writealiving

I know everyone has different experiences and I probably am putting way too much thought but. Here are my choices. I could get Marriot Stellaris in Puerto Rico for me and three teens or Negril. Marriot will come in at about 1000 less than Negril but I feel like food and other costs in Negril will be less plus I loved 7 Mile Beach.
I would love pros and cons from anyone who's been to both. For Negril I found a nice Groupon that included airport transfers. It will amount to almost $1000 more and have longer travel times but I'm not completely sold on Puerto Rico.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

doug_stallings

It depends on the hotel in Negril. Without knowing that I would not even hazard a guess. I love Negril, and I love it more than Condado. The beach is better, the food is better (though not always cheaper), and the hotels can be better or worse than the Marriott. True, it's further to Negril from MoBay than to Condado from SJU, but I don't see that as a major problem.

writealiving

Thanks Doug. I was going to stay at the Treehouse Resort or Cocoa La Palm.

doug_stallings

Those are both good resorts. Neither is fancy, but they're both worth staying. If you want more service and luxury, the Marriott is going to be a better choice. It's a big hotel with big-hotel amenities, but these are both simple, friendly places. If given these choices, I'd probably choose Negril.

writealiving

Thanks Doug. The airfare ended up being my deciding factor. I've been looking into both for weeks and the airfare just kept going up and up. Since its for teens I booked Marriott and will save Negril for another time. Negril was my first choice but I couldn't get non-stop flights and I figured connecting isn't horrible but then waiting for hotel transfers it was turning into an 8 hour travel day. But thank you for your thoughts. I loved Negril and will get back there.

KVR

From my prespective, we have always found staying in an AI resort to be much less expensive in the long run. When we went to Negril and Ocho Rios, we stayed at an AI resort, so we did not have to worry about the extra expense for food and beverages.

We are planning our trip this year to PR and finding we are having to add about $1,200 to our over all budget to pay for dining and bar options and we chose the Marriott also.

You may not have such an issue with 3 teenage girls though.

writealiving

KVR, I like the AI so that I don't have to worry about getting hit at the end but I'm not a big drinker and the girls aren't big eaters so the AI option seems a bit of a waste for us. If I were taking my sons, I'd go AI for sure. Some of the AI options were at least 1500 more and I don't see us spending that much for dinners over the course of our trip.
I know a few people who stayed at the Stellaris and loved it so I'm excited. I'll be sure to put up a trip report when we're back but from everything I hear, I'm excited!

KVR

I agree, with the group you are going with probably not an issue. I am finding air/hotel for 2 to PR at $2,300. I can get an AI hotel in Mexico for about the same price, and less than $3,000. So it is a much better deal for us to go to Mexico and do the AI thing. However, we have been numerous times and wanting something different, which means paying the extra price. When are you going? We have decided on the first week of November.

writealiving

KVR, I got the air and hotel for $2300 for four of us. We're leaving out of LaGuardia. Where are you flying from? When I first started looking the Cancun AI were reasonable but all of the flights were connecting with long delays. That's what made me start looking at other places. Now I wasn't able to find an AI under $3400 and again with connections.
We're going in August. We'll be ready to relax. The week before is my son's 21st birthday and I think we're heading to Cleveland for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then Cedar Point. Busy month!

KVR

We are in West Texas. It's closer for us to get to Mexico than the Caribbean. We live in a very small town with a local airport. So we have to fly to either Dallas or Houston to get anywhere. We end up paying an extra $300 - $400 in airfare because of that. Once we get to either Dallas or Houston it's a direct flight to Mexico. A lot of the times we go to the Caribbean they want us to stop in Miami especially if we are going on American.

We can only fly American, United or Southwest here. So since American has the monopoly on this area, we get stuck with higher fares and their lousy service. One of the reasons we chose PR this year as we won't have to fly with American this time. They have screwed us over more than once.

writealiving

That really stinks when you have to deal with that. I am lucky in that living on Long Island we have a lot of flight options. Its just crazy how expensive the airfare is this year. I'll let you know how we liked it. My friend stays at El Conquistator a lot and loves it but I'm already booked so...