Friday, January 16, 2015

The Florida Quays

Julie’s Christmas present this year was to view the sunset from KeyJulie christmas 2014 gift cert West; either from her room at a hotel (I was going to pick this one – www.pierhouse.com) or from a boat whilst on a sunset cruise. We started planning the trip and picked a weekend before we started hosting visitors. Unwittingly we picked a long weekend. What does the travel book say about driving to Key West? “We strongly recommend to not drive to the islands on a Friday afternoon, especially if it’s a long weekend.”  Guess what time we hit Miami for the final segment to Key Largo? d’oh!

We also got a quick lesson in hotel prices and availability for Key West: holy shiza are they expensive! Finding something under US$300 was a challenge. So we spent the hotel points that we got for signing up for a hotel credit card on a room at the Fairfield Inn & Suites.

We staggered the trip to Key West, spending 2 nights on other islands on our way there: first Islamorada, then Marathon and finally Key West. Our stay in Key west lasted about 30 hours. And if you go to Key West, there is a 3-hour time frame wherein most of the action takes place. We missed it (we were on the boat). So we’ll have to go back to see the sunset party at Mallory Square. We originally thought we’d make the entire trip back in one day, but we ended up staying a night just off the islands in Florida City before driving back to Bradenton through the Everglades.

The reason for picking this weekend to go the Keys was because of all of the events that were going on.

A story is one thing, but pictures make the difference – see them all here: http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/Florida-2015/FloridaKeys/