Captiva and Naples Recap

Monday, December 4, 2017

I wanted to do a little recap of our trip to Florida last month. I love our annual trip to Captiva, and over the past few years we've built on to the beginning of it and expanded on the tail end of it. This trip happens at just the right time, when the chill begins to set in here in the northeast and you're in need of sun and warm breezes.

This year we spent our first night away at a hotel near the Philadelphia airport since we were flying out the next morning. Then we spent two nights in Fort Myers before we headed to Captiva for a week, which was followed by a weekend in Naples. All in it was a fantastic trip. It was our first time in Naples, and we were blown away by how beautiful it is there.

As I sat down to get some pictures off my phone, I realized that I didn't take very many. I'm definitely not mad about that because it means I was focusing on being in the moment, but unfortunately, I have only a select few to share here.


The descent into Fort Myers airport is amazing. It's mostly crystal clear waters with sandy strips of land and and streaks from boats. It's quite mesmerizing, and it sure beats the factories of Newark, New Jersey.

Vacation always offers us a chance to bond over meals. Harper and I enjoyed some time doing the word search and playing TIC TAC TOE on the back of the kids' menu.

It's a long-standing tradition that we have lunch at The Bubble Room once we get to Captiva. If you go, you must leave room for dessert. We devoured the Orange Crunch Cake. So good.

The Captiva sunsets are, well, captivating, especially when there is light cloud coverage as there was on this day. We try not to miss a single sunset during our stay. They truly never get old.

This sunset picture was taken about 20 minutes after the sun went down. This is one of the best times to catch a sunset. The colors were amazing but surprisingly, aren't so well represented in this picture.

South Seas Island Resort was decorated for the holidays. Many of the palm trees throughout the resort are decorated like this and create a beautiful scene.

On our last afternoon in Captiva, we went on a nature and dolphin cruise. It's always a treat seeing these graceful mammals in their natural habitat.

This was the view from our balcony at the Ritz-Carlton, Naples (which, BTW, is fabulous). We had a gorgeous view of the pools and the Gulf of Mexico.

This is the view of the Ritz-Carlton from the beach. Can we talk about the weather for a second? I mean just look at this picture. Blue skies and sunshine. Oh, how I could use some of that spectacular weather right now.

I enjoyed this amazing and oversized piña colada poolside at the Ritz on Saturday afternoon. I'm never mad about a drink where the garnish is almost as big as the drink itself.

I snapped this pic of my girls on our last night in Naples before we went to dinner. What is going on with these two? When did they grow up before my very eyes.

And this was the coffee situation in our room at the Ritz. Come on! Even if you don't like coffee, this makes you want to try it.

There are no words for this Naples sunset. I took this photo from our balcony with my DSLR (once I got an SD card), and I can't believe how well the colors were captured.

We've barely been back for two weeks, and I'm already counting down to next year's trip.

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