Thanksgiving Week: Places with the best pools!

Hi

Looking for a condo or suite type hotel (3 adults, 3 kids under 10) for Thanksgiving. Want kitchen facilities and a place with super cool pools for the kids. Not sure where to start! Many thanks in advance!

Thanksgiving Week: Places with the best pools!

I think the main pool at Sundial Resort is the best for kids with its nautilus. The pools on Sanibel are extravagent as they are at many resorts.

By all reports, the new main pool at South Seas Resort will be huge and quiet elaborate. Then again, that resort is huge as well, so there will be plenty of folks using it. It is still in progress at this point, but is supposed to open in Spetember. Hopefully Sue will give us an update on South Seas soon. As a rental agent she gets to hear all the good inside info on the place.

Thanksgiving Week: Places with the best pools!

that%26#39;s ....%26#39;natilus slide%26#39;

But I think - not sure - that the Loggerhead pool is bigger.

The more I read the more I am excited about planning our trip. The more suggestions, the better! Thank you so much!

That should read ... %26#39;the pools are NOT extravagant..%26#39; I tend to look at the pools vs some of the larger or ritzy resorts and the resort ones are a lot nicer than what you%26#39;ll find on Sanibel. On the upside, the kids love the beach, so more families are there than is usual. I switched over to house rentals, mostly on Captiva, and don%26#39;t stay at the condo places anymore, but visit on occasion when I%26#39;m down and track what they%26#39;re doing. Many of the condo complexes have rather small pools. It%26#39;s one of the reasons I switched to house rentals.

Remember, the Sundial also has 400+ condos, so that%26#39;s a lot of families looking to use their main pool. The design drawings for the new pool at South Seas were pretty impressive.

For 6 people you%26#39;ll probably need a 2 bedroom condo. The occupancy is set by the owners, condo association, or fire code. Also, if you go around Thanksgiving check on pool heat. Many condo complexes do NOT turn on the pool heat till Dec 15 [boy, I learned that the hard way!]. Just make sure the heat will be on as it will be chilly swimming otherwise.

that is great advice. Still looking! Someone told me to look into Ft Wayne and driving in? What do you think? I am clueless to FL geography; etc. THANKS

Hi, bongocomm:

Tourmaline does such a nice job of sharing information...just thought I would add a couple of comments. There are many nicely renovated units at Loggerhead Cay and they have an excellent pool for those in your group who really like to SWIM. Can do laps and they have certain hours set aside for adults only. As Tourm said, check to see if the heat is on.... My recollection is that the ';shallow'; end is not really ';shallow';...maybe 3 feet or so. Perhaps someone else can confirm or correct. They do have lovely tennis courts and shuffleboard there.

I don%26#39;t believe anyone mentioned Casa Ybel. As pools go, they may have, ';the best';...including a wading pool for children (you have 3 under 10.) Their units are not as large as some others, but take a look and see what you think.

As for flying into Florida, book early and you ';should'; not have a major problem getting into Regional Southwest International at Fort Myers. Next nearest is Sarasota (SRQ). Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando (MCO and SFB), and Tampa / St. Petersburg are all possibilities, but would entail a 2 to 3 hour drive to the Sanibel area, perhaps even a bit longer from some of these options.

Have fun planning and hope Sanibel provides a lovely vacation for you.

GrandmaMac: thank you for these great ideas. So now we are thinking of combining flying into to an airport that is near a really great water park (I found a list of water parks on About...) and then heading to Sanibel. I haven%26#39;t matched up the locations to nearest airport yet. If anyone has any thoughts about this, that would be great.

As Seattle-ites, we don%26#39;t get a lot of sun between November and about April....so we want to get in all this fun in the sun/water that we can!!!

The best water parks are in Orlando - about a 4 hour drive from Sanibel. I%26#39;ve done that many times and other than a lot of traffic the firs 90 minutes, it%26#39;s really boring.

There is one associated with Busch Gardens in Tampa - Adventure Island, but I know nothing about it. Perhaps you could ask on the Tampa forum.

There is a small water park over in Cape Coral called Sun Splash. Though I%26#39;ve stayed in Cape Coral a number of times, I%26#39;ve never been to the park. I recall someone mentioning it here but this is all I could find:

Saffys-Mum

Joined: May 2005

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What%26#39;s this?

Florida (838194)

Posted on: 8:18 pm, May 31, 2005 Report inappropriate post

No issues that I know of with Sun Splash. During the summer County %26amp; City ran camps take children to Sunsplash I don%26#39;t believe they would risk the wrath of parents and lawsuits if the waterpark were subpar.Islandkitty will be there soon her advice seems to be quite good. If you can wait and trust her to report back on what she thinks.