Happy Days At The Oceans Edge Key West Resort Hotel & Marina

Here’s a story about what a difference accommodation can make when you’re on a (very) active holiday. We recently flew to Florida for a roadtrip through half the state, including lovely stops in Miami, Key West, Kennedy Space Center and Walt Disney World. For a few nights we stayed in a nightmarish motel near the amusement parks and it was so ridiculously awful that at the end of our stay, we took photos, laughing, making sure we wouldn’t forget our adventurous nights there.

The next day we took off towards Key West and after a very beautiful drive across the bridges and the islands down south, arrived at a place called Oceans Edge Key West Resort Hotel & Marina. Yes, it’s a mouthful, but it’s totally deserving of it.

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When we arrived at Oceans Edge, it was sunny, lovely and so very Florida. Hues of blues and greens, a hot day and us, a little worn out from our nightmare shower experience and the long drive. You can not believe the feeling of checking in to a lovely room with all these details when you’ve had the forementioned experience there to contrast it out.

Clean, full of light, massive, comfortable beds, swimming pool and marina right outside our balcony. “This is HEAVVENNN”, we kept groaning out loud as we unpacked our toiletries and planned for a night swim.

So, here’s the thing. Our view from the balcony was a spectacular one: a sunset over the marina, swimming pools, palm trees, pelicans floating in the air above. We just sat there for the longest moment snapping photos before we even thought of heading out for a little dip in one of the several pools.

We did spend quite a while in the cool pool, but also spent ages taking photos and posing in our fluffy bathrobes. We felt like queens! Queens of Key West!! We had arrived and we were going to make the MOST OF IT!

Which we totally did. Just check out this story about our night out in town drinking (very strong) cocktails, admiring the sunset and causing funny scenes in candystores.

And naturally, because it was the most perfect night ever, there was also a lovely full moon above it all, posing with us in lovely photos and making us feel very unreal. And, hashtag blessed, if you will ?

Sharks! Wild sharks! In the nature! Up close!

(Even) later that night, we decided to go for an evening walk. It was such a lovely setting for a walk, after all: palm trees, cool evening air, stunning marina area to look at, cool drinks in our hands… who would ask for more? Well, we didn’t, but we ended up getting a lot more.

We were walking around the buildings, admiring the beautiful boats and the marina lights reflecting from the water, the little fish that swam back and forth while being illuminated beautifully by these magical, green, underwater lights.

There was this little episode with a big bug that flew from the bushes and hit me in the forehead, some embarrassing shrieking was involved, but luckily no video material. But you know what we DO have video material of? The moment we saw actual real legit sharks in the wild…

It was such an incredible moment. Sure, these are not the exciting man-eating beasts that many people imagine when they hear the word “shark” (which is false advertising and pretty rude towards these mostly harmless animals anyway!), but still: actual, living, pre-historic underwater wonders, just swimming past our toes and grabbing a little snack while at it?! TOO COOL, BRO.

(Can you hear the wonder in our voices?! ? It is not faked…)

On to other important things… the BREAKFAST

What makes a traveler / travel blogger really happy? A good breakfast. And it’s not always about the fluffiness of the croissants or the perfection of the eggs. Sometimes, it’s about the surroundings. Which, in this case, were above average. Like quite a lot above it.

After months of eating our breakfasts at home, when it’s dark and cold outside (and of course, when there’s no-one to serve it to you!) it felt preeeetty amazing sitting by the pool, eating all this:

What you see here are the basics, but done well: French toast with cranberries and orange, Eggs Benedict with innncredible roast potatoes and a plate full of pastries that we spent ages cutting in exact halves… because that’s how you keep the peace when traveling together: 50% of chocolate pastry for you, 50% for me, fair and square.

(Seriously, guys, I’m super hungry and I’ve been postponing dinner to finish this story so looking at these photos is torture… hahaha.)

Other activities at Oceans Edge Key West

There’s a lot you can do at Oceans Edge, so you don’t necessarily even always have to leave the resort area to find fun things to do. For example, there’s the pool area for lounging, either in the sun or by covering up the canopy, just in a cool, nice shade… maybe reading a book or enjoying one of the house cocktails.

There’s taking happy selfies… of course… popular activity, this one.

Kayaking! There’s kayaking! I hadn’t done this in a while so I was a little terrified, but the shallow waters and the easiness of handling the thing itself made me feel pretty safe. Plus of course, this experienced water wizard you see here taking this selfie.

And what I personally was very excited about… the wildlife spotting. I LOVE seeing animals and birds and creatures and critters (apart from insects and snakes, brrh!) that I can’t spot back in Finland, and it’s even better if I get to take some decent photos of them.

So this beautiful bunch of pelicans and that handsome green lizard — I’m pretty sure it’s a green iguana, but please do correct me if I got it wrong — they all let us step close enough to snap some photos with a zoom. Politely, of course. We stopped our approach the minute they got uncomfortable.

Except for this dude below. He was done the second we stepped on that peer.

“Ugh, humans! Nope. Mr. Pelican OUT.”

And of course, if you do want to leave the pools and the kayaks and the breakfasts and the pelicans behind… you can always take the hotel’s free shuttle to Key West for the sunset celebration or dinner & drinks. Like we did! You can read all about our fun, fun, fun Key West adventure here.

When it was time to finally leave our little Key West paradise called Oceans Edge behind, we didn’t really want to, as you can see below. Yup, that’s how mature, adult bloggers extend their hotel stay: by hiding in the furniture. You really should try it sometimes…

We’d like to take the opportunity to thank the lovely staff and pelicans of Oceans Edge Key West Resort & Marina for taking such good care of us and letting us enjoy the Key West sun for a few days without a care in the world… We truly, honestly & very much wish we can join you guys again in the future!

Collaboration post: Our stay at the Oceans Edge Key West Resort was complimentary for review purposes. The views, the experience and the photos are all our own ?