Oceans Edge Resort & Marina — Hotel in Stock Island

I'm pretty fair with review ratings, and I love to give 5-star reviews. I would say, though, that this resort gets 3.5 stars. For appearance/decor/design/landscaping: 5 stars. The rooms are fresh and bright; the design and thoughtful landscaping is lovely. Staff was friendly. Sam- 5 stars! Jeffery- the shuttle driver- 5 stars! The front desk, who helped at check-in, when we'd realized we'd messed up a part of our reservation- 5 stars! Chris- the jet ski tour guide, who takes pics for you on the jetskis and sends them later - 5 stars!

2 stars for amenities, if that. The Tiki Hut area with the included 2-hour bikes, kayaks, and paddle boards is great. The shuttle is also great. However, the drawbacks are that the area isn't awesome for biking, kayaking, or paddleboarding. Also, the shuttle, even if they take your name for a "reservation" is first-come, first-serve. This can create tension as there is no "line" formed and guests need to try to hustle on to get a seat as the shuttle pulls up...once it's full, it's full. So, there is room for improvement in that area! (My son and I still kayaked and since we love to kayak, it was a an adventure we'd repeat. Considering we watched small sharks in the area, several times, we skipped paddleboarding.)

The cafe for grab-and-go, that is open in the restaurant for a few hours in the morning is good, even though the selection is very limited. Once that closes, though, the only option is the one restaurant, and it is very pricey for what you receive. We don't mind pricey, especially on vacation, but it is over-the-top for what you are getting. Limited options, and long waits for food that is average. It's almost as if they are charging a high rate to entice fancy date-nights, which did happen. And the ambiance almost fits the bill...the marina with nice boats, paired with the lovely decor, as well as the sliding door-walls to create an al-fresco atmosphere- all lovely. But then you see that the tables are sticky, the outdoor seat cushions are stained and ripped, and broken crayons are littering the floor, and then you receive your mixed drink in a plastic cup and wait a long time for expensive, mediocre food, and one becomes... disenchanted.

If this place had more employees to keep things running a bit more smoothly, it would be high-end (which is where the prices are). This common theme runs throughout. They have a "24 hour fitness center" but it is a tiny shack abutting the parking lot, with no real equipment to speak of. They have poolside servers, but not every day.

The marina is lovely and we were lucky enough to have both rooms facing the best direction (building 2), but I felt badly for those that were in other buildings that faced a literal factory with wires and smokestacks, just beyond the docked boats.

The resort IS a lovely respite to come back to after the hustle of Duval Street. However, I rented bikes for the five of us for the week, to bike around, only to not use the bikes at all bc the area surrounding the resort didn't feel super safe. It does tote the fact that it's in quieter Stock Island. However, it does not mention that it's between two airports with constant low-flying airplane noise.

Speaking of the surrounding area, there are no other restaurants super close-by. The hotel doesn't have much to purchase (they do have a fridge to buy bottled drinks, and a small area to buy things like $4 Skittles and Oceans Edge shirts), so we had to learn how to use the DoorDash app. We spent a lot of $ DoorDashing water, sunscreen, snacks, and food, throughout the week. We also Uber'd a ton. Speaking of Uber- there are Uber drivers, galore! You will NOT be stuck looking for a ride somewhere. No need to rent a car! Parking seemed stressful in most places so we skipped the rental (and even cancelled a golf cart rental) and we were glad we did.

At any rate, our family of five enjoyed this resort with its pros and cons. It does have some work to do, in regards to convenience for guests, to get to that higher-end-resort feel that I think...

