We flew out of Denver on 2/19/17 and hopped through Houston to get there. Overall it was a pretty easy trip but definitely pricier than some of the other more well traveled Caribbean destinations. Once we got there, our resort had a shuttle waiting for us and it was about a 15 - 20 min bus ride to Anthony's Key Resort.
We'll start out talking about the resort. It was very nice and I would highly recommend it to anyone. The huts are broken down by location. There are some on the hillside, a few on the docks, and the majority are on a small island that is less than a minute boat ride away. We stayed on the docks and I believe that's the best location there is. We had a great view of the sunset, the island, and could quickly walk to the main dining area without taking the boat. The first picture below is the view from a two story deck in front of our hut and the second picture is a view of our hut from the small island.
While we're still talking about the resort, we'll get one of the most important things out of the way, how was the food? Overall I was very pleased with the food situation. They had one main dining area where you were had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You got to come as you wanted and there were at least 3 - 4 options for meal. The eating area was up on the hill so there was a very nice view of the water as you can see from the picture below. They also had a bar there as well as a poolside bar on the island which had happy hour every day. It's hard to beat a $6 margarita and a 2 for 1 happy hour deal.
Now that we got that out of the way, it's time to talk about the diving. Anthony's Key Resort is made specifically for divers and/or snorkelers. Since we were diving, each person was assigned a specific boat and dive master for the week where we would mark down how many dives we wanted to do the next day. We normally did an 8:45 am, 10:30 am, and 2:30 pm dive and if you wanted to, they also had night diving. One great thing about the diving here compared to other locations is how close the dive sites are. On average, we were on the boat for less than 7 minutes to get to the various sites and then came back to the resort for our surface interval so we didn't have to stay on the boat the entire time. Another huge benefit is for 2 of the days, the waves were fairly large on the west side of the island, so they bused us over to the east side of the island where the waters were very calm and we got to dive that area. It's nice having a backup plan so windy conditions won't cause you to miss any dives. Also, if you didn't feel like diving that day, you could always jump on one of the snorkeling boats.
I can't say enough about our dive master Marvin and boat captain Jo-Jo. They were very energetic and passionate about their job and it made a huge difference for everyone on the boat. Throughout our dives, we averaged 40 - 60 ft. depth with 110 being our max on a wreck dive. The water was pretty clear averaging around 80 - 90 ft. visibility. While we didn't get to see any sharks, we saw quite a few turtles, rays, grouper, barracuda, etc. Below are a few pictures, but more can be found here.
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One quick side note, they also have a dolphin area where you can pay a little extra and hang out with them. While we want to pay for this, we still got some pretty good pictures.
All in all, it was an amazing vacation and I'd highly recommend it to anyone. I'm slightly biased thought since Ali and I got engaged the first night we were there and it was my birthday the next day! Ali didn't say this specifically, but I'm assuming this is what she was thinking when I asked her. I think it means yes or victory!
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