FL Keys resorts with on site dive ops??

[Wookie]

Looe Key Reef Resort, is a full service resort, and Looe Key is spectacular, but it's a long weekend, not a week.

Bud 'n Mary's in Islamorada has Key Dives on premises, but may be too rustic. I've been to Key Dives, but not Bud n Mary's.

Key West Harbor Yacht Club has a number of very nice condo units on the ground floor, restaurant which is excellent, and Dive Key West has their boat on site. You wouldn't be in the heart of cruiseship-Ville, but you could get there easy enough if you want to see the freaks. Ummmm. Sights. Sorry.

I think others have adequately covered Key Largo.

 

[sportxlh]

Gr8jab's suggestion of Hawks Kay is an excellent one, I had forgotten about that place. I've used the operator, Dive Duck Key, that's in the resort and they do a decent job. Hawks Kay is a pretty large resort, so you might need to get a golf cart or make the 90 second drive in your car to the shop if your condo rental is on the far side of the resort.

I stay at Key West Inn and the Courtyard when I dive with Rainbow Reef. KW Inn is definately not resort-like and even the Courtyard is pretty lame by normal Marriott standards (I make 60-70 stays at Marriott properties each year, mostly for work, and this Courtyard is in the worst 10%). There are a lot of terrible hotels in the Keys: while these are not great hotels by normal standards, by Keys standards they are OK. I continue to stay at the two hotels because the good rates RR offers with their package deals (or I use Marriott points) and the fact you can stroll from either hotel to RR. I'll stay at either hotel again in the future, but I don't consider them to be resorts: they are just better than many of the hotels in the Keys. If you're looking for a true resort, these are not it.

 

[Capt Davy J]

Are you looking for a luxury resort that offers diving on-site? Or are you looking for a place that you don't need to drag your wet gear back to the room?

 

[devinesigns]

We don't need diving on site in the sense of an in house reef- we just don't want to have to haul our wet gear back to the room after every dive day, nor do we want to park our wet butts in the car to go back and forth to where the dive boat leaves from. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, we've enjoyed true dive resorts where you get a dedicated locker on the dive dock for your gear, and the dive boats right there for easy departures everyday. So I'm trying to replicate that experience as best as possible in the Keys- looking for somewhere we can wake up, walk to the dive boat, store our gear, but also be sleeping somewhere nicer than a motel.

We did stay at the Marriott Bay hotel years ago and dove with the on site shop (then called Pirate Island divers, I think) and they did have one communal locker for gear which was fine. We would go back there, but I was curious if there's somewhere as convenient or nicer that we should be considering since that's the only time we've ever been to the Keys. We don't need a true luxury resort (guess I should have clarified that originally), just a nicer than motel-quality hotel. Totally open to a condo as well of it's walkable to the dive boat.

You've all given me good points to ponder so far, thank you!