Trip Report Anthony’s Key September 2025 - LOVED IT!

[Kimela]

Part 1

Anthony’s Key Resort is the most well-organized resort and dive operation I’ve ever seen! I don’t have the worldwide experience of many here, but enough to know a well-oiled machine operating at consistently high levels. Wow!

FOOD - AKR’s food was top notch – full breakfast, lunch and dinner. What was covered in the all-inclusive was the food, dessert and water/iced tea/coffee (not lattes, etc). Not covered was soft drinks and alcohol. I don’t have a big dinner appetite and discovered I could order a half-order and have some room for dessert. Dinner portions are generous. Each night for dinner we were given four options to choose from – and they weren’t low-tier. One night filet mignon was offered (husband got that and said it was good). I’m not vegetarian, but I sometimes love just to have vegetable options, and the ones I chose (especially the roasted veggie ciabatta for lunch) were very good. The only time you will need to tell them your room number is if you order something special – drinks, upgraded food options.

HOW THINGS ARE ORGANIZED - If you haven’t been to AKR it might help to know how things are organized. You have the option to do three dives a day, as well as two night-dives on Tuesday/Thursday. The schedule, roughly, is to leave the dock at 8:30, 10:30 and 2:30 each day. After each dive the boat comes back to the dock. None of the dive sites are more than a few minutes boat ride, so you’ll need to get on the boat dressed to dive or you’ll be holding up the boat while you don your gear.

Not everyone does things the same way – and I’m sure someone else will weigh in with their methods of how to ‘do’ AKR. Here’s how we organized our day.

When you first check in at the dive shop (early morning the day after you arrive?) they give you a locker assignment and a key. This locker is secure and is yours for the duration of your stay. You will store your gear gear here each night. You will also be assigned a boat and get your weights. You can take your weights directly to the boat and put them under the seat you prefer and then go off to breakfast – or you can go ahead and put all your gear on your tank so there’s less to do when you return for the beginning of the dive day.

If you are doing nitrox there is a procedure to follow. It’s not complicated, but it is a process. You will receive instructions on how to analyze your tanks – they have a wonderful system to do so – and then place your tanks with other tanks under the name of your boat (signs on the wall). The crew will come looking for tanks that go on their boats and deliver them – you don’t have to do that. You’ll want to do this nightly, so the crew has the tanks on the boat in the morning for you. The fee for nitrox is $140 a week or $10 a tank, if you just wanted to do nitrox sporadically – like only on the third dive of the day, for example.

Our schedule was to wake up 6:30. Breakfast is in the main restaurant (Anchor Grill). They start officially serving breakfast at 7, but we showed up at 6:30 and were never turned away nor did they refuse to take our order. Great restaurant staff. You don’t need to wear swimsuits/rash guards because you’ll have time to return to your room before going to your boat.

After breakfast we would get our gear out of our lockers and onto the boat/tanks, so we could go back upstairs to get ready for the day. We would go back to the room, pull together our cameras and get ready for the day and head back down fully dressed to dive. Ladies, I suggest bringing a little skirt or pareo to wear between dives to make it easier. I didn’t, so had to use a towel (and I have at least 3 skirts by SeaBritches that would have worked beautifully for this purpose, dang it).

We were in room #9 on the hillside (furthest away on the hillside – 200 steps – not stairs, but there were a bunch of those too). So, it was a tenth of a mile each way, according to my apple watch. We allowed 15 minutes to get from the room to the boat.

There is no bottled water at the resort, so bring your own bottle or buy one as a souvenir. There are several fill stations throughout the resort.

THE BOAT - They have iced water in a big cooler on the boat to refill bottles. On our boat they also had a table with two levels in the center of the boat for dry stuff. We put our cameras on the top shelf and I put my dry bag and sandals on the floor. There was plenty of space for everyone. They also have a large square bucket for cameras and two regular buckets for masks, as well as defog (I talked to a guy who had a bad reaction to their defog – so if you have sensitive skin you might want to use your own). The boat itself has the ‘buckets’ that your tanks slide into. I’m short, so this meant I had to use my weak core strength to stand straight up to get out of the hole! Also, these buckets can make it difficult to get a second tank strap closed, so be aware you might need to close your straps and then rotate your rig into place. On some boats they have wooden blocks to put under your tanks – try to snag those for a bit up height. You can do a giant stride or roll off the boat (at least the boats we were on – Andre and Andrea).

