The “key” to our favorite vacation thus far- Key West May ‘21

We left the condo around 7am which was right on time. Our trip started off with the lord’s breakfast at chick-fil-a. We decided to take the more scenic route of 41 instead of I-75. Now around 9am we stopped at the Big cypress preserve for a restroom break and let me tell you, if you haven’t stopped there before, I HIGHLY recommend doing so. They have a boardwalk you can go on and we saw so many alligators. It was a very cool experience. We are back on the road now, let’s see what other stops we make on the way. We do have to make a pit stop before we get there , I had my list of things to remember to pack. I made sure Matt had everything he needed, but not myself… e finally arrived to the hotel around 4:30ish, after we had stopped throughout the different keys to take photos with the InstaX and threw the drone up a couple times. Once we settled into the room and relaxed, we ventured down to Mallory square to watch the street performers. One of my goals for the trip was to go to Fat Tuesday, because I never realized Matt had never had it before. Well, Matt is now in love with it. If you haven’t had Fat Tuesday’s before, it’s frozen slushees with liquor infused into it. By now I was complaining it was hot and exhausted, so we made the executive decision to head back to the hotel and picked up Big Johns pizza on the way back to the room. I’d rate a 7/10. 

5-13-21 

  Today is the day: our anniversary! This past year has flown by. Our plans for todays events are as follows: absolutely nothing. We woke up around 9 and went and had breakfast at the hotel, it was better than most other hotels we have stayed at. After breakfast we decided to exchange gifts. Matt loved his “52 reasons why I love you” gift and started tearing up reading through the deck of cards. That made my whole trip worth it, seeing him love something so simple, so much. He gave me a gorgeous heart-pendant necklace that I fell in love with. Little did I know he had more up his sleeve. When we had checked in yesterday, they gave us drink tickets for each day we were here, so today was the day to use some. We went down to the pool, got our drinks and just relaxed for a few hours. The weather down here is almost like a dry heat, so we didn’t feel the humidity as much as we would back home and both got some color from the pool.

Around 1pm we decided to go get cleaned up and take a nap before we went out shopping and had dinner, reservations being at 8pm. We went to the Southern Most Point which was so cool. It really has become a major tourist attraction. Naturally, we had brought the InstaX with us, and the photos came out so vintage and are such great memories to look back on. We found most of our gifts for our friends and family here as well. For dinner we decided on Outback, because it was our anniversary and weren’t trying to get sick on our anniversary. We decided on getting dessert(which we never do) and when they brought dessert accompanied was a little black box wrapped up like my first gift this morning. This threw me for a loop because I wasn’t expecting another gift. Matt bought me the most breathtaking necklace: a leaf with diamonds all throughout it. He surprised me and definitely didn’t need to get me TWO gifts, but hey diamonds are a girls best friend right?

5-14-21 

Today is the long awaited day: JET SKI ADVENTURE! Starting off with breakfast at the hotel , we hopped on the shuttle to Mallory Square to find our jet ski rental. I will admit my dyslexia came into play when plugging the address in... I had typed 106 instead of 601, but in my defense I still got us to the jet ski rental on time and we were the first ones there. Leaving early has its perks for things like this. The tour that we embarked on was a 29.5 mile ride around the island and it was absolutely amazing. Recording handheld with the GoPro was tricky , but you can see see how that turned out in the video on our channel. If you ever come to Key west I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend Fury Water Adventure. They have various other options aside from just jet ski rentals, but we only had time for the jet ski’s.

After our trek 90 miles away from Cuba, we decided to try one of the more iconic places for lunch, Sloppy Joe’s! The nachos I had were amazing and definitely enough for two people. When it came time for drinks, they did not care about liquor, we both ordered original margaritas and boy they were strong! Afterwards, we went for more shopping and just perused the streets of Duval. Duval street is an interesting place to people watch. The shuttle system they had for the hotel was 5/10. It left on the hour from the hotel, which is quite punctual. However, we got to the pick up location at 3:40 and the shuttle did not get there till 4:20. Once we got back to our room, we showered and took the best nap from being in the sun all morning. Matt really wanted shrimp scampi for dinner so after getting ready I found a restaurant called Duffy’s Steak and Lobster House. The portions were huge and it the atmosphere was very old Florida, a great characteristic to have when looking to eat around Key West. I had a chicken teriyaki salad, while Matt had his shrimp scampi. I would definitely recommend checking them out if you come to Key West, the prices were $$.

We had been seeing signs for ghost tours our whole trip so we decided to try one out, well jokes on me I picked one that was not the one I had been seeing and thinking of. The tour ended up being a walking tour, and the guide was super dorky and a little off. We felt like we were in school. If we started to laugh or talk, he would give us that teacher look and yell at us. The tour was 6/10 in all honesty. It wasn’t scary and was more like a history about these places and what other photos people have taken. We did meet another couple on the tour, which helped liven the tour a bit. After completing the tour, we decided to grab a drink with them and swapped social handles for if they ever come back or if we end up in their part of the country. Overall day 3 was an absolute blast!

5-15-21 

Today is a sad day, but we were prepared…sorta. We check out today(insert booing crowd here). Our trip has been one for the books and we have had so much fun creating amazing memories. Key West is an incredible place for all ages to experience a different culture and learn what Florida is all about. We finish off our anniversary trip with getting breakfast at Blue Heaven located on one of the corners of Mallory Square and leisurely making our way back to our own island we call home, Sanibel.

Below you’ll find some of the logistics of our trip and overall ratings from us. These are based upon our own personal reviews and experiences, not to be used for professional breakdown. Make sure to check out the full recap vlogs on our YouTube channel @ampshotsmedia as well as limited edition prints available in our store!

Price Breakdown:

Total Cost: $1,799.39

Hotel: $891.34

Food: $346.26

Souvenirs: $172.04

Parking: $57.75

Gas: $100.00 

Activities: $232.00

Overall Scale:

Hotel: 7/10

Food: 7/10

Souvenirs: 8/10

Parking: 4/10

Activities: 9/10