We went to Duck Key (right smack in the middle of the Florida Keys) on our honeymoon and stayed 6 nights and 7 days. We stayed at Hawk's Cay Resort and I cannot say enough good things about the resort. It was amazing. They catered to our every need, we got an AMAZING free breakfast every morning, and it was absolutely beautiful. I am already bugging Ty about wanting to go back. If only money grew on trees....
The night of our wedding, we drove to Atlanta (yes, we are crazy), stayed at a hotel for about 3 hours and then hopped on a plane to Ft. Lauderdale. We were running on NO sleep (I actually don't think I slept in several days), but Ty was a trooper and drove us the 2 1/2 hours from the airport to our resort. I slept the entire way and only woke up when we stopped for lunch. We had an amazing first meal and wondered how the rest of the week would follow after such a yummy first meal!
Here was our view at lunch the first day...
After lunch we had some time to kill before we could check in so we went to get some groceries. We had some issues checking in but while we waited, we ate melting ice cream in the rental car - because that's what honeymoons are for, right? If you know Ty, you know he is crazy about eating healthy, so I thoroughly enjoyed the guilty - free trip! :) We also drove around our tiny island and took in the gorgeous views and luxurious houses. A little fun fact - Duck Key has the most expensive houses in the Florida Keys!
We finally got checked in and slept for a good 4 hours. When we woke up, we decided to just eat at one of the restaurants at the resort and it was delicious!
On Monday, we woke up with no plans, but decided to get right to planning our week! My sweet best friend, Melissa had made me a "honeymoon goodie bag" and included several travel books for the Keys. We ate breakfast and then headed to the pool to relax and do some planning! Our resort had its own dolphin adventure (we ended up going to another place when we swam with dolphins) so we enjoyed watching the dolphins Monday!
Monday night we went to a local restaurant that was very laid back and reminded me of where Jimmy Buffet or Kenny Chesney would be hanging out. :) We came back to this same place on our last day to feed the tarpon (more on that later).
I made Ty chase the sunset pretty much every night, and Monday was the first of many unbelievably gorgeous sunsets. I was in awe of how amazing our Creator is.
On Tuesday, we woke up and ate breakfast - have I mentioned how wonderful this breakfast was each morning? We were skeptical because we got a week of free breakfast but assumed it would be cereal and milk....boy were we wrong! They had waffles, pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, smoothies, cheese, bread, toast, bagels, muffins, a chef making fresh omelets, and more! I absolutely LOVE breakfast food (I think I could eat it for all 3 meals everyday) so I was in heaven!It was a little overcast Tuesday so we went to a little zoo, where we fed stingrays and saw a few sharks. :)
Feeding the stingrays felt so weird, they would come suck up the food out of your hand!
After the zoo, we went to check out a key that is known for having wild deer roaming around everywhere. Ty was so excited! We didn't see many but it was so neat to see them roaming around free! Here was one that we saw just walking through someone's yard!
After we left the sweet little deer, we went to a Turtle Hospital! Yes, you heard right. I thought it might be boring, but it was quite interesting and the poor hurt sea turtles were so cute! I learned alot about turtles and I want to do a unit with my kids about sea turtles!
These sea turtles have something called "bubble butt" and they stay afloat unless weights are put on their backs!
After we left there, we went to a restaurant down the street that had a pool! If we would have known, we totally would have brought our bathing suits. :) I was introduced to a Key Lime Pie drink, which quickly became my favorite! Most of the restaurants down there had some form of the drink so I ordered it several more times during the week.
After dinner that night, we headed back to the hotel and went to the lagoon and pool! The lagoon was ocean water that was pumped in & a little sand around it with some chairs (the Keys don't have beaches like we are used to, its just the ocean in front of you! So the lagoon felt more like we were at the beach than being at the pool).
We had an amazing sunset!!!!!
Reading by the pool
The Lagoon
That wraps up this post, it only took me 2 days to write - ha! Hopefully I will be back soon with the rest of the trip!
