BETHANY BEACH OCEAN SUITES RESIDENCE INN
https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/rehri-bethany-beach-ocean-suites-residence-inn/
Travel Dates: August 7-10, 2019
We stayed at this Oceanside Residence Inn using Marriott Bonvoy points for a short beach trip.
- The cash rate each night was $855+ (per night - so $2,566.54 for the stay)
- We redeemed 150,000 Points (50k per night) to stay for free. For those into unattainable cpp goals - that's 1.71 cpp - wow am I a baller! (haha!) I would imagine that this property will NEVER feature a good cash rate but it is a great value with Marriott Bonvoy points (assuming that it doesn't change categories or get hit with never-ending "peak status).
- I should preface this whole review with saying that I am not a fan of a traditional hotel for a beach trip. I'd prefer a condo, a house, or a multi-bedroom suite - so keep that in mind when you see how positive I am about this hotel.
- Summary comment: This was a well kept hotel, a great location, and VERY fun.
General Comments on Layout and Location:
The hotel consists of 2 buildings. If possible, you definitely want to be in the main building (we were). This makes going to breakfast and hitting the pool much easier. Requesting a high floor room in the main building might result in you being on the same floor as the rooftop pool (again we were) and that was awesome! Taking a "night swim" and being 100 steps from our room was great. I would not have wanted to take an elevator down and then walked outside across the parking lot to the other building after our swim.
Location is great here - you are right on the beach. You walk across a 10 foot boardwalk to the beach access. We kept our beach stuff in the back of our van which was conveniently parked under the hotel in their garage. That made getting to and from the beach easy (and was nice to not carry chairs and such back up to the room). Just a short walk down the boardwalk is what seems like a "town center". There are lots of shops and restaurants - it was a very pleasant area in the evening.
A note on the beach itself: The waves crash very close to shore and on both of our beach days, when high tide hit, it crested the front wall of the beach and trickled into (and then later washed away) people's stuff. Know the tides and when the water starts coming in, be sure to move to the far back against the fence (or just setup there for the whole day). Many people got an unpleasant surprise with coolers, chairs, blankets, towels, etc. washing away and getting soaked. I'm not sure if that occurs all the time but it happened both days we were there. Also, the water is VERY cold for somebody who is used to Gulf of Mexico water and the occasional Myrtle Beach trip. It took a lot of convincing to get in!
Amenities and Activities
They did some activities while we were there. Crafts in the morning, a carnival on Wednesday afternoon, Mermaid pictures poolside in the afternoon, A movie at the pool in the evening etc. These were enjoyable for the kids!
Breakfast was your typical free breakfast. They did a nice job - they also seated you (to make sure no random people off the street were wandering in). You could even request a table outside with a view of the boardwalk and ocean - a nice touch for sure!
There is a spa, bar, and fitness center. We didn't use these. There is also an expensive on-site restaurant that seems upscale - we didn't eat there.
The pool is a rooftop pool that is outdoor doing the day and enclosed at night (or when it rains). Reminder - this is in the main building. In the pictures below, you can see the roof/wall that can slide closed. It was pretty neat! The pool is fairly large and luckily was not busy when we were there.
Room Comments:
We stayed in a 2 queen bed room with a sofa bed. It worked well for our travel party of 5 (including my sister). It would've worked even better with just 4 as we could've pulled the table out and left the couch as a couch. The room was VERY clean and nice. We had a "partial ocean-view" room which meant you could see the ocean from your balcony. I assume they don't give ocean-view rooms out on points but it was nice to sit on the balcony and see the waves crash. This is their web photo which is basically what our room looked like (beds/seating area and kitchen):
Other Comments:
Consider driving one evening over to Rehoboth to go to Funland.
http://www.funlandrehoboth.com/
100 tickets for $30 will give you a couple of hours of fun! Many of the little kid rides are 1-3 tickets. Even the top tier rides are only 4-6 tickets. It was busy but well-run and we had a great time there!