Any updates on Little French Key?

[nydney1]

Does anyone have any updates on Little French Key. I saw on Facebook they were having some issues.

[bev2beach]

Was there last week. Wonderful! The bad news was all fake. It was the best day of my cruise. You will love it! Crystal clear water and nice workers that cater to you. Food was great. I enjoyed the drink called the Coco Loco! My girls went horse back riding, paddle boarding, and jumped off a rope into the water. It was a perfect day.  

[Nolesmln]

I would really like to know also.  We are booked May 24th.  Also, what’s a good alternative?

[c-leg5]

On 4/24/2022 at 3:52 PM, nydney1 said:

Does anyone have any updates on Little French Key. I saw on Facebook they were having some issues.

New, old, ongoing issues?

 

Little French Key has been controversial almost since its inception. There  have always been cheerleaders and people who were adamantly against it from the beginning.

 

If you read old TA reports and FB postings it has always been very difficult to determine what is true and what is fiction. Do some research and make your own assessment.
 

I have never visited so cannot really pass judgment one way or the other, except to say, the present development is a far cry from the supposed initial vision of the owner.

[nydney1]

We have been twice and enjoyed both visits. 
 

On the second visit most of the animals were gone but the water was still clear and blue.

 

The last posts we saw on Facebook advised folks not to come. We don’t go to November but I like to plan ahead. 

[SCruiseFam]

On 4/24/2022 at 4:52 PM, nydney1 said:

Does anyone have any updates on Little French Key. I saw on Facebook they were having some issues.

Wondering this as well as their FB and IG posts are all warning people to not go due to current unrest. Not sure how much of that is true however 

[mitsugirly]

On 4/24/2022 at 7:12 PM, bev2beach said:

Was there last week. Wonderful! The bad news was all fake. It was the best day of my cruise. You will love it! Crystal clear water and nice workers that cater to you. Food was great. I enjoyed the drink called the Coco Loco! My girls went horse back riding, paddle boarding, and jumped off a rope into the water. It was a perfect day.  

 

You were just there last week and nothing is going on? At all? I follow LFK and also friends with the owner and he is still posting, as of today, that it is under seize. There are now pictures of the place on fire and being burned down. The pictures look horrible. Are you saying this is all fake and it's business as usual? If so, someone must have control of both fb accounts and doing a lot of photoshop. It's really sad if this is what's going on.

[Lem_On_Ade]

5 hours ago, mitsugirly said:

 

You were just there last week and nothing is going on? At all? I follow LFK and also friends with the owner and he is still posting, as of today, that it is under seize. There are now pictures of the place on fire and being burned down. The pictures look horrible. Are you saying this is all fake and it's business as usual? If so, someone must have control of both fb accounts and doing a lot of photoshop. It's really sad if this is what's going on.

I’m with you. This is all so confusing. I saw the pics of the fire yesterday and was so sad. I was just there in January and had a great time. So hard to know what to believe 😕

[becky11111]

We got an email from the new owner that they are open but the old owner has taken all the money from old bookings. She told me to go ahead and dispute the charges with our cc company and rebook if we wanted to. 
we don’t want any stress or drama on our vacay so we will not be re booking.

[ARandomTraveler]

This is interesting. I've not heard anything about this until reading this thread, and it's weird to have one person saying they visited, while another says they've seen pictures and spoken to the owner and that the place is burning down.

 

This lead me to do a google search, which brought me to trip advisor, which shows a bunch of good reviews from people who claim to have been there recently. However, as any seasoned trip advisor researcher knows, you never really believe the accounts with no review history, which seems to be who is posting all the good reviews.

 

That being said, without having done much research at this point, I'm confused as to why any organization/person/people who has burned a place down would also want tourists to show up to it. I need way more info than what anyone has been posting.

 

I haven't seen any reputable news articles and nobody is giving any information that gives any background or offers any details beyond saying "it's burned down" or "it's fine." Can someone give more background and detail as to why there are conflicting reports and what the motivation might be behind whichever side is lying? 
 

Here's a screenshot of a trip advisor review where a person with no review history is saying the place is open, and the management (or "management"?) response that says it's not. 
 

This is very weird. Regardless, this is strange enough to let me know that I'll be staying on the ship at this port, because something weird is going on, and I don't want to get caught up in anything weird or dangerous that may or may not be happening on the island.

[Host Carolyn]

I asked my son who lives there part time and he says they go to Big French Key. There was a fire at Little French Key a couple years ago, place apparently rebuilt, but now struggle between the two owner groups. . He said there are too m many nice places there to avoid the drama at LFk

 

 

[AustinChad]

I emailed Victor Bodden from boddentours.com to ask about the situation (as we're planning our excursion for June), and he just replied with the following:

 

Everything is "back-to-normal" there after a court-ordered change in ownership. Unfortunately all of LFK's social media/website (and "fake" website) are all still under the control of the old owner.  I would feel very safe taking my own family there (but, am in DALLAS! this week.) 

 

Still not sure how I feel about it, but he has a vested interested in not putting his customers in harm's way.

[mitsugirly]

This is just my take on it. I have been to LFK multiple times and met both owners, Larissa and Kevah. He seems like a very nice man and took a lot of time to talk to me. I am friends with him on his personal FB page and also the LFK page. I know him and his wife split up A few years ago and it has been a nasty mess since then. From things I have read online it has been a nasty divorce with him being unable to see his children and she moved back to the United States in California. I had recently read that she gained control of LFK and I believe that he is disgruntled and probably has control over the FB page, LFK, TripAdvisor, and of course he is posting the pictures of the fire from his personal page. Just my thoughts, he is trying to drive away customers and causing the issues. I have also read they deported him back to the US  and are awaiting trial for evasion of taxes from something that happened back when he lived in the US, which resulted in him moving out of the country and landed him in Roatan. Just my thoughts, things that I have read (which can be found online including court documents ), And of course I have no proof other than what I read.

[Liljo22]

12 hours ago, AustinChad said:

I emailed Victor Bodden from boddentours.com to ask about the situation (as we're planning our excursion for June), and he just replied with the following:

 

Everything is "back-to-normal" there after a court-ordered change in ownership. Unfortunately all of LFK's social media/website (and "fake" website) are all still under the control of the old owner.  I would feel very safe taking my own family there (but, am in DALLAS! this week.) 

 

Still not sure how I feel about it, but he has a vested interested in not putting his customers in harm's way.

This was what it sounded like was happening.  The fire pictures they were posting were the same pictures from a fire back in 2018.  

[disneyfan551]

This is one of my favorite excursions, so I think I'm just going to risk it and still plan on going in August.