Hawks Cay Resort

We recently stayed at Hawk’s Cay and had nothing short of an awful experience from start to finish. I was so incredibly excited to stay here, as I’ve heard incredible things about the resort. I can confidently say I would never stay here again after our visit. We arrived about 30 minutes before checkin time (around 3:30pm) and were told our room was not ready yet. No problem. Our baby was due for a nap so I took him around the beautiful property to sightsee. At 4:05pm they called me to tell me our room was ready. We went upstairs and I was about to put him down for a nap, but I realized we were in a double queen when we had booked a resort king. Also, there was no pack ’n play set up as I had requested in our reservation. With a now crying baby in my arms, I called the front desk and let them know they had put us in the wrong room. The woman told me to come down to the lobby and she would meet me there to bring us to the last remaining king. Why weren’t we put there in the first place? We went down to the lobby and waited about 20 minutes before asking to speak to a supervisor. The woman told me the original person coming to meet me was on her way. I expressed my concerns to her while she took me to the new room and she apologized politely, but after arriving in our new room (again with no pack ’n play set up), the entire checkin process took an hour and a half. My now overly tired and incredibly cranky baby was crying as I tried to get him down for a nap in our new room. We were interrupted by the woman coming back with our keys, then 10 minutes later a man knocked on our door with a folded up pack ’n play and asked, “You know how to set this up, right?” Now on the verge of tears, I asked him to please set it up for me. He cranked it open and told me there were “linens to put in the bottom for the baby.” When I inspected it, it looked broken and rickety on the bottom with no padding. Linens are a serious SIDS risk for babies, so I’m not sure why such a nice resort couldn’t provide us with a safe, non-broken crib. We did not end up using it. That evening when we were getting ready for dinner, there was an ironing board with no iron in the room. We called and they brought one relatively promptly. The air conditioning must have had an issue because it could not have possibly been any louder. On top of everything that had made our evening so stressful, the alarm in our room went off at 5:45am, waking the baby and myself up an hour earlier than normal. This threw off our entire next day as well. The resort does not provide “do not disturb” tags inside your room, so during his first nap of the day housekeeping knocked loudly and barged into our room! I tried to speak to a supervisor and all I got was an insincere, unconvincing apology. On top of that, I have written to the resort TWICE and received no comment. What was supposed to be a relaxing stay at one of the most highly-regarded resorts in the Keys was the most stressful (actually, the only stressful) experience I have ever had in the Keys. To have spent over $400 on a room and had such a disappointing stay was unacceptable. Do not recommend.

We had a great stay at Hawks Cay. We stayed in a 2 bedroom villla with such a beautiful view. The pool, and lagoon were a blast for our kids (5,7). We also had the chance to have our family photos taken by Jette. She was amazing with our kids, we had great photos and the turn around on the photos was quick!

Jet took us out to sunset beach and we got great family photos.

Our stay at Hawks Cay was incredibly disappointing. The hotel lobby and the location are beautiful and the website makes Hawks Cay look like a luxury resort. It is actually far from it. Do not stay in the "villas." They are independently owned condos with no standards or amenities. The hotel itself looked nice and the staff are lovely, but our "villa" was filthy dirty and far from the main hotel. Our toilet did not work when we arrived and there were still items from a previous guest in the bathroom. Many of the activities were closed due to renovations. The Dolphin Connection is closed but nobody could explain when it closed. The website photos and descriptions set high expectations that were not nearly met.

The location is beautiful, and the spot our villa was in was perfect. But, the staffing at restaurants and the tiki bar were insufficient. Staff were working incredibly hard but simply couldn't keep up. We waited two hours for lunch that never came at the pool. The wait for dinks was very long. We sought a resort with food and drinks, but then couldn't enjoy it, choosing instead to leave for meals or make our own food. Instead of opening doors, perhaps management could pitch in and help your team.