Dec. 20, 2008 — Marriott Frenchman's Reef officially opened its new Cool Reef Kids Club Friday with a room full of qualified beta testers for the new guest facility.
Fourth graders from Antoinette Gomez' class at Ulla F. Muller Elementary helped cut the ribbon opening the center and gravitated immediately to the club's two Wii stations.
"These kids are into technology," Gomez said of her students. "Wii — that is all they want for Christmas."
Gomez, recipient of the 2008 Tommy Star Hotel Associate of the Year Award, works at Frenchman's Reef's front desk when she isn't educating her students about hospitality on the island, making today's field trip a great educational experience for the students.
"Marriott started out as a business hotel company," Viktoria Kuglics, director sales and marketing for Frenchman's Reef and Morning Star Resort. "As a resort, the hotel needs to anticipate the needs of its customers, which more and more are families on vacation."
Planning for the center has been under way for more than a year and a half, according to the hotel's recreation manager, Christin Gregores. The center is a work in progress with more activities being added, such as parents' night out and teen night.
The kids club will offer supervised age appropriate activities while parents and older siblings enjoy more adult goings-on. Up to 12 visitors from ages 4 to 12 can join in on arts and crafts projects, listen to pirate stories or play video games on Wii and Play Station 3 as well as other activities.
Parents can enroll their kids for a full day or a half day and meals can be included. The center, supervised by Javier De La Rosa and assisted by intern Natalia Kaltman, is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and these hours may be extended after the New Year, according to De La Rosa.
The center is decorated with kids in mind. Furnished with bean bag chairs and kid-sized tables and chairs, the walls of the Cool Reef Kids Club feature a detailed painting of a reef replete with different kinds of coral, fish and other aquatic animals.
Rainey Nigg of Vero Beach, Fla, designed the painting and said that it took more than a week of 14-hour days to create. With some last-minute assistance from local artist Robin Hitchcock, the walls were finished on time for the grand opening.
"It is not only the parents who should have fun," Kuglics said. "The kids should have fun also."
Back Talk
Share your reaction to this news with other Source readers. Please include headline, your name and city and state/country or island where you reside.
