an upper level bar that seemed to have nightlife certain nights, the Hilton had an outdoor bar. The Marriott also had some sort of dance event going on Friday night in a pavillion on the beach. And a pool bar also.

Caribbean Sea Sports is at the Marriott - IIRC one of the Ocean Encounters dive shops is at the Hilton.

If I had to pick I would stay at the Marriott. I like Marriott's and stay at Renaissance's often. It seemed as nice as some of them - probably one of the nicer Marriott's I've seen. The Hilton just seemed older and maybe a little more run-down.

btw "a few minutes to downtown and the Seaquarium" is a stretch from either property. Downtown is maybe 15mins. - especially the far side where the shops etc. are as you have to go slightly inland and over the bridge to get there. We went to the main Ocean Encounters shop at the Seaquarium from PBay one morning to dive with the Dolphins - that was the better part of a 1/2 hr. ride. While we didn't go in, the Seaquarium looked like a smaller version of SeaWorld. Your kids might also like the Ostrich Farm.

Piscadera Bay was pretty quiet at night. Both hotels have security but then so do most properties on Curacao. Due to the refinery and container port there's some seedier areas downtown so I think there's some theft. We stayed out in Lagun a couple of days and even there we had barred windows and a gated entrance to our property.

Someone has mentioned before that there's no courtesy shuttle from the Marriott, IDK about the Hilton. It would be a toss-up as to whether a cab or a car would be cheaper - with 5 likely renting a car would be. Also a lot of the better shore diving is west of town so you'd need transportation - unless you go with the DiveBus as they'll pick you up in PBay and take you to some of the better dive sites. http://www.the-dive-bus.com/ You can also arrange to snorkel with your divers on one of their trips with advanced reservations.

 

[DeputyDan]

I have stayed at the Hilton.
It's pretty much a dump.

That being said I stayed on points so the cost was good.
We found food to be expensive when we stayed there.
Their currency was based on the Euro and we were using US dollars.

 

[Damselfish]

I've visited/eaten at both a number of times, and generally kept up on what's going on there. Marriott pretty much wins over the Hilton on all counts. I think it would work for you.

 

[Kksmama]

I'm so grateful - thank you diversteve, DeputyDan, and Damselfish!

Looks like we will enjoy the Ostrich Farm, I'm not too interested in the Aquarium as we have nice aquariums here and have been to Sea World many times. Are there any areas where people gather and artists sell things and musicians play and kids have ice cream and adults have wine/cocktails? Like a scheduled weekend Art Show, or a recurring street fair kind of thing?

I'll definitely contact the Dive Bus folks, lots of terrific comments in the archives about them. But I do hope we'll have some good diving/snorkeling right from our hotel, for the convenience and the cost/time savings. Is there a condo resort or VRBO that would have equally nice pool/beach stuff going on but be in a better shore diving area? I could give up on site restaurants and the pool bar (packing note - bring Tervis tumbler). Our VRBO experiences have been mixed, one place in Hawaii was too quiet and residential-like but the others were as full of tourists and vacation-oriented as any hotel. Are there time-share resorts that would work for us (but I'm not taking a tour!)?