Katie and I just got back from Key West a few days ago and this is my first chance to sit down and recap it all.  We flew down Wednesday, 5/27/2009, from BWI to Fort Lauderdale.  Then we immediately grabbed a rental and hoofed it on down to Miami.  Getting the rental car was pretty neat.  We used Alamo since we had a coupon, but I suspect they're all like this here.  We just checked in at a computer kiosk and then were led out to a parking garage with the key stuck in the driver side door and they just said "pick any midsize".  Maybe that's the norm, but it was new to me and kinda neat. 

We booked The Palms Hotel and Spa at Miami Beach.  I didn't realize there's a Miami and a Miami Beach.  They're two separate locations separated by nice little chunk of water.  I guess that just goes to show how ignorant and untraveled I am.  When we got down to Miami Beach, we went straight to the hotel.  It was like this weird mix of posh and projects.  The hotel itself looked very nice, but when we pulled up the parking situation was a bit of a mess.  The valet didn't speak any English, which wasn't surprising, so I had to whip out my "5 year equivalent" Spanish.  So after a while I found out that you could pay $27 a day to have them park in this crappy little lot or you could park on the street and feed the meter from 8am-6pm.  I parked on the street and was glad that we were only staying there one night if only for that reason.

The hotel itself was really nice and I did get a pretty good deal for it on Priceline.  I did think it was weird though when someone came up to the front desk asking about booking a room and he said that they're all booked up, but she should find a computer and check on Orbitz or Travelocity.  Apparently they block off x number of rooms for the travel sites and the hotel signs some agreement to not give the room them away themselves.

Anyway, as soon as we got settled in we took a cab to get some dinner.  There was a little confusion with the cabbie over where to go.  The bell hop said we should go to Lincoln St, but the cabbie said Ocean drive was better.  We went with Lincoln.  Basically Lincoln is a really wide street with shops and nice outdoor restaurants.  It runs east/west.  Ocean Drive is about 10 blocks south and runs north/south.  It has the ocean on one side and all the fancy clubs and a few restaurants on the other side.  After we ate dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, we took a taxi down to Ocean Drive just to check it out and say we were there.

After a quick cab ride back to the hotel, we made it an early night for the long drive down to Key West. 

We got up around 9am and left shortly thereafter.  We had one quick stop to try some native cuisine at the Southernmost Cracker Barrel in Florida City, FL.  The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.  There are a TON of key islands like Grassy Key, Duck Key, etc.  I learned that the Keys have their own species of deer that can even swim between the islands.  I thought that was pretty cool.  Maybe I could hook some up to a boat and have them carry me around.  :-)

The hotel we stayed at was amazing.  It was called The Reach Resort Waldorf Astoria Collection.  It had its own private beach right next to the pool and their indoor/outdoor restaurant, The Strip House.  This hotel was on Simonton Street, which is on the south side one block east of Duvall Street, which is where all the happening stuff is. 

So after settling in and switch rooms to one with a better "ocean view".  We set out on foot down Duvall Street.  There's no open container law in Key West, as you can clearly see in this picture and this one too.  We checked out a couple of different shops including one where they make their own really nice sandals.  I meant to buy one on our way back, but forgot to stop by.  A little while later we signed up for a Fury boat cruise that we would take the next day. 

The boat trip was a lot of fun.  They took us out 6 miles on a big Catamaran to the reef out there and let us snorkel for about an hour.  Aside from some chafing and every wave filling my snorkel with water, this was quite fun.  Although I must say, whoever invented the snorkel, Robert F. Snorkel or whoever, or at least the person that thought that using a short snorkel in open water was a good idea, I'd like to have a few words with them.

Later they took us to their hangout area.  They docked the ship with this little floating barge and and then we took off on parasailing, then jetskiing and inbetween they have some inflatable structures we could swim out to and climb on, like the inflatable 20 foot tall mountain.  Jetskiing is harder than it looks.  Our trainer seemed like he was annoyed he wasn't back at the bar killing his liver, as noticed by his smart remark after he almost ran me over with a jetski.  They also didn't train us beyond the gas lever.  I know now that you need to stand up when you go fast to cushion the blow and you have to lean the other way just a bit any time your jet ski starts to capsize.  The first time we felt it was capsizing we jumped out, then climbed back on and I let Katie drive, then 100 yards later I realized I lost my Maui Jim sunglasses.  Bummer.  Overall the staff was really nice though, and as soon as the jetski fiasco was over, they started serving beer and wine. 

When everyone had done their main activities, they took us back around 4pm.  We went back to the hotel to rest us and nurse our nice new sunburns.  We just hung around the hotel a bit, played some Bag-O and sipped on our alcoholic beverages.  When we finally worked up an apetite we tried out the hotel restaurant, The Strip House.  The decor was rather, um, "interesting".  It was pretty nice decor done up in a 1930's dark burgundy theme, with lots of framed photographs of 1930s nude female models.  So it might not be a place to take the children unless you're a tasteless white trash family, in which case you couldn't afford the dinner prices...or the hotel.  Anywho, that was pretty much our evening that night.  The boat trip really takes the energy out of you.

The next day we rented bikes and cruised around town a bit.  We checked out some local shops, got some nice touristy souvenirs and ate some Conch Fritters (pretty tasty).  Between the writing on a coffee mug and talking to a local merchant, I learned that Key West seceded from the US for about a month over the extra four hour delay from the border patrol illegal immigrant (drug) checkpoints.  Oh, and a plastic wrapped brick of drugs that washes on shore from a drug dealer dumping their load is called a "Square Grouper".  After some more biking, we went back to the hotel to lounge some more, then headed out for our sunset cruise.  Then we went back and wandered around Duvall Street a bit.  We checked out Sloppy Joe's where Pete and Wayne, some local band/comedy act was playing.  They were pretty good, but the only seats we could get weren't being served food and we were pretty hungry, so we checked out another local outdoor restaurant, Willie T's I think.  We stayed out a bit longer, then called it a night.  The next morning, we had to get up early and head straight back for our flight leaving out of Fort Lauderdale at 3:40. 

All in all it was a really cool trip!  It also didn't hurt to have a really great company, too!  ;-)  Check out all the photos.