Ocean Key Resort

So the message is simple. If booking an ocean view room, just check the cruise ship schedule. This can be found on the city of Key West’s webpage and using a simple search. If there is a cruise ship scheduled to be docked at the “Mallory” dock, or “M” then your view is likely to be obstructed. As for us, we went from “we are absolutely coming back” on Day 1 to “we are never coming back” after we had our view obstructed on Day 2 and ended up at “we’ll come back, but only pay for the ocean view room if no cruise ships are scheduled at the Mallory dock.” I do credit the manager for this change as she was responsive and did a few things to help compensate for the issue. But, simply, check to see if a huge cruise ship will be blocking your view if that is important to you. Other than that. This is a very good hotel. Not elite. Specifically regarding room 415, the showerhead fixture was missing, water leaked out the door while showering, the closet door to the fridge area wasn’t square and required adjustment to be closed, the lock to the porch door was difficult, and we saw what looked like mildew on the windows behind the bed’s headboard. That may seem like a lot, but the rest really was exceptional. Clean beautiful room, comfortable bed and chairs, great deck, and when not obstructed, world class view. Read less

Overall I loved this resort but I feel that I need to protect others and focus my review on “Buyer Beware.” I am still giving Ocean Key an overall 4-star rating and not going down to 1-2 because aside from the cruise ship issue everything else was awesome. I go to Florida just about every year in January for a business trip. This year we decided to tack on a trip to key west once the business conference was over. We had limited time and were able to be at ocean key from Friday night to Sunday morning only. We decided to splurge, which we never do, and get an ocean view room deluxe. When we arrived, the room exceeded our expectations. A huge ocean view that was not obstructed at all. We could relax on the balcony and enjoy the live music near by at sunset pier from the comfort of our balcony. We enjoyed the hour that we had on our balcony so much, that for our only full day in the area on Saturday we decided to not book any tours and instead hang by their pool and on our balcony for the day. I got up early on Saturday morning and rushed to our balcony to see the sunrise only to be greeted by a HUGE cruise ship blocking most of our view! I called the front desk. They said they would have the manager contact us when she got in which she did. The manager, AJ, was very sympathetic and accommodated as much as she could. I told her that I was very upset because we would have never booked a room for $600 per night if we knew that a huge several stories high cruise ship would be parked there ALL DAY! This is really something that they should warn about upon booking! We felt deceived. It feels like fraud. Please understand that these cruise ships are huge and exceed the height of the hotel. She apologized and mentioned briefly that if you book directly through them instead of on Expedia there are warnings (however I tried this later as a test and this was not true). I will say that AJ did handle this well and she tried everything she could to make it right. She offered to move us to a better room with unobstructed views later in the day. We couldn’t take her up on that because we had limited time in the area so instead she waived the daily resort fee, gave us free breakfast for 2 days, and paid for our dinner from the night before. I thought that was a very good approach and I am grateful. CONS of this resort:dealing with the cruise ships and lack of warning about this. A tip I learned although too late for us is to look at the city of key west schedule in advance with cruise ship dates. PROS: extremely friendly and attentive staff, clean facility, location convenient to everything, enjoyable vibe right there at sunset pier, attention to detail, wonderful management (AJ), and an awesome concierge (Nate the great). Read less

I wish I would have stayed at the southernmost beachfront resort again this time. I was unimpressed by the overall cleanliness of the property. The rooms were beautiful but definitely not with the pictures on the Internet per tray. The workers were power washing in the middle of the night which disturbed my sleeping two nights in a row, when I complain to the front desk there was never any follow-through. For the first day and a half of our stay the room keys did not work and we had to be escorted to our room whenever we left. The food at tin roof was okay but nothing worth the price. Read less

My wife and I were celebrating our 30th bday. We were greeted during check-in with extremely friendly people and given a cocktail from the lobby bar. Property was extremely well kept and our partial ocean-view suite was beautiful. Very clean and inviting. The location of the hotel was perfect because it's located right on the ocean but steps away from downtown duvall st. We spent a full day at the pool and had great service from the pool bar. Ate a yummy lunch, we recommend the latin wings! Totally recommend this resort for a couple looking for a romantic getaway. We would definitely stay here again. Read less