I have stayed at Crystal Shores on numerous occasions. The Gulf Front view is spectacular, and you feel like you are on a Cruise ship, as all you can see when you are sitting down on the patio, or inside, is the Gulf of Mexico. The swimming pool is well maintained and a great place to relax. There is food and beverage service offered by Stilts, the on-site restaurant/bar. Stilts is a great place for lunch or dinner as it is elevated and has a superb view. Children are welcome and there is a separate pool with a large mountain slide. The staff is great and are very accommodating

If you book you have to try to book the gulf front units because the sunset views are just breathtaking...totally amazing and so relaxing. The patio doors are floor to ceiling glass which we wound up leaving it open most of the time. We ate most nights on the patio just waiting for the sun to set, and having the after dinner drinks to unwind the day..simply heavens!!! The decors are very modern, new and fresh which I like. The master bedroom is a bit on a small side compared to other Marriotts, but very clean. Staffs were very friendly, always there to accommodate. Beds are unbelievably comfy..better than home :). Very nice and enjoyable stay overall.

This property is wonderful. We stayed in March 2011, everything still looked brand new. We were on 9th floor of the side building with a view north to toward the Hilton. We had a nice view of the beach as well as across Marco. The beach is close, and has plenty of room to spread out. Chairs and umbrellas are available for rental. The room had two bedrooms, each on the opposite sides of the living room for great privacy. All of the furnishings, kitchen accoutrements and electronics were top notch. I was impressed by the balcony doors -- they are floor to ceiling glass, and wall to wall (almost 25' long), just opening them all the way took a few minutes but well worth it! The balcony itself is so large that there are multiple chairs/tables and still room for the kids to play a game on the floor. Pools are very nice, although the middle pool tends not to get much sun which was good for the afternoons. The kids activities were great, my kids loved the night swimming and the ball games on the grassy area. The staff was very friendly. The onsite restaurant was absolutely beautiful, open air with outstanding views of the beach (food was just ok, and of course expensive, but there are many restaurants close by). Our stay was great, my only complaint was that our master bedroom was close to the service elevator which started moving the staff around at 5am each morning -- this made it difficult to sleep in. Otherwise, we were very happy with our time at Crystal Shores.

We stayed in the 3 bedroom Penthouse unit facing the gulf. The room and view was spectacular! We ate dinner at our dinning table on the patio and ended our days watching the amazing sunsets, it was breathtaking. My favorite spot was the massive patio… it wrapped around the side of the building, had two lounge chairs, 6 chair dinning table, 2 couches, 2 end chairs and coffee table! The sliding doors throughout the entire space was great, when opened it was as if there were no barriers and the breeze flowed thru the rooms. The bed sheets and pillows were extremely comfortable, we were all pleasantly surprised. Every room was decorated nicely and extremely clean.

HUGE THANKS to ANGIE and KEANE from the Crystal Shores!! They went above and beyond in helping our every need when we were there! Our daughter fell ill and they helped in every way that they could in making sure she was okay. Keane is the medic on staff and was in our room the minute we called for assistance. He followed up with us throughout our visit giving her ice pops and even a stuffed kitten to keep her company when we took her to urgent care! One staff member offered to let us borrow their humidifier during our stay. My husband had already purchased one at a local pharmacy, but it was an extremely thoughtful gesture. Angie walked us to our room and helped us get settled and followed up during our entire stay to make sure we had everything we needed. I cannot say enough about the EXCEPTIONAL customer service!! They went above and beyond ANY hotel that we had ever stayed at, we are truly thankful.

The pools were quite and the kids LOVED the zero depth section, allowing them to play freely without the fear of deep water. The other pool was a bit shaded and cool with the breeze so we did not spend much time there (this is the pool with the waterslide). You can rent a poolside cabana for $50 a day, which are quite nice. They have a wall mounted flat screen television, L-shaped couch, end chairs, refrigerator and sink. There is also, a pool table and ping pong table located outside near the pool that always seemed to be available!

Stilts is the hotel restaurant located poolside. They had an amazing view of the beach and sunset (better than any other restaurant in the area). The food was good, but a bit pricey.

There was always something planned for hotel guests and kids. We did one of the craft activities and had a lot of fun! The indoor activity room for the kids was great too :o) Every day they would post the daily activities on the board near the pool along with the weather, sunset and tide information. We found it very informative!

