Bonefish Bay Motel, Marathon

My husband and I went to Key West during Christmas, we booked a standard room in Bonefish Motel at noon and gave the owner our credit card information and everything. He told us to call him after we went back from Key West after 9pm. We trusted him that we got a place to stay at night and had a great time in Key West. But UNFORTUNATELY, after we drove back to the motel around 11pm, we called his office like thousand times. Nobody was there, we could do nothing else but call his name MIKE, finally he woke up and told us he SOLD OUT the room which we booked!!!! It was at midnight and we had NOWHERE to go!!!!! All the hotels are full, you can imagine during the Christmas time. Thanks for the nearby Holiday Inn, otherwise we could only stay in the car whole night!!! I never saw the real room, but I definitely hate that guy whom you can not trust.

Stayed 5 days. The room was decent, cold a/c, cold refrigerator, hot water, clean, no bugs (even my friend's $800,000 home in Marathon had bugs when we visited). If you don't know anything about the keys, these buildings are old and have weathered at least 3 major hurricanes. Boat ramp easily handled my 21footer. Dock is nice + protected. I left all my fishing/diving gear on the boat for 5 nights, including my wallet on top of the console 1 night (damn u Corona w/ lime : ), with no problems. Close to: fuel/bait, bayside/oceanside. Nice setting for relaxing (tiki hut x 2, pool). If you're a whiner/complainer and expect top rate accommodations in the Keys for

We recently stayed at the Bonefish Bay Motel as just a night away after a long day playing in the Keys. We had young children with us, when they woke up the next morning they had several bug bites on the back of their legs/back. Bed bugs.........The room was not clean. The shower had someone's hair in the drain. It was not a good experience at all. I do have to say that the motel worker was very friendly. But all in all we were not impressed.........I don't think that $99 for the night was cheap enough......

My fishing buddy and I stayed at the Bonefish Bay Motel for over a week during March 2009 and had a great experience. The kitchenettes and rooms are vintage 1940 - 1950 but very clean and efficient. The wireless internet and cable TV signal is strong in each room. Great central location on Duck Key. We are returning for a week this October 2009.

Abyss Dive Center had to move it's location after 16 years from a former hotel location on July 1st due to dock and hotel reconstruction. NO hotel/dive packages were offered between April thru July, 2007 due to old location hotel rooms no longer available from reconstruction plans and too preliminary for negotiated packages with the Bonefish Bay Motel. Please consider the extremely positive comments all over the internet that have been written concerning the Abyss Dive Center old AND new dive operation and as of August 1st, 2007 they now offer lodging and dive packages with Bonefish Bay and will assist in locating lodging locations that suit individual needs and expectations. Recently, many efforts have been made by Bonefish Bay management to ensure fresh, clean, cottages for valued and welcomed guests to Marathon and Abyss Dive Center continues to offer the ultimate in safety, comfort and attention aboard a 34 foot, 6 passenger dive boat!

My wife and I are frequent visitors to the keys. On a recent trip, with my sister and her husband, we booked a package deal through the Abyss Dive Center. We have used them before and have been satisfied with them. On this most recent trip, when it came time to pay the bill, both the Bonefish Bay Motel and the Abyss Dive Center refused to honor the package deal offered on the Abyss web site. Neither the management of the dive shop or the hotel would budge an inch (or dollar), and insisted on full price. I don't know if this was an "honest" mistake, or one of those "bait and switch" scams we hear so much about. I do know that whatever money they are collecting doesn't seem to be going towards house keeping. The place was a dump. Dust on everything, insect carcasses all over the place. Service?...virtually non existent. I'll post more about the "clowns" at Abyss Dive Center in another forum. Just do yourself a favor.... don't stay here.

Things are a little bit better at Bonefish Bay than described in 2006. All the cottages except for one are now in working order. (They had been damaged by Hurricane Wilma according to other guests.) The caretaker still needs to clean the place better...just seems like he doesn't have enough help. We enjoyed our sport diver lobster days and cooked our catch with lots of picnic tables and grills to use outside. The place was sold out and we had fun meeting other friendly folks cooking their catch at the grills. The place has so much potential. It's too bad it is so rundown. What could be done with a little paint and SOS pads! A nice surprise was a newly located dive shop on property. Unfortunately that seems to be the only freshly painted, clean establishment on property! We filled all our tanks there with great convenience and the dive shop saved the day when we discoverd we left all our regulators in a bag at home...no problem renting them and they were all fine Scubapro brand. All in all we had a good time but for the price, we will choose lodging somewhere else next time.