Part 2 next up ...

 

[Kimela]

Part 2

THE DIVES - When you arrive at your dive site the DM will give you a briefing (status quo) and the boat will be anchored to a buoy. Dives lasted anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the site. We did two wrecks and I hit 113ft on one and 110 on the other – those were the shorter dives. We did a couple of drift dives. They were nothing like a ripping current in Cozumel. I think they did those to try to add variety and show a little more of what’s out there. Water temp while we were there was 84-85 degrees and I was in rash guards.

After the first dive there’s time to grab a snack, rinse off, use the restroom, refill your water bottle with cucumber water in the reception area if you want – and just chat with other divers. The second dive goes out at 10:30 so there’s not a LOT of time between. After the second dive you’ll have plenty of time to get lunch and maybe even a nap.

We had lunch outside in the patio area. NOTE: they do not allow wet clothing/shoes in the main restaurant, so some people would go back to their rooms for dry clothing (not us, at the top of the hill!). You do need to let them know you are outside on the patio, so they’ll send a waiter (NBD). The patio is shaded and there’s a nice breeze.

Third dive at 2:30. After this dive we would rinse and store our gear for the next day. There are big concrete rinse tanks for BCs, fins, boots, wetsuits – and then there are big blue garbage can size buckets for your regulators. This is so you’re not dunking your regulator in water that is used to rinse wetsuits . There are two sets of rinse bins – one on each end of the lockers. There’s also an outdoor shower with two heads, on the left end of the lockers. You will leave your weights on the boat overnight, in their pouches (if you have pouches). I thought this was really helpful (I was only using 6 pounds, but that was 6 pounds I didn’t have to carry to/from my locker).

We didn’t do the night dives so can’t report on that.

DIVE SITE INFO – THIS IS COOL - you won’t have to worry about remembering what dive sites you visited each day because on the wall next to the dive shop window there is a huge QR code that will take you to a listing of the info you need. Once you get to that website you look for the date, then your boat. When you click on it you will see each dive and the name of the dive site. This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen! If you want to wait until the end of the trip to do it all at once, fine – or do it at the end of the day (it sometimes takes an hour to get updated). I loved this feature! Here’s the link as of today - can’t guarantee it will be the same when you go there, but it’ll give you and idea how it’s organized. I’m so impressed. On the mobile app it shows dates - it appears to only show ‘day of the week’ on the laptop version.

ROOMS - The rooms were nice – not the Ritz, but well constructed, clean and comfortable. I think our room was ‘less’ than others. We were in the 7, 8, 9, 10 ‘pod’ and we didn’t have a shared area that was covered – I think all of the other pods did. But we had lots of privacy and a little bit of a view of the sunset, so no complaints. We also didn’t have an inside table with chairs – and I think the other rooms did. So, if this is of concern you can ask for a different room upon arrival. I recently wrote a trip review of Dreams in Cozumel. AKR is the OPPOSITE of Dreams in every way (food, construction, service, maintenance). AKR used quality materials and constructed everything with an eye to detail. We were last here in February of 2020 and there’s been a lot of construction since then. Everything is well maintained and made of high quality material. There is shower gel, shampoo and conditioner in the shower; hand soap and body lotion at the sink; plenty of towels and daily housekeeping. I don’t know if this is true of all rooms, but the toilet room had a door on it (water closet). There was PLENTY of storage for the two of us, as well as a safe. No iron or ironing board, but there was a hair dryer. In addition to AC there was a ceiling fan with a light in it. We also had a mini-fridge and coffee maker (though not sugar or creamer).

Outside our room was a covered porch area that included a clothesline with clothes-pins. Also, on the wall there were very sturdy pegs to hang wet BCs and regulators. Lots of space to hang things to dry – though with the humidity we brought things in after dinner to continue to dry in the AC.

