Minus a few hiccups our Carnival Ecstasy cruise was proving to be just what I had intended. Relaxing!! Out of both cruises we were going to have 6 ports… so I planned 3 excursions. While I love, love, love researching and planning things to do… I tend to exhaust my family. So it’s my compromise.
I knew we were going to be tired from working and traveling so I figured the first part of our cruise would be laid back. We have never been to Key West, but it seemed like a pretty good place to get off the ship and just start walking :) So that is what we planned. We decided to wait until most of the crowd had dispersed before we headed down to the gangway. Our side of the boat faced this little island and I was already dreaming and making plans to move here. I even envisioned the little dingy boat I would have to go to the bigger island to get my groceries.
So we headed off the ship and just started walking around the pier. We saw someone renting golf cart cars and thought that might be a good idea, but the guy wasn’t the friendliest and wanted $150 for 3 hours. We thought that was a little pricey so we decided to pass.
If you are looking for a the famous Key Lime Pie on a stick… you can get one in the port area.
We walked outside of the port and turned to the left. This really is the perfect little town to just take off on a walk.
I loved all the buildings. We didn't go inside the Shipwreck museum, but we did walk around outside of it. Lots of cool things to see including old time diving outfits, massively huge anchors, old boats, canons, etc.
Everything here is almost in a little square. There are also plenty of trains and trolleys to ride. I am not sure of the price because we just decided to walk ourselves, but it looked really popular. Mom went on her own this day and she got on one of them. She said it was okay, but while they did point out places of interest, they didn't always slow down or stop for you to get pictures.
The Shell Warehouse was really cool. We bought our souvenirs for this port there. This is where my dreams of moving to Key West went downhill. We started talking to the lady that worked there and she informed us the average house on Key West was around 1 million dollars. What?! I am always on the look out for my retirement home and while I loved Key West... I am pretty sure I will not be living there in this lifetime. Maybe if I ever find myself homeless I can make my way to Key West. I saw someone riding a bike down the street.. he totally looked homeless (probably owned half the town) but the thought went through my head... If I had to be homeless somewhere, Key West wouldn't be such a bad place. So we thanked the lady for dashing my dreams, wrapped up our goodies and headed back out.
I had hopes of leaving our stressful lives behind, but unfortunately Mark still had to take a conference call. We started looking for a quiet place for that to happen and came upon this little spot.
Trenton and I kicked back with our feet in the sand while Mark took care of his business. We had been walking for a little while and it was starting to heat up so this was the perfect rest spot. While we were kicked back we heard the ship's horn sound. I checked my watch, we weren't anywhere near "back on board" time so I zoned back out. Apparently, Trenton did not. He started packing up and was ready to head back to the ship. Mark finally joined us again and we took off on our impromptu walking tour. After 2-3 blocks I realized Trenton kept trying to lead us back towards the ship. He was certain we were going to be left! I finally realized it and said "Dude, chill out. We are ok. Still in the US. I've got money and our ID's. EVEN if we did miss the boat. We'll be alright. And boy do I have a blog story to tell!" LOL Go figure, the responsible one of the family is the 12 year old!
So we did walk a little more, found a marina, a house we thought we could afford, an ice cream shop which proved to be the answer to Trenton's prayers, some more fun shops and of course Key Lime Pie on a stick is everywhere!
Key West was an amazing day! We headed back to the ship.... with PLENTY of time to spare and grabbed some yummy lunch on the Lido before everyone came back on board. I'm not looking at real estate, but I will definitely visit again!!
