Hello From Tranquility Bay

Greetings from the sunny Florida Keys! We’re here at the Tranquility Bay Resort in Marathon. The weather is dreamy and the resort is beautiful.

Our travel day went as smoothly as it possibly could – thank goodness! I think all the planning + a little luck pulled us through. I am SO GLAD we decided to drive to Richmond for the direct flight. While it’s nice to have to Cville airport only 15 minutes from home, just having one flight made the whole day so much easier. I’m really glad we decided to check our stroller because we didn’t need it at the airport at all (in fact, it would have made things more complicated).

And all of our gear was great – even with a really long walk to the rental car area.

The drive from Miami to Marathon went well too. We stopped once to nurse and have lunch – at the appropriately-named-for-UVA-Wahoo-fans!

I had a beer with lunch (!), coconut shrimp and a salad.

Choosing A Spring Break Resort

When we started planning this trip (before Birchie was even born!) I had travel with two kids in mind when I began my search for the perfect resort. I enlisted the help of our travel agent, Rhonda, who helped us book our St. Lucia trip a few years ago and who assisted my parents with several trips, including a recent Caribbean cruise. If you need to make any travel plans, cruises in particular, she makes everything so easy. She booked our flights, rental car, travel insurance (flu season..) and resort of course. It’s no charge to us!

Our must-haves:

-Within the United States (I didn’t want to travel internationally with Birch so young)

-Nonstop flight from Richmond

-As warm and tropical as possible

-A walk-out balcony/porch so that while Birch naps the parent-in-charge doesn’t have to sit in a dark hotel room

-A beach, restaurants and pools super close by

-Laundry facilities

-Beautiful views

I looked at SO many different Florida resorts to find one that fit everything on our list. We considered renting a house, Air B&B, and other bigger-chain resorts, but none of them had that tropical feel that I wanted with all the conveniences we’d want with kids of two very different ages.

The Top Three Resorts we considered were:

Tranquility Bay – small-ish, gorgeous homes and views, tropical feel

Hawks Cay – more relaxed, much larger, more things for kids to do, less expensive, not as fancy

Sunset Key Cottages – intimate, upscale and very nice, but most expensive by far

We ultimately felt Tranquility Bay checked the most boxes. I will report back at the end of this week on how we liked it, and hope to do a more formal review of the resort when our week is done. (We are here on our own dime, and they don’t know who I am – FYI. Not sponsored!)

Our Beachfront Cottage

As I mentioned my goal was to be able to be in our room/house while Birch napped and still be able to see Mazen play and/or be the parent playing with him and easily yell back to the porch “Is Birch awake?” Or “Come back to nurse!” The walk-out porches on this resort were the greatest selling point. (Note: We are actually switching houses today to be closer to the swimming beach.)

Upstairs we have two bedrooms, a king for us and a twin room for Mazen. The rooms are tiny, especially with a crib in the room, but since we want to be outside as much as possible it’s not a huge deal.

Our First Day

When we got to Marathon we first hit up Publix for groceries, diapers, and things. We have a full kitchen so we plan to eat breakfast and some lunches in our house and dinners out.

The Beach

The beach has no waves since we’re bay-side, which is great for kids. The water was a little cold for me, but the boys loved it.

The Pool

The pool area is really nice! There are lots of other kids, and we’re hoping Mazen will make some friends today. There is also an adult pool. I probably won’t get to visit that once – LOL.

This was B’s first time in anything other than a bathtub! He seemed to love it <3

We took showers and headed across the beach to the TJ’s Tiki Bar for a casual dinner.

Casual it was. We were not too impressed with the food, but it was so convenient to eat right on the beach.

I’ll be back in a few days to share more of our adventures!