You could rent an umbrella and chair for $90 a week or … $12 for ½ day umbrella or $19 for full day umbrella, each chair is $7. We only did this one day and spent a lot of our time at the pool.

For those traveling with children we rented bed rails, car seats, beach toys, etc… from Twinkle Twinkle Little Store of Naples (http://www.twinkletwinklelittlestoreofnaples.com/fun.html) They were the only rental company that would work with our car rental and drop of the car seats so that we would have them when we arrived at the Fort Myers airport. Nobody else would drive to Fort Myers and Philip from Twinkle Twinkle was very accommodating!

GREAT local park for kids.... MACKLE PARK. There is a great wooden structure that accomodates kids ages 2-12. There is even a splash area for the little ones, so bring your towels! If you have a basketball bring that too, they have the cutest little courts for the kids, too cute!! When leaving the hotel parking lot turn left onto Collier. Take Collier to San Marco and make a right. Take San Marco to Heathwood and make another right. Take Heathwood to Analisa (just past the library) and make a left. The park will be on your right hand side. Wish we would have known about it earlier in our trip, the kids LOVED it. Just go earlier in the day or on a cloudy day. There is little shade and it can get a bit warm, especially the swings!

If you are looking for a great deal on a car or minivan rental and don’t mind a slightly older model Tom from Regal Car rentals was GREAT (http://www.regalcarrental.com/rates-51-1031.html). He was waiting at baggage when we arrived at the airport. Assisted us with our luggage and drove us back to his office to sign off on paperwork. We were on our way in only a few minutes, not to mention he had the car seats already in the car when we arrived. The minivan rental was SO AFFORDABLE!

Hope this helps and makes your stay in Marco a bit more enjoyable!!

Just returned from a week stay in a 2 bedroom ocean front villa, it was wonderful! The baloncy is so large and perfect view of the gulf. We really enjoyed laying out on the baloncy in the late afternoon all the way up to the beautiful sunsets! Pools are small by Marriott standards but they are building more. Enjoyed the waterslide, not happy about paying of the use of loungers and umbrellas on the beach. Staff was very friendly and they had loss provention walking around so we felt very safe. We had a required turtle lights out on the beach at 9 p.m. every night, not sure if this is all year round, but it requires all gulf front villas to close the blockout drapes to keep the lights down. The whole resort has this low lighting thing going on, pretty but makes you feel as if it's time for bed. We had young adults with us as we loved the villa, there was not much to do on Marco after dinner ( we are used to Maui). We did rent movies from the front desk. Hope you enjoy your stay!

Came from Europe for the first time as an owner of 2 weeks at MVCI Crystal Shores and even if August is the end of the peak summer season in US we had an exceptional time and wheater conditions. We were told by the Marriott personell that the resort was at 90% of his occupancy but we never experienced crowd neither at pools or at the beach huts. Everybody is extremelly friendly and helpful and kids are free to enjoy so many activities up to 10PM still with a great feeling of security. Perfectly clean in all corners both inside the villas and around the premise. Too bad that the resort doesn't have its own SPA and tennis courts but these can be booked at the nearby Marriott Hotel (still we found the SPA service being overpriced by 25-30% if compared to the nearby Hilton facility). Beach left a little bit wild with shells along all the way but this is not Marriott's fault as it's the same for all the facilities facing the shore. Be prepared to pay 89US$ to rent for a week one hut-2 chairs on the beachfront. Villas are all new and all up to the highest Marriott quality level with stunning gulf view. Overall 5 stars and perfect for families with kids.

Just returned from a great vacation at Marriott's Crystal Shores. Beautiful place, exeptional service, stunning ocean front view. Great beach and sunsets are spectacular. Our 3 children loved the water slide, shallow pools. The kid's club had many activities and provided a place to go on a rainy day. We would definately return.

Just returned from an amazing week at Crystal Shores. Stayed in the 3 bedroom penthouse unit with 800 Sq. Foot covered patio. Unbelievable views! Still has 2 phases to be built out (no current construction) so the resort is very quiet and laid back. Nice on site ocean front restaurant (Stilts) and two nice pools (one with water slide). You will not be disapointed in this vacation club!

This is a brand new Resort scheduled to open in March 09 very upsclae. The beach is huge and Deep, white sand beach. Great for finding Seashells all over the place. Ground shells so coarse but not horribly uncomfortable for the barefooted. Water is typical Gulfside calm and very warm. I found 100s of shells at low tide.