The refund landed on our card on Tuesday, September 2: $64.45. We'd paid $88.90 for two nights at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, so the difference, $24.45, is what it cost us to stay home over Labor Day weekend. I wrote it in the trip log on its own line, the first entry in that green notebook for a trip that never happened.
Last week I said I'd report back once the money moved. Here's how the whole thing went, from the decision to the refund.
The call, four days out
We booked the site at 8 a.m. one morning last September, eleven months ahead, for August 30 to September 1. Two nights in the tent, and a promise to Maya that she'd finally snorkel in Key Largo. By July, Dana had added a condition: she could call it off the week of the trip, for any reason, no debate.
By the weekend before, there was a tropical system in the National Hurricane Center outlook, and on Monday and Tuesday mornings the forecast for the Upper Keys got a little worse each time I looked. Nothing dramatic. Just enough that "probably fine" turned into "maybe," and the bad version of "maybe" had us in a tent at the end of a long two-lane road with a six-year-old and a nine-year-old.
On Wednesday, August 27, at 6:30 in the morning, Dana in her scrubs and me with my school lanyard already on, we cancelled at the kitchen counter, with the cafetera hissing on the stove behind us. It took about four minutes. Four days out felt right to us: early enough that we hadn't bought groceries or booked Isabela to feed Pickles, late enough that we weren't cancelling on a hunch.
For the record, the system came to very little. The Keys got a breezy Saturday and a few showers, and I spent part of the weekend feeling a bit silly. I'd make the same call again. We decided with what we knew on Wednesday, not with what we found out on Saturday.
Where the $24.45 went
Here's the receipt, line by line, the way it showed up when we cancelled:
- Paid at booking: $88.90, which was $82.20 for the site and a $6.70 reservation fee
- Reservation fee, not refunded: $6.70
- Cancellation fee: $17.75
- Refunded to our card: $64.45
So we lost the booking fee and paid a cancellation fee on top of it, about $12 a night for two nights we spent in our own beds. That's what we were charged in late August 2025. Fees and rules change, so check with the park system before you count on any of these numbers.
How the cancellation actually worked
It was simpler than I expected, which is not something I say often about anything with a reservation number.
- Dana logged into the state park reservation account she uses for all our 8 a.m. bookings.
- Under the Pennekamp reservation there was a cancel option. Before it let us confirm, it showed the refund amount and the fees being kept. I appreciated that. No surprises.
- We confirmed, and a cancellation email arrived about a minute later. Dana starred it.
- The refund went back to the card we'd booked with. It showed as pending by Friday and posted the following Tuesday.
We'd also asked the park, back in August, what happens if the park itself closes for a storm. We were told that if the park closes, reservations are refunded. Good to know, but it didn't change our decision. Closures can come late, and the Keys can ask visitors to leave before a park announces anything. I'd rather lose $24.45 on a Wednesday than drive down US-1 on a Friday hoping for a closure email.
What we'd do differently
Mostly, I'd book differently. Last September, two nights in Key Largo on Labor Day weekend sounded like a great idea, and I booked it at the peak of hurricane season without thinking much about that. Our habits for late-summer trips now: book only where cancelling costs a small, known amount, keep it to two nights, and don't prepay anything nonrefundable around it. Pennekamp checked all three boxes, which is why this cost us $24.45 and not a few hundred dollars.
The other change is about the kids. From June to November, every trip gets called "probably" instead of "definitely." Maya took this one hardest. She had a list of fish in her nature journal with a little box next to each, and none got checked. Nico mostly missed the tent, so on Saturday we moved the coffee table and one offended cat and pitched the dome tent in the living room. It's freestanding, so it stood fine on the terrazzo, and the kids slept in it two nights with the AC at 76. Maya has since crossed out "Labor Day" at the top of her fish list and written "someday" above it, in purple.
