I highly recommend the Ocean Key Resort. It has the best location of Key West, right inf front of the Gulf and Duval Street. The hotel is beautiful and the rooms are confy.
What really makes the difference is the staff. The hotel staff is very friendly and efficient (special mention to Eddie, at the Front Desk, he was awesome).
Save time, stop looking and go to the Ocean Key Resort, you won't be dissapointed.

My husband and I stayed at the Ocean Key Resort & Spa 7/9-7/13. To say we LOVED the resort is an understatement !! We booked the "Sensory Overload" package. Our room was beautiful. Loved the double sinks in the bathroom and the whirlpool tub. The balcony was small and intimate and the view from the balcony was AWESOME !!! Our room (#421) overlooked Mallory Square to the left, the Gulf straight ahead and the pool/Sunset Pier to the right. Our room was clean upon arriving and the maid kept it spotless. As someone else on here mentioned, they provide plenty of towels for a second shower in the middle of the day (it's really hot this time of year!).

The location was perfect....right within walking distance of everything. There is a Glass bottom boat tour dock right there, the Conch Railroad tour (GREAT for learning about Key West history), bike and electric car rental is right there.......and also a CVS Pharmacy is two blocks away incase you need some last minute essentials.

We did everything online....booked the room from the hotel's website and e-mailed the resort to book the Spa appointments as well as to ask questions about the hotel from Bill the Director of Sales and Marketing. Bill was always EXTREMELY friendly and helpful with his e-mail replies and very accommodating (we requested the mini fridge be emptied to be able to store our own little snacks). On check in the staff was (as everyone has already said here)very friendly and helpful. There was construction on our floor (the resort made us fully aware of this before check in)but it was no big deal because we were out during the day and they kept to the construction time frames (I think it was 9am-5pm).Heck I even took a mid-day nap with the construction going on and it wasn't bad... I was able to sleep.

The "Sensory Overload" package includes $50 per day credit for Spa Treatments and free dinner each night during your stay (including soft drinks, salad, entree and even dessert!) –gratuity not included. The Spa treatments were INCREDIBLE! I had the Balinese Massage the first day with Amy and she was great ! This is a wonderful massage that actually relaxes you first then gives you incredible energy at the end !! Next massage was the Hot Stone Massage with Andrea'. This was wonderful too; incredibly relaxing......I could have napped afterwards. The Spa itself was really cute and cozy. The receptionist genuinely seemed to care how my massages were afterwards and was so friendly and welcoming upon my arrival. We LOVED the hotel restaurant The Hot Tin Roof and actually used our hotel package credits to eat free here EVERY NIGHT !!! We were able to try everything on the menu this way and we received impeccable service. 3 of the 4 nights we had our favorite waiter Albert. Albert was the most attentive and warm friendly waiter we have ever met !! The food at the restaurant was delicious!! You can't beat having Lobster every night with only paying a $30-$40 tip!!! Seriously, we did not have Lobster every night, but you could have with the package. The hotel might have thought "With all these incredible restaurants in the area, who in their right mind would have dinner here each night?" They hadn't met us yet !!! Seriously there are a ton of restaurants to try and I am sure we might have missed out on some great food as many restaurants are not open for lunch, but with the incredible service we received from Albert and the mouth watering delectable food we consumed at The Hot Tin Roof - it was a no brainer to just eat there each night. We felt at home !!! We sat inside twice and outside on the balcony twice. Witnessed incredible sunsets on the balcony. The view was incredible ! By the 4th night the restaurant actually trusted us enough to give our opinion on a new dessert they were trying out. Also the restaurant manager John was no exception to the whole team at Ocean Key Resort & Spa - he made us feel very welcome in the restaurant. We also had breakfast one morning at the restaurant at the hotel on Sunset Pier. Great view, again excellent food....although we missed Albert. :-)

I took a ton of photos (attached) specifically for TripAdvisor.com because we found this hotel on this website and I wanted to be able to give back to the website to help others considering this hotel.

Roosters - Ok, some people have complained about the roosters waking them up. Not only do they go off in the morning (about 6am on our stay) but also ALL DAY intermittently. They are not bad and did not wake us up. My husband is an early riser so we were already up. His getting up to use the bathroom woke me up, not the roosters !! On the first morning, it was like the magic & excitement of Christmas morning as my husband said to me with a huge smile "Do you hear the roosters ?" then we got up to look for them over the balcony. Sure enough as the sun rose the roosters would crow and run closer and closer to the ocean through the brick lined floor of Mallory Square. We'd never seen anything like it !! The roosters are part of the charm of Key West people ! Maybe our room was positioned so it wasn't that bad to hear them and be annoyed by them, but with being back home and hearing traffic outside our Downtown Orlando condo I welcome the sound of roosters again instead !!!! Please note the pictures of the room attached to this review are probably going to be outdated soon as I believe the furniture in the room and the room look itself is undergoing construction, however if you stay at the hotel SOON your room might still look like ours did. It was the "Oceanview Boutique Suite ". They even have a house cat...on our first night we arrived back at the hotel from sightseeing around 9pm and met "Buddy" a black cat sitting in the lobby. A staff member explained he was the house cat and the restaurant was named for Buddy - because he used to walk on the roof when they first built the place, so cat on a "Hot Tin Roof"!. As many have mentioned the restaurant next to the hotel and in front of Mallory Square "El Meson De Pepe" (the Cuban place) has awesome food !! It also has a little Cuban history museum inside.

