JW MARRIOTT MARCO ISLAND BEACH RESORT

As a former JW Marriott employee of JW Minneapolis/Mall of America, I had very high expectations and a lot of excitement of our stay at JW Marco. Sadly, we were extremely disappointed. This JW is embarrassing to the luxury JW name. I hate to write this, because I truly love the Marriott brand, especially JW.

Positive first. The physical location is beach side. Negative of this though, the two main buildings of rooms run vertically of the gulf, so you don't get a direct view of the gulf in the majority of the rooms unless you go out to your balcony and set yourself up at a diagonal to get an obstructed view.
The rooms themselves, at least ours, is extremely outdated. The old brown carpet is worn out and just feels dirty, bring slippers. Armchair old and gross, paint is chipped and warped. Really old Florida hotel feel, definitely not luxury.

Housekeeping. Don't expect to get it. We were asked at check in if we'd like morning or afternoon cleaning. We requested afternoon, and both days we left our room before 11am and made sure the privacy sign was not at the door. The first day we came back around 3pm and no housekeeping. We called and requested they come as we were stepping out again. They did come after requesting, thank you, but they dont sweep the floors. I had my eye on a nasty toenail in the corner of the bathroom (not one of ours) hoping it would get cleaned up, spoiler alert, it was there our entire stay. Day 2 we spent the majority of the day out of the room, and even when we went back to our room for a couple of hours at 3pm (still no housekeeping) we were sure to not have the privacy sign up and waited for them to come. We would've stepped out for service. They never came.

Since we didn't get housekeeping we were out of washcloths. We left for dinner at 8pm and before leaving we requested towels at least be brought up. Back from dinner a little after 10pm, no towels. They claimed we had privacy sign on door, we did not. Called again for towels at 10. Waited until 1045, nothing. Walked down to front desk to get them myself. Was told the manager was now aware and they would be right up. They finally arrived at 1145pm.

Dining. The breakfast buffet if wanting more than just "cold stuff" is $35 per person. For nothing more than regular breakfast food, i would say not worth it. With tip, just shy of $100 for breakfast for 2 ppl. Kane's Tiki was delicious, the best food we ate while here. Highly recommend the coconut shrimp at this one. Quinns on the beach was friday night dinner. Hostess had no idea what was going on, i felt bad for her, she was so young and having to deal with older ppl yelling at her. The 1/2 spiny lobster tail was literally only 3 small bites of food. The calamari breading didn't even stick to the calamari. However, the grouper sandwich was fantastic. Tesoro was not good. The tables overlooking the gulf had the seating so low compared to the table it makes you feel like a child. None of the weird tables looked comfortable enough to eat dinner at honestly. The wagyu filet tasted nothing like wagyu, was extremely chewy and hard to cut. The lobster pasta was tasty. Ario was okay. We ordered 2 ribeyes, server tried to convince us to get ny strip, which we both politely declined. He still ordered us ny strips, and this was confirmed by checking our bill. The steak was delicious, just weird he didn't bring us what we ordered. French onion was a little to sweet.

Cafe next to the gift shop needs more employees, especially during peak season. Each time we went we were 4th in line and patiently waited around 15 min each time to order and get coffee.

Not a luxury hotel. Not worth paying more than 300$ per night. We stayed here with rates at $1000 per night for a basic room. We unfortunately regret choosing this location. Thankfully, I have a wonderful love of my life and we were able to make the best of each others company and just laugh at how terrible the service had been and the poor quality of the rooms.

Beach tiki huts were sold to the management team Boucher Brothers, they quadrupled the cost, and removed the amenities. Thanks for the lack of service at exorbitant prices.

This review is for during our stay back in November of 2023. We contacted JW Marriot Marco Beach Ocean about our experience since we received a survey after our stay. However, nobody contacted us or acknowledged our survey that was submitted.

So we decided to share our experience here for others while deciding if they want to stay here.

While the grounds, the food, and most of the
service received was top-notch. There is plenty
of opportunity for improvement with this
resort. The first miss is with the lack of signage. There was no signage for the check-in location for Sirene.
We were left wandering around for a bit
looking for the check-in area. Additionally,
the supposed Adult-exclusive section of the
beach was not. On our last day at the beach,
there was a teenager on the for pay beach
beds. When we advised the beach attendant
he advised that he "wasn't worried about it."
Later, there was a parent with his two young
children on the same beds. Given the lack of
signage I can't blame the guy for not knowing
that he was in an adults only area. As for the
adults, only Tesoro restaurant, we observed a
child in a stroller dining in the outside area on
one occasion.

The people next door to us keep leaving their room service food items outside their room. We noticed a cart in the morning, and it was there the whole day. When we observed it hours after we initiated saw it, it was full of ant! I uploaded a video of it. I had to call the front desk to get this cleaned up. I should not have been the one to do this. Everyone who worked ok that floor completely ignored it.

I also shared a picture outside the elevator to 10k alley arcade. Kids decided to destroy it by carving on it. But yet the hotel still kept it up for everyone to see.

Lastly, the Sirene pool was not
heated and way too cold, but then the hot tub
was uncomfortably warm. Fortunately
Quinn's pool and hot tub were comfortable.
Given that you are a family centric resort
there is only so much mindfulness achieved
when there are screaming children running
around. While I appreciate the intent with the
Sirene adults exclusive experience you
missed the mark by adding 10K to the same
building as the adults only section. For
example, while trying to call the elevator from
our 9th floor room in the Sirene tower, we
were met with a family with young kids who
failed to enter floor 1 when they got into
leave 10K. Since they failed to enter a floor
number the elevator came up to get us when
called along with the family. So while you tried
to provide exclusivity to the Sirene guests
there are holes to the execution.

On a 6-night stay.

First, the good: Food, rooms, amenities, beach location.

The bad: half of the beach and pool chairs are 'reserved', you have to pay for them.
The number of rooms to pools / lunge space isn't great. It's very busy (but we are here during spring break).

There's no water readily available for drinking (like coolers). You have to wait at the bar and then feel bad if you don't tip.

They make you pay for almost everything. (Parking, beach chairs are lame examples)

Overall, it's a great property, but they could make some improvements to make guests feel like they aren't nickel and diming.

Our favorite thing we did was drive over to Rose Marina and rent a pontoon for the morning and saw dolphins

This property is definitely not representative of the JW brand. The quality of the rooms is more of a beach motel. Very outdated and worn down rooms. We asked for slippers twice since we didn’t want to be stepping on the dirty and old carpets, but they were never delivered to the room. Service at the beach restaurant was terrible. If you are going to add auto gratuities for a takeout order before I get my food at least have good service and get the food order right. Will not be returning.