REEF LIFE: Ok, this is the ‘not’ so excellent part, and I sort of hate to write it. The condition of the reef is outside the control of the resort but it may affect your decision to visit or not. There’s a ton of coral bleaching going on, so you don’t see the abundant marine life you might expect. We’re macro lovers and we saw a single lettuce slug and a fellow diver found a Red-Tipped Sea Goddess (I was SO happy!). No teeny stuff like painted elysias. It was just sad to see so much destruction. That said, we got buzzed by a few eagle rays, I got a pic of a manta ray (fairly rare, so the dive crew from several boats wanted to see the poor pic I got and were really excited!). We told our DM we really hoped to find a yellow-head jaw fish with eggs, so he told us where we’d find them and told us we could stay there the entire dive (basically under the boat) while they went off on the dive. We did, and I got a couple of decent shots of one with eggs!!! Did the same thing on another site looking for sailfin blennies (@Butcher’s Bank, on the way to Maya Key). While looking for sailfin blennies we also found TWO Lined Soles – we’d only ever seen one in Cozumel, so this was quite a treat! We saw sea-horses nearly every day – yellow and orange. So even though the reef is in rough shape there was still plenty to see if you search for it. Plenty of Pederson shrimp and drummies (juvenile and one adult). I also got a great video of a small school of Atlantic spade fish swimming toward me.

We arrived mid-week so we had one DM for three days and then another for the last three days. Our first DM was ok, but our second was outstanding (Marvin Ramos). At the end of our first three days we were saying ‘we won’t be back – but the next three days redeemed the trip and even with the coral bleaching we might be willing to go back. Funny how a dive master can make that much of a difference.

One day was spent on an excursion to Maya Key – I think it’s owned by AKR. You dive your regular morning dive and come back to the dock. You do your second dive on the way to Maya Key and then they take you to Maya Key for lunch. It’s a nice setup with an area covered with a canopy of trees for eating under the shade; they have some animals (we napped on a porch so we didn’t see them, but I was told there was a sloth and a beautiful spotted jaguar). I bought something at the gift shop. It is a nice property. We went on our last dive day so we skipped the third dive and took the bus from Maya Key back to the resort so we’d have extra time to rinse and dry our stuff.

The main resort has a museum (we didn’t see it but were told it was cute); a gift shop (bought a hoodie on sale); and has its own deco chamber that serves other dive shops as well; AND a dolphin experience. Between dives one day we watched from the dock, as a trainer worked with two dolphins right in front of the dive shop – it was like a mini trip to Sea World.  You can also book horseback riding and massages at the spa. There are kayaks available and I understand snorkeling on the property is pretty good. Shore diving is an option, but it’s at the far end of the Key and I’ve never talked to someone who actually went shore diving. Maybe someone else will weigh in on that?

Each night there is some entertainment going on – trivia night, karaoke, one night is a barbecue and show on the Key. Lots to do in the evenings but it’s done early enough for you to get a good night of sleep.

TIPS – Save your tipping until the last day (including housekeeping). You can tip using credit card or cash. They will give you blank envelopes for you to label, or they will give you a pre-printed paper that allows you to designate a person or department for tips via credit card. For instance, you might want to leave a lump sum for waitstaff or you might want to designate a specific person. They will run those charges and have you sign for those charges and then you get to place that paper into their safe. We did a little bit of everything – handed cash to a couple, put extra cash in an envelope for one we couldn’t find – and did the credit card form.

DEPARTURE – the night before you leave check with reception about what time you need to have your bags out for collection (9:30) and what time to be done checking out to get on the bus (10:30). Easy peasy.

If you’ve read this far, thank you and you’re a glutton for punishment! One last thing. On day #4 I got up to a shattered prescription mask. It was in my care for the entire time, so I have no one to blame but myself – and no clue what happened. It was hanging on my BC when stored. I spent the next three days blindly taking pics and still got some really good ones. Kevin (dive shop) helped me out with a loaner dive mask – saved my dives! Coincidentally, I have an eye doc appt today and will get a new script. I’ll save the old rx inserts for a spare mask and then get a new mask with the new script. I will now have a backup rx mask. Ugh. Seriously, who can afford to have a spare prescription mask???

If AKR opened resorts around the world they would be on my list to stay at. The organization was fantastic. I can’t say enough wonderful things about this resort. I wish the reef was in better shape, but again, this isn’t an AKR issue, and the DMs make your dives wonderful!

 

[js1221]

Great report. We haven’t been to AKR in awhile, sounds like we need a return trip. Can you share some of your pictures, especially interested in the jawfish and manta ray.

 

[Kimela]

Remember I said the manta was a poor pic! And I was shooting blind on the jawfish & blennies, so they’re not as clear as I'd like. But a friend taught me me that you can tell which jawfish have eggs because they have those black lines on their throats! Cool and very helpful info.