Recommendations for vacation villas in the Naples area

eaglesrest

2008-02-04 19:40:11

Hi All,

We're travelling to Florida in May 2008 for 3 weeks. The first week we get married in St Pete's beach, then a week in Orlando before having a honeymoon week or so back on the Gulf of Mexico. The last week will just be the 2 of us and our 7 month old baby so we're thinking of renting a villa.

Now, we've been to Naples and Marco Island before and really enjoyed it, but have always stayed in hotels. Ideally we would rent either a pool waterfront house near the beach, or a beachfront property. Does anyone have any recommendations for letting agencies and websites? We've looked at holiday-rentals which seems pretty good but I'm not sure if this is the best way to book villas?

There does seem to be a lot of choice at the moment and quite a variety of locations around the whole area e.g. Bonita Springs, marco Island, Vanderbilt Beach, etc. It's bewildering! Again any advice/opinions from anyone who has stayed in any of these locations would be much appreciated :-)

We're looking for a really nice spacious modern home with big pool and spa, ideally backing onto a river with great views.

Thanks
Paul

Jannerlilly

2008-02-05 22:22:51

Re: Recommendations for vacation villas in the Naples area

Hi

Have used the site http://www.vbro.com for various locations within in America and have always found them to be excellent. They have apartments, villas, condos etc, you name it. Each property is owned privately, so you may be dealing with the owner direct or dealing with a letting agent for them. The bonus with dealing with a letting agent is that most often they will accept credit cards which is obviously the easiest way to pay someone in America. I have also stayed somewhere where the guy was happy to trust me and I paid him in cash upon arrival. Most recently I had to wire money into the letting agents account and the bank made a £10 charge for this. I have found this website to have the widest choice of rentals available at very competitive prices.

I stayed in Bonita Springs in December 2007. Booked a 1 bedroomed condo at the Beach and Tennis Club (thru vbro) and it worked out at approx £32 per night. I enjoyed it there. There is not masses to do in Bonita Springs itself, though the beach is lovely, but it is a brilliant base. You have the Everglades, Naples, Sanibel Island, Lover's Key etc within easy reach of you.

Let me know if I can be of any further help. Congrats on the wedding.

eaglesrest

2008-02-13 18:55:21

Re: Recommendations for vacation villas in the Naples area

Hi Jannerlily,

Thanks for the tips. We did use VBRO and eventually found our home on homeaway.com which is a great site to navigate around and search.

We've booked a nice pool/waterway home on Marco Island - much bigger than we need but we thought sod it, it's our honeymoon :-)

Looks fabulous on the virtual tour, so we're really looking forward to it. Only 2 months to go and counting.....

Cheers

Jannerlilly

2008-02-13 21:08:02

Re: Recommendations for vacation villas in the Naples area

Sounds wonderful