Places to stay: Everglades and Keys

[GEM]

We are planning a three week long trip to Florida during the first three weeks of December. We'll be spending some time in the Orlando area and then we are going to head down to the Everglades. (My six year old son has a serious fascination with alligators, so we want to see some real "swamp".) After spending some time exploring that area, we'd like to head down to the keys for a few more days.

Can anyone suggest any places to stay in the Everglades and/or in the Keys? Must be clean and friendly and safe...doesn't have to be fancy by any means. We'd love someplace with a kitchen, if possible.

I'm especially lost on the keys, since I've never been down there. We want to spend a day in Key West, but don't necessarily want to stay there. Looking for somewhere nice and quiet and relaxing.

Thoughts?

 

[Pamlur]

The best place we ever stayed in the Keys (and we used to go several times a year) was Days Inn and Suites, in Key Islamorada. It used to be a time-share thing, so a lot of the suites have kitchen facilities.