Marco Resort & Club --- Informed Opinions?

I've been offered a RCI exchange at this Marco Island "resort". While it is for a prime winter week, so far I can't muster much enthusiasm to accept it, so I put the unit on hold for right now. The RCI directory photo makes it immediately and abundantly clear that this facility is a converted motel. Very few TUG reviews exist about the place, and only one of the reviews is current (but although current, not too informative or descriptive).

Can anyone offer / share any current first hand knowledge, informed opinions or other observations about this facility? Thanks in advance.

Have you checked out their website?

http://www.marcoresortandclub.com

As a former owner at Windward Passage you may not mind it. However it is a lesser mediocre resort. It is a settlefor. It is a place to hang your hat if you do not mind driving or bicycling to one of the very few public accesses to the marco beach.

By comparison, it is popularly rated the least well-liked resort in SW FL.

It is my last choice on Marco. No, it is actually the one I would never choose on Marco.

It is one of the most available resort, even in Snowbird Season, along with Lehigh, Charlotte Bay, and Fishermen's Village.

But, it is next door to the Snook Inn. That's on the river, not the Gulf.

It has boats, but you have to rent them. They are not part of the ownership or exchange.

And it is close to the thrift store, a popular place among those who like to sort through others' discards.

And it is in SW FL, if you can't get anything else.

Oh yeah, since you brought it up before, I have been there, looked it over, and all that.

It's a place for fishermen, because it is on the river and has a marina. It's not your idealistic Florida resort because it's not on the beach, and particularly on Marco Island, there's very limitted access to the beach. This is where a few guys get together for a snook or tarpon outing, not a place where a family goes to enjoy the Florida weather.

Thanks

Thank you for the input provided above, which reaffirms my initial lack of enthusiasm for this particular "offering" from RCI. My request for that particular week (but certainly not for that particular motel relabeled "resort"), was intended to add another weeks' stay onto my several owned annual SW FL winter weeks, utilizing some aging RCI "Points for Deposit". However, it does not seem that this place would be worth redeeming even the relatively small number of RCI points it would take to spend a (long?) week there. As I was inclined to do anyhow, I'll just pass. Thanks again.

P.S. It's a week 6 (2/7/09 -- 2/14/09, unit 109. If anyone is inexplicably interested in "pouncing" on this particular exchange "opportunity", it has already been released from "hold".

P.P.S. JLB: For the record, I didn't actually care a whole lot for Windward Passage, which is largely why I no longer own there. My only prior "beef" with you was your openly evaluating and judging the place as "mediocre" without ever having actually stayed there. In retrospect, you were (and are) entitled to express that particular opinion / evaluation, regardless.

And thus my reply above, that since you owned at and stayed at another SW FL resort that you didn't really like, that you might not mind staying a week at Marco Resort. No offense intended.

Each of us really does not know the others' standards. We, for instance, are very easy to please. We don't have to get an HGVC Gold Crown, Sanibel, or South Seas Plantation to be satisfied. We, too, could likely do OK with a week at Windward Passage.

However, when something you know is better is available, why settlefor the lesser?

But, even we draw the line somewhere, and Marco Resort is below it. Before settling for resorts of that nature, we prefer to move our FL time further north, hoping something further south appears in the 14-day window, as it did last week.

As to Windward Passage, when a resort is rated by the public in the 20th percentile for all resorts in SW FL, I don't believe I was dissing it by calling it mediocre. As I said when I said that, it is among many adequate, comfortable, lesser resorts in SW FL, lesser than the HGVCs, South Seas and most Sanibel resorts.

theo said:

P.P.S. JLB: For the record, I didn't actually care a whole lot for Windward Passage, which is largely why I no longer own there. My only prior "beef" with you was your openly evaluating and judging the place as "mediocre" without ever having actually stayed there. In retrospect, you were (and are) entitled to express that particular opinion / evaluation, regardless.

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JLB:
Re: >> As to Windward Passage, when a resort is rated by the public in the 20 percentile for all resorts in SW FL, I don't believe I was dissing it by calling it mediocre. As I said when I said that, it is among many adequate, comfortable, lesser resorts in SW FL, lesser than the HGVCs, South Seas and most Sanibel resorts.<<
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Fair enough --- no "beef" here. Have a healthy and happy New Year.

Okey dokey.

Sounds like sooner or later we are going to bump into each other down there.

JLB said:

Okey dokey.

Sounds like sooner or later we are going to bump into each other down there.

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That may well be. My weeks are 7-10, although in recent years I've tended to just rent out the week 10, in order to unselfishly share with others the infestation (er, uh.... I mean arrival) of "entitled" drunken college students on "spring break" (break from what? one might ask). I've now come to feel a bit guilty if I don't share this joyous cultural "event" with others...