woodstockguy

How likely will we find a room in Key West when we arrive next week without an advance reservation?

We fly to FL from NY on Sat Jan 11 and arrive in Key West on Mon Jan 13 for 4 nights to celebrate my spouse's 60th birthday. We visited Key West three times before and stayed at the Pier House and Ocean Key in suites with ocean views.

After this week's weather interruptions, we are unwilling to book a Key West hotel with a cancellation policy. We cancelled a reservation we made and want to try to book an ocean view suite somewhere at the last minute -- if we can't we will go somewhere else but Key West is our first choice.

SusanCS

I would definitely NOT advise you to try that. January and February are high season, and it'll likely be difficult to even find reservations this late. You're also aiming for two very popular hotels that fill up fast. I think you should go ahead and try for reservations, and while you're at it, check to see what the cancellation policies are. With weather being as unpredictable as it is now, I'm sure anyone you speak with would understand your predicament.

doug_stallings

This is precisely why one buys insurance, which is a small price to pay for a non refundable hotel. Thus time of year you are quite unlikely to find something good at the last minute, and you run the risk of finding nothing.

SusanCS

I love Doug's idea of trip insurance. We've never bought it, so the thought didn't even occur to me. It's a perfect solution to a tricky problem of possibly having to cancel both a room reservation and/or an airline ticket.

garyt22

There's a big difference between getting any room in Key West and an "Oceanview Suite somewhere at the last minute"... be prepared to shell out the big bucks if there is a suite... mostly because there are so few available... good luck

Peter_krynicki

I would still call first but the Dockside suites (not the Harbor View suites) and the Hemingway suite are hugely expensive and so there might be one available. Note that there are only 6 of the former and 1 of the latter.

Pjk

fmpden

We have been focusing on the middle keys, around Marathon, with little success for next week. We had a three week rental beginning the 12th but it caught fire the week of Christmas. Finally found a marginal one week rental for second week, using a couple of hotels for first week, and finally a last minute cruise (far cheaper) out of Fort Lauderdale for the third week. A couple of the high end resorts did have rooms available at the $500+/night level. But in general, things look very tight.

SusanCS

Just as an FYI, the suites Peter refers to are at the Pier House. Unless I'm mistaken, there are lots more at the Ocean Key, so you might have a better chance of getting one of them. If money were no object, I'd probably go for the Pier House, but I think some of them are close to $1,000 a night.

Prices in Key West have really shot up this year

woodstockguy

Following up on my post, and advising all of the fodorites who kindly answered the original post, we booked a suite at the last minute at the Waldorf Astoria with a full ocean view. It was wonderful. We rented bicycles for our entire stay, used them all the time, and never felt removed from the action at the other end of Duvall Street. Indeed, we appreciated the quiet at the south end near our hotel, and found that we enjoyed Key West even more than any of our three prior visits. Fantastic 60th birthday!

SusanCS

So glad your trip turned out good It's really hard not to have fun in Key West!!!