Great home away from home


We are owners at this Marriott Vacation Club property and stayed the last week of Nov. The Location, property and villas are all great. Do not confuse this with Frenchman’s Reef the Marriott Hotel/Resort next door. Many of the more negative reviews for the Cove I think are for the Reef as we’ve stayed over there a few times and have separate reviews.

The villas are either 2 or 3 bedroom and serve as an excellent home base for your vacation. We had some issues with the Villa not being ready on check-in and we had to wait for it to be cleaned after we were told it was ready. Multiple managers apologized for the issue which is nice to see they heard of the issue and called to say they were sorry. The villa itself was clean, comfortable beds and provides nearly all the comforts of home. The kitchen is stocked with dishes, utensils, blender etc but if going to cook you may want to bring a selection of things (sugar, salt, pepper, stuff that can be packed) from home rather than buy at the grocery store (remember this is an island and food prices are higher than at home). The in-unit washer and dryer although small is a great option to use if you want to pack extra light and don’t mind washing while on vacation.

The pool is nice but does get crowded at times and we prefer a beach. Last year the iguanas around the pool/beach were cool at first but more a nuisance not the animals but more the guests that ignore the do not feed them signs. This year its noticeable the property is doing something to keep the iguanas away from the pool/patio/restaurant area and it was kind of nice not having them all around. The Cove beach is ok if you want to stick close but be aware of following the easy path to water to avoid urchins and rocks. For a better beach take the free shuttle to the Morningstar beach next door at the Marriott hotel – it’s a very nice sandy beach and Cove guests can use beach, pools and chairs which give you a lot of options for activities.

We will surely be back next year and love going to the Cove. Staff is friendly and generally very attentive (much better than the Marriott next door). Our check-in issues and some difficulties getting ice resulting in our excellent review going down to a very good. We do love the property, villas and location and will be back next year.

We just returned from our 6th stay at Frenchman's Cove in St. Thomas. The property, which was beautiful to begin with, just continues to get better and better. The rooms have always been fabulous, nicer than most homes. The beach is larger and more friendly. The new dock makes water transports much more convenient. And the view is always just simply breath-taking. What makes this property unique is that management is determined to continue to improve it. So, the question is: how do you improve on perfection? Well, I think that they will find ways.

Cab driver rude from airport. 12$ per person "cab" ride which was a shuttle with 10 people in it. Stopped at 4 resorts prior to ours. Check in a nightmare even though we had confirmation number. Restaurants and service poor throughout the property in comparison to other Caribbean locations. Highly do not recommend this destination.

We own a timeshare at Frenchmans cove and have been going there every October for about 5 years. The resort is beautiful and well kept . All of the staff is wonderful, friendly and helpful EXCEPT Keith the bartender and several other staff at the Sunset Grill. Keith is just arrogant and rude. Nobody is in any hurry to serve you. Our last visit to the grille we waited 50 minutes for our $18 hamburger and it still was not done. My very patient husband finally lost his temper after all the slow, rude service and vowed to never eat their mediocre overpriced food or their $10 watered down cocktails ever again. OH And Happy hour? Be prepared to wait in lines 10 people long to be served, even worse- they don't keep track of who is next in line so you may have been waiting 15 minutes but they will wait on someone that just walked up. I thought it was just me but I have heard dozens of people grumbling about Keith's bad attitude. It is the only place to get food and drinks in the whole resort so we are forced to take a $24 cab ride somewhere else for every meal or cook in our room everyday, it's my vacation-I don't want to cook! We spend LOTS of money at the food market in town where they appreciate our business! After all these years of bad service we finally complained to the GM, he was apologetic and said that the food and beverage manager would contact us, but never did. We traded our week for somewhere else this year and I am looking forward to our vacation for the first time in years. Too bad.