Thought it was time to get out a new Marco Island thread. We're heading there (first timers) for a week in late April. We're 2 couples (age 55-70) and looking for a laid back vacation. We would like to take the boat to the Keys and will probably take an evening dinner cruise and maybe a day to the Everglades. We're way past the Disney type attraction age, but is there anything at Marco Island we shouldn't miss while we're there?

If you are boat savvy rent a boat and go to keewaydin island. Here is where we got our boat and this was the best day of our trip.

http://www.rosemarina.com/rental-boats.htm

It will in general be very laid back then, and the service in bars and restaurants will no longer be so harried.

It will be hot, and there will be a thunderstorm almost every afternoon.

Gmoney's suggestion is great IF you can operate and navigate a boat. This is the northernmost part of the Ten Thousand Islands, and you sure could get lost in there if you don't know what you are doing.

Do go to the Everglades, including Everglades City. Eat lunch on the dock at City Seafood. Go out to Smallwood store in Cholkoluskee. Take the boat ride from the National Park concessionaire. Go on to Ochopee, America's smallest post office. Look for alligators at Turner River and beyond at the Big Cypress visitors center.

Eat fish. I loved the grouper at the Dolphin Tiki Bar Chickee Bar, my son liked it best at the Snook Inn, my son in law thought the Marco Fish Company had the best. Gotta try 'Em all! I am told there is fabulous southern Italian food in Marco, but I don't like red sauce Italian, so I ate fish in joints. You may.

It is an awfully long way to Key West on the boat, though not as far as from Ft. Myers. Think about a charter flight.

Recommend Little Bar. Very local. Very good.

" We're way past the Disney type attraction age. . . "

I'm sorry I'm having trouble comprehending that statement. What are you 250?

Friends, a brother and sister both in their late 70s just returned from 5 days at Disney and had "the time of our lives".

The Little Bar is in Goodland, a nice drinking town with a big fishing problem, which reminds me that I should have suggested a fishing charter when I wrote last night.

There are some signs of gentrification in Goodland since I was last there ten years ago, but they won't hold you back much. It is one of those end of the line places like Port Clyde, Maine, or Reedville, Virginia, only less picturesque and probably more fun.

There us nothing to do here but eat, drink, and buy fresh and smoked fish unless you need to launch a boat or like to walk around and look at trailers. Places like this are becoming increasingly rare and ought to be supported.

Way past the Disney age because we've been there twice (honeymoon was once) and DH now has a heart condition so he can't do rides.
Just trying to go to places we've never been before, but saying that, I just made reservations for Maui trip #9.

Ackislander's suggestions are good.
A few more: If you go to Chokoluskee, stop at the Havana Café - good food, ambience, Cuban coffees.
On the way into Everglades City on the way to Chokoluskee, take 1st right and go to Grimm's for stonecrab claws -- fantastic and fresh off the boat. For complete retro atmosphere, go to Rod and Gun Club in Everglades City, sit on screen porch by the canal and watch the boats go by. (Footnote: credit is to NeoPatrick for first recommending this place to us.)

Gee, Nepheline, that's been so long ago, I don't think I've been to Everglades City or Chokoluskee since! Glad it's all holding up (or at least continuing to age nicely).

We make a pilgrimage there every year. I'm not so sure about the food at Rod & Gun -- had a great shrimp salad there the first time we went, and the next year, it was an over-mayonaised blob, but the key lime pie satisfies, and it's worth the price of admission just to walk through that first floor and sit out back. And I always give a mental salute to Neo for the suggestion.
I hate to admit how many pounds of stone crab two older-than-middle-aged folks can consume at one sitting, but we may have set the Grimm's record last year, before we waddled back to Marco.

Go to Corkscrew Sanctuary. There is an easy path/boardwalk through the woods and over the swamp. You'll see alligators swimming below the boardwalk you're walking on and a lot of birds. They'll probably have scopes trained on nests of birds. We saw a pair of bobcats chasing each other and crashing through the underbrush when we were there.

http://corkscrew.audubon.org