Elevators- Yes they have no ac in them but with the mirrors and elaborate wood design - they are beautiful !! Plus how long are you riding in an elevator anyway? We stayed during temps in the low 90's and were on the 4th floor and had no problems riding in the warm elevator for a few floors.

Cruise ships- We only had a cruise ship block our balcony view of Mallory Square/Gulf for one day. It was there from about 6am - 4pm. It was no big deal. Again, same with the roosters....it's charming. How often do you wake up to look outside and see a huge cruise ship in front of your balcony !!!

Parking-It was $18 a day to park on property, but that is expected anywhere in Key West where space is limited. It was neat how the parking is arranged.....they park your vehicle for you with the valet and it's on the ground floor incase you need to get something out of your car during your stay. We brought bottled water so it was neat to be able to see our car safely stored each day and also to be able to restock our water for the mini fridge.

You might be wondering if we didn't like anything about the hotel. Our only complaints are #1) the bed was extra firm. This might have been partly our fault because we are used to sleeping on a pillow top mattress. Any with the construction going on perhaps new beds (mattresses) are part of the improvements. #2) the last night I took a bath with lukewarm water because there seemed to be no hot water left. Our showers were just as lukewarm in the morning, but this was probably our fault for not complaining sooner. My husband told the desk clerk about this on check out and he seemed horrified and concerned, explaining with the construction the construction team sometimes works and forgets to plug the water heaters back in. So just make sure to communicate your concerns with staff during your stay and they will take care of any issues with concern and attentiveness. This was our first stay in Key West and easily the best vacation of our lives due to the relaxed feeling of Key West. Ocean Key Resort & Spa obviously played a HUGE part in our feelings on this. We will be back and have been telling everyone about the great service and amenities this resort has to offer. Again I ask, Why on earth would you stay anywhere else when in Key West ?!?!?

The Ocean Key Resort is overall a wonderful hotel. I have stayed next door at the Pier House, and also the Wyndam Casa Marina (which is now under renovation but at the time I stayed was simply lovely) and for overall location, overall room and most of all for the most FABULOUS view of the ocean while still laying in our bed, we will most definitely return to Ocean Key. The Pier house and Casa Marina have got a better and more tropical pool layout, but the service, cleanliness and overall facilities of the Ocean Key pool area were flawless. Pool is right over the ocean's edge. They dont have a beach, but we dont come to Key West for the beach. (The Pier House has a tiny beach, the Casa Marina has a lovely beach area, but the shoreline is full of rocks and wading and swimming isn't too enjoyable but laying out under umbrellas is nice). Our room's view was breathtaking, we could see for miles over the beautiful blue water, our room was huge, and I do mean huge, probaby 1300 square feet . The bathrooms are cramped due to the construction of the building - I have no idea what this hotel used to be originally, but they have made the best of this with fabulous room color and decor, cool terra cotta floors, a huge jacuzzi in the bedroom which could hold six people, while sitting in it we could still see the ocean. Fabulous comfortable beds, flatscreen plasma tv, gorgeous local artwork and decorations. We had a one bedroom suite with a direct ocean view. Their rooftop restaurant was wonderful, we had a beautiful and romantic dinner, and one morning we ate breakfast there (we ate at our favorite key west haunts the other mornings like Blue Heaven, PePe's and Harpoon Harry's (best cafe con leche in key west) the other mornings. The breakfast was wonderful. Checkin took a while because we arrived early, no fault of the hotel. Just an overall wonderful experience. I will stay again. Each and every time we walked in our room from busy sightseeing and oppressive heat, the room welcomed us with its cool floors, beautiful sprawling floorplan and decoration, and the huge french doors that brought in that turquoise blue ocean. Ahhhhhh. Wish I was back there right now!

we just returned home from our 9 day stay at the ocean key. we were upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite when we checked in. our room was perfect, very spacious, clean, large balcony. we had a partial ocean view that was amazing. the pool was great. i know that some of the other posts said that it was small, but it really is not that bad. we had friends staying at the hyatt, two hotels over, and that pool is smaller & it only goes up yp 4ft deep, the ocean key pool goes up to 8ft & is much bigger.the hotel is under construction but the only time we even heard any noise was at the pool, so it never interrupted our sleep. i would definately stay there again, we didn't want to come home.