This review is going to be a little different, since I am a FEMA-sponsored guest utilizing a Transitional Shelter Assistance voucher. But the very fact that such a resort would accept FEMA-TSA disaster victims -- the only hotel in Key West to do so -- is itself a mark of how exemplary this place is. First, imagine being displaced by Hurricane Helene, and still reeling by the time Milton makes landfall just ten miles from your family home. The race afterwards to get disaster benefits enabled, then to find any hotel to accept those benefits and that still has any space, most already filled to the gills with other shocked families, and rowdy groups of linemen and restoration workers. Cramming into that hotel which itself loses power and hot water intermittently. So it's fair to say I was more than a little ragged before I threw a dart as far away from the disaster zone as I could. After a disbelieving hour-long (!) conversation with the sales manager Claudia Vandenabeele, who assured me that her resort does indeed take FEMA-TSA, I made the day-long drive in a car whose air conditioning also decided to mutiny. I showed up probably looking (and smelling) like I'd just mucked a barn. But you wouldn't have known it from the exemplary service from the hotel staff from the instant I wafted in. A front desk agent named Foster greeted me warmly and immediately treated me like any other guest. When problems arose with check-in (FEMA lag), a junior manager Ivan was empowered, and had presence of mind, to grant me access to the fitness facilities to shower and change while my stay was sorted. When his shift ended before the problem did, Bryan took over, bending backwards to get me in a room while my case made its way through the federal agencies to authorize the transfer. Then I was comped a drink (or two) for MY trouble...as if it had been myself doing all the work to get through the red tape, rather than the fine folks on the other side of the desk! And let me tell you, Sam the bartender made those drinks just as stout as if it weren't a voucher he was looking at, but the most elite guest in this superlative place. In the morning, Claudia herself met with me, again for over an hour, speaking on everything from best local spots, to her own adventurous history here, to how agonizingly slow my home repairs were going back in the disaster zone. In no time this warm and competent senior manager was solving problems well beyond the mandate of "just a manager", suggesting the best places for me to find housing and work here, and offering even her personal contacts to help me start my network. So, am I including pictures of the gorgeous marina and incredible food here? You betcha. Are the rooms as indulgently spacious as shown on the "tours" tab of their website? I can witness, they're so expansive I feel like I should be parking a jet in here, not just my recovering self. Are the wild restaurant chickens audacious? Absolutely. But I'll let you learn about those yourself. Because you do need to come here. Not just for the stellar amenities mentioned by so many other guests. But because the people running this resort are just as beautiful as the surroundings. As today happens to be Thanksgiving, Ocean's Edge resort and especially its staff are the top entry on my gratitude list. Treat yourself, and meet...

Lots of potential, but too many issues that should be handled in a place like this. First the good: the resort is really nice, the six pools really let people spread out so you never feel crowded, the outdoor game area was a big hit with my daughter, and the room layout was really nice and the rooms were (usually) quiet. The daytime front desk staff when we checked in was some of the most professional I’ve ever encountered. Patrick the bell and and his dad the shuttle driver were friendly and professional. The activity options were all pretty good. The shuttle downtown and back was a nice feature, but almost all resorts in the area offer the same. The bad: housekeeping is terrible. When trying to check in we were early but we’re told we should be able to get in early. We heard the front desk repeatedly call housekeeping for an update on rooms and heard them get repeatedly blown off by the housekeeping employees on the other end of the radio. Despite requesting a crib on our reservation we had to request it again multiple times and when it did come it was dropped off in a bag requiring assembly (which took us nearly 45 minutes because part of it was broken and required adjusting). Housekeeping came once our second day and then didn’t come again until the day before we left(we stayed a week). And when they came that second time they literally made the bed and dropped a bag of towels on our sitting room floor and left. We had already put our garbage out before they came because after several days with a baby and diapers it really needed to go. Our family had other rooms in other parts of the resort and had very similar experiences where they couldn’t get toilet paper or towels after repeated requests and they ended up borrowing a blanket because they couldn’t get one for their daughter after repeated requests. Similarly the pool was dirty several days and in need of cleaning which seems crazy given the significant resort fee they charge. The on site restaurant: coffee shop was fine. Service there is friendly and coffee and croissants are good. The main restaurant never took less than 45 minutes to get us kids meals or very average food at very inflated prices. And even though both times we ordered it took nearly an hour to get kids meals and some apps to go, they still charged a full gratuity for the privilege of standing at their bar waiting for food for nearly an hour. It seems like some upgrading of housekeeping and maintenance management could really make this place shine, but until that happens it’s not worth the inflated prices, resort fees, etc. While the rooms were well insulated from noise one day they started testing all the alarms through the whole resort while our baby was napping, and we got two random hang up calls to our room in middle of the night. Parking: there is ample parking at the resort…except that half the time our family was trying to park there were staff members from the resort hanging out in their cars in the convenient spaces so you ended up having to park in the farthest lot…which makes no sense. This place could be great, but with the level of service provided currently it’s not worth the cost compared to other places...