Heading to Key West

Thursday 7/17 – Drive from Key Largo to Key West
One of my main goals on our honeymoon was to swim with dolphins, so on the way to Key West we stopped at a place called the Theater of the Sea. Turned out they didn’t have any openings until the 23rd, at which point we were going to be back in Miami, one day away from heading home. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed at this point, but don’t worry, it all worked out in the end. ;)
Once we got to Key West, we were a little early for check in, so we took a walk to a few places near the hotel. We found a great restaurant called Louie’s Backyard and ate some lunch there. It was beautiful and right on the water. We saw lots of water sports and decided we wanted to try parasailing.
Once we got back to the Casa Marina (our hotel) our room was ready, so we went to check it out. It was a two room suite (a little cramped, but okay) with a small deck. From the deck we had a view of tree branches, which contained a dirty towel and a flip flop hanging from them. Just beyond the trees were a bit of parking lot and some lovely tennis courts. I was also disappointed to find that there was no bath tub. This was the one place that we had decided to splurge and spend just a bit more on the hotel, so we weren’t too happy (I usually hate being difficult and even retelling this story makes me a little uncomfortable, but I guess it all worked out in the end). We asked to see a room with a bath tub. It looked pretty much like any standard hotel room at a Holiday Inn, with a small tub, but at about 3 times the price, so we asked what else was available.
They say the third time’s a charm, and they were definitely right. The third room they showed us was in the main building (the first two were in newer side buildings). The main building was built in the 1920’s so it had beautiful architecture, and tiny rooms. The room they showed us was right above the lobby. It was kind of small and didn’t have a bathtub, but it was so pretty and cozy that it didn’t really matter. The best part was the VIEW. We had a HUGE deck (probably almost the size of the room) with a view overlooking the two huge pools, lots of palm trees, and the ocean. (Oh and the alarm clock had an iPod dock, how cool is that?) It was PERFECT!
The employee that helped us was Wayne. He was a great guy and very understanding. He kept telling us he just wanted our honeymoon to be perfect. We loved the third room, but because of the location it is more expensive than the other rooms we had looked at. Wayne was so nice that he let us have it for the same price as the other rooms! (We had an option later on to move to a two room suite with an ocean view when it opened up, but we chose to stay in this room – I think it might have gone back to regular price for that last couple nights).
We went to get our luggage to bring to the room and by the time we got back Wayne had sent up a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries for us! We enjoyed them out on the huge deck. We took a picture of us enjoying the gifts and gave the picture to Wayne along with his tip. What a great guy!
Later that night we enjoyed dinner at Sun Sun, the outdoor restaurant at our hotel. Overall a complicated, but enjoyable day.