Breezy Palms Resort — Hotel in Islamorada

Breezy Palms is a very laid back, chill kind of place and as long as you know what to expect, you will not be disappointed. The staff was always kind, professional and helpful. The rooms were extremely clean and the property was beautifully maintained and quiet. We were in #307 which is right next to the front office. We thought this might be an inconvenience, but it was a great location. We enjoyed meals and drinks on our lanai, where we could hang out and watch the people and wildlife but still enjoy privacy thanks to the surrounding foliage. Speaking of wildlife, they have a darling cat named Bonnie that lives on the property, and it seemed she chose us as her resident humans for the 3 nights we were there. She was the most considerate, well-mannered cat I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. She was never too intrusive, always remained outside even when we had the door open, she was happy to accept snacks but never begged or expected them. She eagerly greeted us and kept us very entertained.

The other wildlife was also very abundant. It reminded us of Kauai with the roosters crowing and chicken clucking about. Not to mention the HUGE iguanas EVERYHWERE. Every late afternoon/early evening they would all came out to sun; the lawn was full of them, just chilling enjoying the sunshine. They were large enough to be a tad intimidating but they remained well behaved and far enough from the rooms.

The room was equipped with a large (but not quite full size) refrigerator and microwave. The office has snacks you can purchase if you get the munchies late at night which was VERY convenient. It had a very large comfortable (firm) king-size bed and 4 pillows. The window AC unit worked extremely well so it was a very comfortable environment. The TV was large and attached to a rolling stand so you could adjust if needed, which I thought was clever.

The location is ideal, very close to amenities, even walking distance to restaurants, bars, coffee shops etc. I highly recommend the great little tiki bar located in the resort next door (happy hour 5-7 PM 50% off!) We’ve traveled and visited many places in the state of Florida, but this was our first time visiting The Keys. After exploring the entire chain, we were very thrilled we chose Islamorada. This key is a lot more laid back than Key West but still has several top-notch amenities and great fishing. In the end, we just wanted a clean, quiet environment to rest our heads at night and this did the trick. Breezy Palms is the epitome if laid back and well...breezy. We will most certainly return.

There wasn’t much that we disliked, more so a few minor disappointments. First and foremost; I wish the property had an ice machine, but they only offer to sell small bags for $5. I consider ice to be a fairly basic amenity and considering what we paid for the rooms, not exactly out of the realm or asking too much. The complimentary coffee offered in the office each morning was terrible. But this is just our opinion, as it was clear that some guests thoroughly enjoyed it. It was just very watery and weak for us, a matter of opinion. The light outside of our room was SO bright I could barely sleep the first night. I asked a few different people at the front desk on different occasions if there was a way to dim it or turn it off but I never got any response or follow up. Turns out, my husband realized there was a switch inside of the unit where you could make the light warmer, so it wasn’t a glaring florescent light. Lastly, the bathroom is ridiculously small in #307. As in, you can’t sit on the toilet straight kind of small. The shower size was not much better, it could’ve been overlooked it you didn’t have to spend an absorbent amount of time int there due to low water pressure. I am just going to put this out there; there is a ridiculously large walk-in closet just taking up valuable space. I recommend they reconfigure the space to make a...

