How would I marshal a List of Jaxb Elements without making a wrapper class?

If you don't want to create a wrapper class you could convert the collection into an array, place that array in a JAXBElement and then marshal it.

For example:

public class JAXBArrayWriter {

    public static class Item {
        @XmlValue
        protected String value;

        public Item() {}

        public Item(String value) {
            this.value = value;
        }
    }

    public static void main (String [] args) throws Exception {
        List<Item> items = new ArrayList<Item>();
        items.add(new Item("one"));
        items.add(new Item("two"));
        JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance(Item[].class);
        JAXBElement<Item[]> root = new JAXBElement<Item[]>(new QName("items"), 
                Item[].class, items.toArray(new Item[items.size()]));
        Marshaller marshaller = jc.createMarshaller();
        marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
        StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
        marshaller.marshal(root, writer);
        System.out.println(writer.toString());
    }
}

which produces the following document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<items>
    <item>one</item>
    <item>two</item>
</items>

Please try this:

First, create a list class:

@XmlRootElement
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
public class AmenityList {
    @XmlElement(name = "amenity")
    List<Amenity> amenities = new ArrayList<Amenity>();

    public AmenityList() {}

    public void setList(List<Amenity> amenities) {
        this.amenities = amenities;
    }
}

then the Amenity class:

@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
class Amenity {
    private String amenityName;
    private String amenityDate;

    public Amenity(String name, String date) {
        this.amenityName = name;
        this.amenityDate = date;
    }
}

set where needed your amenities in a list - maybe in a less redundant way :) - and assign it to an AmenityList:

AmenityList amenityList = new AmenityList();
List <Amenity> amenities = new ArrayList<Amenity>();
amenities.add(new Amenity("a_one", "today"));
amenities.add(new Amenity("a_two", "tomorrow"));
amenity.setList(amenities);

and finally, a toXml method:

public static String toXml(AmenityList amenityList) throws JAXBException {
    JAXBContext jaxbContext = JAXBContext.newInstance(AmenityList.class);
    Marshaller jaxbMarshaller = jaxbContext.createMarshaller();
    jaxbMarshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, true);
    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
    jaxbMarshaller.marshal(amenityList, sw);
    return sw.toString()
}

obtaining, i.e. :

<amenityList>
    <amenity>
        <amenityName>a_one</amenityName>
        <amenityDate>today</amenityDate>
    </amenity>
    <amenity>
        <amenityName>a_two</amenityName>
        <amenityDate>tomorrow</amenityDate>
    </amenity>
</amenityList>