We got invited to a good friend’s 50th birthday celebration and the party was happening in the Florida Keys. All of the guests were staying at the Cheeca Lodge for the weekend. Our friend’s husband had a couple of surprise guests from out of town which included us. We flew to Miami and back on American Airlines and rented a car to get to and from the hotel which is about two hours’ drive (give or take some slow traffic on the two-lane portion of US-1 between Homestead and Key Largo.)

Our friend was given some group rates, but they weren’t great. In fact, the hotel’s website had some better publicly available rates. In the end, I found the hotel listed in the Chase Luxury Hotel Collection. It was not listed by Capital One or Amex in their similar luxury hotel booking engines. Not only was my rate lower than the publicly available rates, it included a possible upgrade, early check-in/late check-out based on availability, a $50 property credit and free breakfast for two.

I had not been to Islamorada since I was in college on Spring Break and enjoyed the famous Tiki Bar a bit too much. In those days, we stayed at cheap motels and dreamed of one day staying at fancy places like the Cheeca Lodge.

We arrived around 3:45pm on a Friday and our room was ready. After surprising the birthday girl, we checked in and we were given a room in the main building (which was appreciated to save us some walking around the large property in the tropical heat). It was a “resort view” which was basically the parking lot as we were on the 1st floor. The other side of the hallway had ocean views. The room was very large and had a great bathroom with a rainfall shower and outdoor tub (which we didn’t use). There was a small refrigerator and comfortable sectional couch. As I booked the lowest available room on the Chase website, I’m pretty sure we got a nice upgrade despite the resort being very busy that weekend.

The best feature of the room was that the A/C was ice-cold. It was very hot outside 24 hours a day so it was nice to cool off in the room.

After we got settled, we enjoyed some pool time in the shade with a cold drink and our friends which made the temperature somewhat bearable. That night we ate at Morada Bay Cafe, which was down the street from the resort but has the same owners. The food and drinks were good and not too overpriced for the Keys.

The next day, we went to breakfast at the lobby restaurant. We first tried to sit inside, but we could not get any service. We moved outdoors and had a good breakfast including lattes (one hot and one iced).

After we were finished eating, the server never came back. As we had breakfast included up to $34 per person and had not quite spent up to that amount, we just left without seeing a bill. Nothing was added to our room charges at checkout so I guess it worked out.

We spent that day either at the pool or in the room cooling off. I also had time to check out the gym and spa. It’s in a separate building just across the way from the main hotel building. There’s also a nice adults-only pool and some cabanas there.

If you are looking to be a bit more active, the hotel has watersports available for rental including stand-up paddleboards, kayaks and jet-skis. The ocean next to the hotel wasn’t great for swimming or snorkeling as it was a bit murky. As you may have read in the news, the local ocean temperature has reached the mid-90’s which has bleached the coral.

On Saturday evening, we had a great dinner off-site at an Italian restaurant about a mile north of the resort. We used the hotel shuttle to get back and forth from the restaurant. It was available when we needed it both ways and we did not wait more than five minutes.

After dinner, I walked over to our friends’ casita for some drinks and it was very nice. These seem to be privately-owned with a gated entrance and rented out by the hotel, a bit like a timeshare. Here are some pictures from the grounds of the hotel.

On Sunday morning, we tried to get late checkout as our flight from Miami was not until the evening. Unfortunately, several different front desk workers told me that 100+ people were checking out and 100+ people were checking in that day. It seemed like a standard line they were giving to all guests. That morning, we actually had a private catered breakfast buffet with the other party guests so we didn’t use our full breakfast credit. I did grab some espresso-based drinks from the bar using our credit as those weren’t included in the breakfast.

We stayed in our room until the last possible minute and housekeeping politely asked us to vacate around 11:15am. We left our luggage at the bell stand and went and joined our friends in the pool area (although we had packed our bathing suits so we just stuck our feet in). To be fair, the hotel said we could use the showers at the spa after checkout, but we couldn’t be bothered to do that.

Around 1pm, we said goodbye to our friends and left for the long drive back to Miami. Because we had time to kill before needing to be at the airport, we stopped to see Mission Impossible 7 in IMAX at a nice movie theater in Kendall, about 20 minutes from the airport.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by our stay at the Cheeca Lodge. Despite not being able to use points (or earn hotel points) at the property, the room was spacious and clean, the staff were friendly and helpful (except at the indoor breakfast table), and the grounds were beautiful. Valet parking was free (I did tip) and the shuttle worked great to get around the local area.

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