Today is my last day of visiting my sister-in-law in sunny Naples, FL. I had such a great time - it is so beautiful down here.

The 4 hour flight with my 10 mo. old went very smoothly (meaning NO crying and plenty of napping). I had a separate seat for her and that helped out tremendously. I arrived into Ft Myers at around 4:00pm on Wed. The temperature was a record high 90 degrees! Welcome to Florida! My sister-in-law picked us up and we headed for her house. That night we relaxed.

The next day, my sister-in-law had to work so I explored 5th Ave on my own. There are some cute children's clothing stores like Mimo & Co so I splurged on my daughter. We wandered down to the beach and she had her first taste of sand (yes, I said taste because she shoved a fistful in her mouth!). That night, we ate at Iguana Mia's, a Mexican restaurant that might be a local chain. Their burritos are quite good although my sister-in-law is planning to take me to Immokalee (little Mexico) on my next trip in Dec. for real Mexican. On Fri, her husband took us to the Naples zoo. It is a great little zoo and we particularly enjoyed monkey island. We ate lunch at Tin City, at the Riverwalk, and had a nice meal overlooking the canal. That night, we shopped at the Miramar outlets.

On Sat, we went to a flea market in Bonita. It wasn't terribly exciting - mostly junky clothes and knick-knacks. We then went to the Lowdermilk Beach. The gulf seemed to be unusually choppy so we stuck to playing in the sand. Oh, and I immediately noticed the Naples "butt bags"!

On Sun, my sister-in-law, daughter and I drove to Hollywood, FL where we stayed at the Westin Diplomat Resort. It is a stunning hotel but has absolutely no beach. We drove up to Boca and ate at Maggiano's - my favorite chain. Then came back to the hotel and splashed around in the pool. The water was pretty cold but the pool is unbelievable. We stayed on the concierge level and the lounge has an excellent view of the gulf. We left on Sun and went back to Lowdermilk. It was a perfect sunny day but the water was a bit too cool and wavy for me to take my daughter all the way in. We sat on the edge of the water and the water rolled up our feet.

So, today I am heading home. I will be returning in Dec. and have a long list of places to visit!

So would you recommend Naples for small children? My kids are 2 & 3 and my parents are looking to purchase a condo in Naples to visit during winter months. I know a lot of their retired friends go there - would my somewhat wild little ones be out of place? It sounds like you found some good family friendly places to visit.

I would definitely recommend the area for kids. There are many places that I did not get to that I will plan on seeing in December - the Thomas Edison house in Ft Myers, Corkscrew Swamp, Sanibel Island. Of course these are places that little ones won't truly appreciate but there are facets that they will enjoy such as seeing wildlife, finding seashells etc. I think that children will love any place with a beach, and there were tons of kids at Lowdermilk because of the changing facilities.

Naples has somewhat of an uppity reputation because of the mega mansions, but I found people to be quite nice.

I would say that if you were planning to stay with your parents at their winter condo you might not get as pleasant an experience as kcapuani had at hotels.

My first visit was to Bonita Springs, Florida with my 2 kids - aged then about 3 and 5 and it was very stressful for me. The complex that my inlaws own their condo in is 100% retired couples who were quite put out that 2 kids would be there for a week. I would add that my kids were extremely well behaved and actually spent most of the time out at the beach rather than the complex but every day I would get at least one person coming up to us and reminding us of the rules - mainly no pool toys in or near the pool, no playing in the huge grassy area near the pool, no floatation devices in the pool (apparantly even floaties fit that bill), etc... The list was endless. At the end of our trip many of those same people came up to me and said how well behaved and cute our children were. But the next year it was the same thing all over again and I had to be so all over following all these rules that it was really no vacation for me...

Well, I actually only stayed at a hotel one of the six nights. The other nights were at my sister-in-law's house. She lives in one of the less restrictive developments that has a lot of families and cops. But, Alice does make a good point about the huge number of retirees. The retirees that I encountered all smiled and waved at my daughter and told me that they missed their grandchildren, but she is too young to infringe on them during her playtime. I guess it will depend on the condo development.