If you are a regularly reader, you can probably see that we have done some extensive traveling this past year. I think that we easily traveled for at least 90 days this past year.
Traveling for 90 days is quite a lot of time and while I definitely love timeshares and highly prefer them as compared to hotels, we have utilized hotel points and frequent flyer miles to stay quite a bit in hotels this past year. In case you are interested, here a few posts concerning some of our recent travels. While I still owe you a full review of the Marriott Summitt Watch resort in Park City, Utah, the stay was really fabulous. In my previous post, I showed you the details of our studio unit which was actually very comfortable even for a family of four. One of the key reasons why the stay was so fabulous was the lack of being nickeled and dimed throughout our stay. Since we have actually stayed a lot in hotels this past year, the constant extra fees, add ons, resort fees and ridiculous other charges that hotels now treat as customary, the Marriott Summitt Watch had very few, if any of these fees. In this post, I wanted to do a quick comparison on the various items that hotels routinely charge that the Marriott Summitt Watch did not. Resort Fees: I HATE RESORT FEES. It is such a ridiculous charge that these hotels now treat as mandatory that provides close to zero value. However, hotels have become fee happy and now charge these fees constantly. Unfortunately, these fees continue to expand as they have been reports of even "Urban Destination Fees" - RIDICULOUS! In our most recent travels, the Marriott Los Suenos Resort in Costa Rica charged $32 per day for their resort fee even though we used points. Our "free" week ended up costing us over $200 simply for their ridiculous resort fee. The Andaz Maui charges an obscene $40 per day resort fee. While they provide some "value", it is still a completely ridiculous fee especially considering rates were in excess of $1000 per night during our stay over Christmas. Comparison to the Marriott Summitt Watch The Marriott Summitt Watch charged ZERO DOLLARS as their resort fee. A welcome alternative to the standard nickel and diming tactics of the hotels. Parking: Having a car on vacation can be a necessity for some destinations. A car allows you to explore the surrounding area and not be held hostage for the resort restaurants. However, renting a car is expensive and parking your car now has become a tremendous added expense. In addition to resort fees, many hotels now routinely charge for parking even though they never had in the past. For example, the Andaz Maui charges a hefty $35 per day for your car. This is in addition to their mandatory $40 resort fee. Not cheap. Comparison to the Marriott Summitt Watch Despite being on Main Street where parking is tight, the Marriott Summitt Watch charges an impressive ZERO DOLLARS for parking if you are staying at the resort. They have an underground parking garage that is a pay to park facility but it is complimentary for guests. A very welcome perk for all guests - not just those with status as Hyatt now offers for their Globalist members. Laundry: While doing laundry on vacation is not something that you want to do, having access to facilities can be helpful especially for ski vacations as well as beach vacations where your cloths can get pretty disgusting. Most hotels provide laundry services where they charge exorbitant fees for laundry. Usually they charge per piece so doing laundry for a shirt, jeans and socks can easily cost over $20. Even at the Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort in Costa Rica, they had a "special" where they would do a small bag of laundry for $25. Comparison to the Marriott Summitt Watch The Marriott Summitt Watch has complimentary laundry facilities for use. While the laundry facilities were in a less than ideal location in their garage, it was completely free and they provided laundry detergent for free. Again, a nice perk. Ski Storage: A lot of ski-in / ski-out hotels will offer you ski storage. It is a nice option to be able to get off the mountain and have the hotel store your skis until the next day. However, most hotels will charge fees for this service. Some may include it in their resort fee but many charge an add-on fee for this service. Comparison to the Marriott Summitt Watch The Marriott Summitt Watch is located a one minute walk to Town Lift. It is not technically a ski-in /ski-out property but it is close. They have made arrangements with a ski storage company to hold guests skis right at town lift. The cost - ZERO DOLLARS. Again, a very nice perk considering the ski storage place charges about $15 per day per ski set for this service for non-guests. Activities Resort activities can be a lot of fun and there are some great activities to keep kids and adults occupied. Unfortunately, a lot of these resort activities come with an extra charge. At the Andaz Peninsula Papagayo resort, my wife and I did the mixology class where it cost us about $50 per person for this despite the resort charging a 10% resort fee on top of whatever room rate you reserved. The Andaz Maui had plenty of activities but most came with some extra fee despite charging guests their mandatory resort fee. Most hotels, even though they charge a resort fee, still find it ok to charge fees for resort activities. Comparison to the Marriott Summitt Watch The Marriott Summitt Watch had tons of activities going on everyday. I was actually very surprised on the amount of activities that they had. They had wine tasting, beer tasting, excursions, kids arts and crafts activities, and various other things. Here are a few pictures of the daily activities. 
As you can see, they had some decent activities going on every day. I did not mind the various nominal charges as these generally covered the cost of the materials. I think that those types of charges are actually reasonable. Drinks! Most hotels have lobby bars where you can grab a drink at your convenience. Drinks in nice hotels can cost quite a bit. During our stay at the Andaz Maui, the cocktails through the resort were $19 per cocktail! Quite pricey to say the least. Beers cost $10 per beer - completely ridiculous if you ask me. The other hotels were somewhat similar with cocktails generally costing somewhere between $12-19 dollars. Comparison to the Marriott Summitt Watch The Marriott Summitt Watch did not have a food and beverage outlet on premises. They have a small market where you can get some essentials but almost every day from about 5-6 pm, they provided complimentary wine for their guests. You can drink as much as you want without a problem. In hotels, a glass of wine would easily cost $15 per glass. Again, a nice perk for all guests regardless of status! Conclusion: I really enjoyed the Marriott Summitt Watch property. It has a prime location right on Main Street which is in walking distance to everything including the ski lift. Additionally, their rooms were quite comfortable. The biggest thing that stood out to me was the vast amount of items that were included in the stay as compared to the constant fee hungry hotels. As a reminder, my total out of pocket cost for one week at this property (week before Christmas) was just over $400! Room rates at hotels throughout town were easily in excess of $400 per night. Regardless of the cost, I get very annoyed at the constant efforts by hotels to get every dollar out of your wallet. Despite charging obscene resort fees, these fees still do not cover almost anything and they are constantly looking for new ways to charge you for something that was routinely part of your daily nightly charge. Timeshares do have a bad reputation of charging a lot of fees, but I truly think that the tables have turned and hotels are much more to blame than timeshares. My stay at the Marriott Summit Watch really solidified this view. What do you think of all of these fees? Did I miss anything that also annoys you?? |
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