To make this short and simple, in case you don’t want to read a paragraph explaining how awful this place is, do not stay here. My mom and I arrived Sunday afternoon, tired, worn down, and ready to relax at the resort we believed we were heading to. Check-in was fairly normal, although the front desk clerk, Sally, had no clue what the layout of our room was. For instance, she told us we had a mini fridge and that no ice trays could fit in the freezer but we could pay them $4.50 for a bag of ice. Meanwhile we had a perfectly normal fridge with three ice trays. She also downplayed our room style saying that it was the cheapest and implying we shouldn’t be expecting more from them based on how much we paid. Sally also let us know that there was an ocean front room that recently opened up, due to a customer cancelling their reservation. My mom asked a few questions about it but overall came to the conclusion she did not want to upgrade our room. Keep this in mind. We walk into our room and it was like lipstick on a rat. It seemed fairly clean and we were overall thrilled about the room and how cute the resort was. Later that night, everything changed. My mom began to notice little things around the room that didn’t work. Such as our hot water, which we were told by the front desk that we had to move the lever towards the middle to get even a sliver of lukewarm water. Apparently we were supposed to know that and appreciate that. She also noticed that the windows didn’t lock, allowing anyone with enough drive to break into our room. But, the real horror didn’t start until we began to go to bed. I was laying on my phone when I caught a cockroach crawling on my nightstand, I immediately got up and woke up my mom to let her know since she had seen one earlier. She got up and killed it. After that, they came in one after the other. We killed roaches on the nightstand, our floor, the wall, the closet, under our dressers, near the fridge, and near our door. Me and my mom both share a very real fear of roaches and we’re freaking out, crying and beginning to pack our stuff. We called the front desk and they were somewhat helpful, allowing us to stay in another room as ours wasn’t sanitary nor safe. While doing so the front desk clerk kept forcing down our throats that this has never happened and they’ve received “no complaints”. All of these reviews say differently. You can see on your precious cameras, us running out of the room as quickly as possible Sunday night. We were then given the ocean front room that nobody stayed in. The next morning my mom went to go talk to the manager, or whatever you wanna call her, Patricia. At first, she wasn’t going to charge my mom for the room, but later that afternoon she called my mom back. She began to insinuate my mom was a liar and said they found no evidence of roaches in our room. The only reason they did this was to make my mom pay the money for the upgraded room, which apparently, according to Patricia, my mom created this whole entire scheme in order to get the upgraded room for free. Are you serious? She came back unbelievably upset as she had been planning this trip for months, only for this unorganized, filthy and utterly rude staff to ruin it, charging her extra money for a problem that needs fixing. This place is not a...

VERY POOR. BOATERS BEWARE. From start to finish the experience was extremely disappointing. We are Florida natives, boaters and have visited the keys hundreds of times. Prior to our arrival we spoke with the management regarding the water depths and the channel several times. We pre-booked our room and were very exited to enjoy the weekend with our family and our two 24ft boats. When we arrived the staff was not friendly at all and came off quite salty. We launched our boats in low tide and the ramp was rocky but we did launch successfully. A short tempered man directed us where to park our boat trailers. I asked a question regarding where to park and instead of being nice, he rudely repeated the same phrase over and over, to the point of shouting. Once we entered the office there was no greeting from front door staff. We were immediately scolded because we brought a 6 year old child in addition to our 4 adults. Apparently the child in our group caused our room to be a "fire hazard" so we were told that we could not stay in the room we booked. We were offered another room which was twice the price. We toured the room and decided it was worth the increase since the boats were already launched. We explained that we were disappointed and felt unwelcome to the lady behind the desk and she did apologize and smile. At this point we thought we were off to a nice weekend. We settled into our room. It had a musky smell and needed updating but was appropriate for our group and had a nice balcony. The room and resort had A LOT of rules! There is an over abundance of signs and warnings of what NOT to do but we didn't see any welcome signs. Not what we expected from the Florida Keys where we've come to expect a warm welcome and a laid back atmosphere. When we headed to the docks, there was one nice man who explained the surrounding waters. He warned of the shallow waters as our group watched a boat in the distance hit ground and struggle to free itself. The channel out of the dock is very shallow and narrow. We researched Google Earth and observed many scar lines from other boats hitting ground. We were very careful but in the end both of our boats suffered serious damage from the shallow rocks and coral heads. We decided to pull out our boats and leave early. When we went to check out, our bill was $30 more per night than we were told. When asked how this came to be, the office told us that there was an additional $15 fee for each adult after 2. We asked why this was not disclosed to us when we were originally moved into this larger room, DUE to our guest count. The front desk did not have an answer for us. When we asked to speak to the manager we were told that he was not available and was unreachable. The attending office staff lacked the authority to rectify the situation in any way. We paid the bill and left. We found this resort to be unreasonable, unwelcoming, mismanaged and poor...