Florida Keys

Ken Ibold

Ken Ibold

Final Approach
Joined
Feb 21, 2005
Messages
5,888
Location
Jacksonville, Florida
Display Name
Display name:
Ken Ibold
Looking for a nice family place in the Florida Keys for spring break. Anyone got any recommendations?
 
Ken, we stayed on Duck Key, at Hawk's Cay Resort. It is big and a tetch glitzy, but the accommodations were very nice (we got a 2-story condo for the week), and it is centrally-located to a lot of interesting stuff.

They have family-oriented activities available, including (depending upon when you are there) dolphin lecture / encounter and organized and supervised kids' activities (i.e., mom & dad get to go out to supper).

It is also, importantly, quite close to Marathon (KMTH), which I regard as the best choice for a fly-to base in the Keys.

I would recommend asking for a condo, and asking for one reasonably close to the hotel portion of the property (less walking). If you get lucky, maybe you get to stay near or adjacent to Mr. Mott's condo- he's an older gent (guess he's 94 or so now), lives there full-time, and has lots of aviation history to tell about. You'll know he's still there if you see his cars parked on the main entrance road, in front of his condo. He has a suh-weet E-Type drophead (convertible), and a Porsche Boxster (his practical car). last email I got from him was about 6 months back, I bet he's still there.

As I say, we stayed there and really enjoyed it, and while there, saw no places that made us say, "Man, I wish I were there, instead!"
 
Pretty much anything north of Key Weird is family friendly. I like Tavenier in the upper keys and Marathon in the middle keys. My last trip to Marathon I stayed on the bay side and was really happy with the condo I had. I was just east of the channel under the 7-mile bridge to get to the ocean side.

If you are looking for a quiet place with lots of swimming and fewer tourists I would suggest Key Biscayne.
 
smigaldi said:
Pretty much anything north of Key Weird is family friendly. I like Tavenier in the upper keys and Marathon in the middle keys. My last trip to Marathon I stayed on the bay side and was really happy with the condo I had. I was just east of the channel under the 7-mile bridge to get to the ocean side.

If you are looking for a quiet place with lots of swimming and fewer tourists I would suggest Key Biscayne.
Click to expand...
We want to go lobster diving, snorkeling, deep sea fishing and beaching. Miami ain't gonna do it. Where did you find the condo you rented?
 
Ken, there is very little in the way of "beaching" in the Keys; pretty much scrub vegetation up to the water line. There are exceptions, but not much.
 
SCCutler said:
Ken, there is very little in the way of "beaching" in the Keys; pretty much scrub vegetation up to the water line. There are exceptions, but not much.
Click to expand...
Yup. That I remember from past forays down there. We're not yet sure if we'll drive and take the boat (which opens up Pennekamp and all that) or fly and rent a boat or stay at a place that provides boats to guests. It's a long drive to haul the boat on, so we're leaning toward flying. But then, that limits our mobility once we're there.
 
Hawk's Cay has moorings outside many of the condos.
 
Ken Ibold said:
Yup. That I remember from past forays down there. We're not yet sure if we'll drive and take the boat (which opens up Pennekamp and all that) or fly and rent a boat or stay at a place that provides boats to guests. It's a long drive to haul the boat on, so we're leaning toward flying. But then, that limits our mobility once we're there.
Click to expand...

Bahia Honda State Park runs fairly inexpensive snorkeling trips and you can make reservations online.

My family went on one and it was a pretty good time.

http://www.floridakeys.com/lowerkeys/bahiahonda.htm
 
Ken Ibold said:
We want to go lobster diving, snorkeling, deep sea fishing and beaching. Miami ain't gonna do it. Where did you find the condo you rented?
Click to expand...

There's no beaches in the Keys except on Key West, and it's trucked in. The reef keeps beaches from happenning. The Best Lobster hole I have is under the east bridge heading up from Boca Chica, The area south of Geiger Key also has a coral pile by the end of the Geiger Key channel that is a great lobster spot. The best diving /snorkelling reef is now off limits to anyone except researchers (we screwed ourselves out of that on by all the operators agreeing to not take scuby doo tourists there and keeping it pristine). There's some good coral formations off Western Dry Rocks, but it's a pretty good swim from where the tour boats moor up. There's some good diving off of Big Pine as well as a big camp ground, and I think they rent cabins/trailers. There's also some resort facilities there. The best beach in So Fla is just N of the Dania Pier. It's a state park and isn't crowded. There's also good snorkling/shore diving there on the Jacks (those concrete anti tank landing "Jacks" there's one on shore that marks where the sunk line offshore is, and it goes out a ways, lots of fish life.) Up Key Largo way you have John Penekamp State Park and Looe Key. Lot's of bragging and publicity over it, I never really saw it as that good though YMMV.
 
SCCutler said:
Hawk's Cay has moorings outside many of the condos.
Click to expand...
We were looking at Hawk's Cay, but they are doing a massive renovation and after the building projects on our house and all of the road construction around, I'd just as soon get away from it when I'm getting away from it.
 
I generally prefer to stay in Florida City and go out of Homestead Bayfront Park and enjoy the Biscayne National Park. I would put in a picture of the (2) 23 pound Mahi and (2) 16 pound Mahis we caught 20 miles offshore of Pacific Light, but I don't think I have posted enough to do that yet. There are also dive boats out of Bayfront if you are into that sort of thing, I get my lobsters by towing my boat to Bayfront and launching there and diving Biscayne Park.

A friend has rented a mobile home at Venture Out, MM 23, and invited me along several times. There you get a nice trailer and a boat slip on a canal, and it will cost over 1200 dollars for the week by the time you pay all the charges. If interested check it out at voresort.org The wind in March can be very strong, the last time we rented a trailer for a week at Venture Out in March we ended up not doing a lot of fishing due to high winds. The water is also too cold for for me to enjoy diving in March but I like warm water.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top