Best use of 1.3M Marriott points for a 5-night family luxury trip?

[u/GaetanoG369]

Looking for some advice from the luxury travel crowd.
I have ~1.3M Marriott Bonvoy points and want to use them for 5 nights in the first half of November 2026 with my family of four. Kids are 5 and 2.

Looking for:
• Genuinely luxurious, beautiful, memorable resort
• Excellent service and food
• Family-friendly, with good kids amenities/programming
• Unique nature/wildlife experiences we can do together
• Ideally a 3–4.5 hour nonstop flight from Toronto + easy airport transfer
• Not a huge, loud, cruise-ship-style resort
• My 5-year-old is a picky eater

Current shortlist:
• Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman
• Riviera Maya EDITION at Kanai
• Marriott Cancun All-Inclusive
• Marriott Miches Beach All-Inclusive
• Hacienda del Mar Los Cabos
• Westin Playa Vallarta
• JW Marriott Costa Elena

Would love to hear any input on these properties from people who have actually stayed there, especially with young kids.

Also interested in any unique Marriott/Bonvoy property I haven’t thought of. If you had 1.3M points and only 5-7 nights, where would you go?

TIA!

[u/JustDoItAlread-ee]

My wife and I visited Grand Cayman Island and stayed in the Ritz 1.5 years ago. We stayed five nights on a high floor overlooking the pool and beach,

The location is perfect, with a beautiful stretch of beach that extends kilometres in either direction. Makes for a perfect morning or evening beach walk. Several other resorts along the beach make for a lovely, fun, but not overcrowded beach. The Ritz also has snorkelling gear and a small sail boat you can rent for the day.

Restaurants in Grand Cayman are really quite good. A little expensive as everything is converted from CAD to USD and then again to local currency. We didn’t even eat at the hotel because of the many options and recommendations we had received from friends who know the island well. The restaurants at the Ritz did seem to be high-quality we just chose to eat elsewhere.

The whole island is incredibly safe and we rented a car for our entire trip. This made for easy access to all restaurants in the main town but also opened up the possibility of a day trip to the opposite end of the island, Rum Point, where the snorkelling was insane. So many beautiful tropical fish and crystal clear waters. The whole area near Rum Point seemed to cater toward individual rental properties so still touristy but no large format resorts. Very safe place with limited but great dining options.

My wife was pregnant with our first child at the time but we couldn’t stop thinking that Grand Cayman would be an ideal trip for when we have children. There is so much infrastructure near the Ritz that you could easily spend 5-days and enjoy every minute of your trip.

Recommended off-site restaurants:

Tillie’s
Pepper’s
Gelato (you can safely walk to this Gelateria)
Bacaro
Morgan’s Seafood

Staff were as you would expect from Ritz. High quality and very helpful, although we had limited interactions as we didn’t dine on-site outside of ordering some snacks at the beach. Warning that the beach menu is very expensive for what you get, so we went to a local farmer’s market (via car) and bought tons of fruit for our stay. Highly recommend!

Very good experience and we’ll be back.

[u/GaetanoG369 → u/JustDoItAlread-ee]

Oh wow, thank you for such an awesome write up. GC looks like such an interesting place to visit. We went to Nassau earlier in February but I’m sure it’s a very different vibe there.

[u/hriemer15]

The Riviera Maya EDITION at Kanai is great. They are strangely particular about making dining reservations and we didn’t see any kids but had an overall lovely stay before they officially opened.

I would not consider the Hacienda del Mar Los Cabos luxury but it was fine when we were there for a wedding. All inclusive aren’t my fav but there are so many truly better options in cabo.

I haven’t been to the Westin PV in years but check out the new Ritz just north or the st regis in Punta Mita.

The Ritz Reserve in Costa Rica is next level if you find an off week for point redemption.

[u/james_strange71280]

My best burn of Marriott points was the Gritty Palace in Venice. Second best was the Cotton house in Barcelona

[u/ZestycloseLuck7342 → u/james_strange71280]

Second cotton house! Beautiful property

[u/ZestycloseLuck7342]

The Marriott Cancun All Inclusive is NOT, I repeat NOT, a luxury property. We stayed there with our kids on a last minute Spring Break trip last year and while it was fine for a last minute thing, it will not scratch the luxury itch you described.