Hawks Cay Resort

I have lived on Duck Key for many years and watched the evolution of this family friendly resort. We recently had our family stay at two of the Harbor View villas. The splash pool area, resort pool and Angler and Ale were enjoyed by all. The staff led by Brad Harvey were responsive when dealing with an initial reservation issue and the service throughout the resort was outstanding. My wife and I had dinner at the recently opened Salt and Ash and consider this the “best” restaurant in the Marathon Duck Key area.

My neck feels great! It smells good and the amenities were lovely too. The steam room was great. Our massage therapists were on point.

So I read all of the reviews about this place and I am not quite sure why people did not immediately fall in love. There are a lot of good reviews, but also some surprising reviews about the quality of Hawks Cay. From our experience, staying in the sunset village, this place was a dream come true. We had our own little personal beach and the waterfront. This place is meant for people who want to be in flip-flops all day and fishing. This is not the Ritz Carlton in Miami. The accommodations were perfect, we brought everything we needed from the store so we were good. I do not have one single complaint. This is an amazing location if you have a family or if you want to meet friends and all stay at the villas. It’s just an Absolutely Wonderful, peaceful, amazing experience. We did a fishing charter which was absolutely perfect. We fished every day in our backyard. The only average experience was driving down to Key West, and immediately we wanted to come back to Hawks Cay for the rest of our stay. So as long as you come knowing that this is a place where people fish, and do outdoor nature activities, Hawks Cay is for you. If you’re coming from somewhere fancy and you need a five star hotel, this is not it. Go to Miami or Orlando. Hawks Cay is for the nature lovers and the price is 100 💯 worth it.

Was excited to visit this resort but was sadly let down. The pool water was dirty and my son was sick for 2 days after being in the pool. The DJ around the pool was so loud you could not talk. Dolphin show says 10:15 every morning we left at 10:40 and still had not started not fun for families sitting in the sun waiting for the show. Kids center is off hotel premises. Not a lot of choices for restaurants close by. Drink prices were very high ($8 for a beer) we ended up checking out early and went to another hotel as was not happy with this resort.

I would like to preface this with saying that we are a family of 5 who frequent Disney so we are quite familiar with overpaying for things in tourist areas, not to mention the fact we actually live in a tourist area. However, Hawks Cay takes the cake when it comes to being overpriced. Two drinks at the tiki bar were $47, breakfast buffet is $30/person, one lunch for the five of us ran about $175 including tip. We stayed in a 2 bedroom villa that doesn’t look like it’s been updated since the 80’s. Apparently the villas are each privately owned, which we were not made aware of ahead of time, and Hawks Cay obviously does not set any standards for the private owners. And do not be fooled by the pictures you see of Hawks Cay! The lagoon and main pool are not near as large as they’re made to look. They also promote paddle board rentals - what this really consists of is signing up for a 30 minute time slot to paddle around the already small and crowded lagoon. We vacation in the Keys often but I can say this was the first and last time we will ever stay at this resort.