Letters from Marco Island Rental Guests

Rental Inquiry

3 Bedroom
rental home

4 Bedroom
rental home

Updated 10/12/03

Randy,

We had a wonderful time in your home. It was great. Thank you so much for the opportunity to stay there. Our kids swam in the pool at least 3 times per day and became quite good at it. We did turn the heat up on the pool because it was somewhat chilly. Just let us know if we owe something on the electricty bill. We drove by your other home on Bonita. It looked lovely from the outside. I couldn't tell if the veiw from the back was as nice as the one on Nassau with all the pretty trees and open span of water.

We had no idea that you would have so many things available to us. There were more than enough towels and we really appreciated the beach chairs, beach toys, and umbrella. The pool toys and rafts were fun. All the extra sheets and blankets were great too. I could just go on and on about how great it was.

I will tell you some of our favorite activities so that you may pass it on to others if you are so inclined.

When we had our babysitter, we spent 3 nights at Biminis, listening to the live performers. They mostly perfom cover songs but it was very entertaining. They also have a small dance floor. The food is very good!

We were absolutely crazy about the ribs at La Casita. They also had a live perfomer that sounded a lot like Marvin Gaye.

Those who have kids must eat at Cheegurger Cheeburger. They serve the kids meals in a cardboard car.

Quinns on the beach at the Marriott actually ended up being a better place to view the sunset than the other bar and grill. The service was very friendly and on Friday night there is a man who does balloon creatures for kids and has a little fire show.

There is a nice park and recreation area for those with kids. If you go East on San Marco and then take a right at the fork you go past the Library and turn left at the sign that says Markel Park. They have a covered area to play basketball and a great playground.

We watched a guy at Tigertail beach figure out how to use the toss net to catch small fish in which to feed the pelican. My children enjoyed feeding him. We did not however see Rusy the Pelican at your house.

Here are a few pictures from the trip:

The whole crew who stayed. It looks like a lot for one house, huh? :)

The two oldest, Logan and Nate, unsuccesfully fishing on your dock.

Just to remind you how glorious the view is from your back patio.

Again thanks for everything. We will hopefully get to go again in the near future. My 3 year old wanted to turn the plane around on the trip back to ruturn to the "swimming pool house".

Talk with you soon,

Pam Flesher

Nassau Ct.
March 10 -17 '07
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Randy,

A wonderful relaxing week - "our own" pool made it such a pleasure. YMCA tennis courts were good and welcoming.

Highly recommend the 8:30 AM nature walk at Tigertail Beach (Mon-Fri daily) with volunteer guides from Nature Conservancy. Looks lik a good breakfast/lunch spot also or day at the beach. Many wading birds and lovely morning walk even if it began with rain.

Thanks much!
Marianne & Sam Baez
Waterford, CT

Bonita Ct.
May 15 '03
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Hi Randy,

We had a great time during our week at your house on Bonita Court.
Thank you!

Mother nature was kind to us and we had sun every day and only one evening of rain. After we left it rained for about a week down there, so we were lucky.

We loved the dock and spent afternoons sunning, fishing and watching the starfish, jellyfish and many other kinds of fish swim by and jump out of the water. Our daughter is a nature lover and was thrilled to see a large jellyfish swim by one day. I enjoyed laying on the dock and looking at the starfish which were sometimes on the pole of the dock and other times on the bottom of the canal in front of the dock. That was very unexpected.

We played cards at the table by the pool and enjoyed the view and the sounds of the birds. When we left Michigan it was not yet Spring and the bird sounds were music to our ears. The men and boys were quite pleased with the television and surround sound system in the living room and rented movies one night from Blockbuster.

We went on a great outing one afternoon near Everglade City. It was a three part trip with a tram ride in a converted school bus, a pontoon boat ride and an airboat ride. We saw manatees, lots of alligators, raccoons, wild pigs, schools of fish, turtles and experienced the pelicans landing on the boat right in front of us to get fish from the captain.

The guide on the tram ride was very interesting and we came during a non buggy period so it was very enjoyable.

One day a couple of us took a drive up to the casino at the Indian Reservation. That was kind of a disappointment, but it was a good day trip.

Scott and our son Neil golfed twice and really enjoyed it. One day they golfed after three pm and got great reduced rates.

We went to the beaches each once, but found the pool and the dock were great for sunning and swimming.

Scott's sister lives in Naples so one evening we went up to Tin City and shopped and had dinner. That was a nice touristy thing to do.

The traffic was rather heavy on the Island, but I guess Spring break week would add to that.

Our friends that went with us were more than pleased with the house. They couldn't believe I just went on the internet and typed in Marco Island and up came your house. Having the video or picture tour on the website really helps sell the house. The view was just as beautiful in real life as it was in pictures. Even better!!

Thanks again for renting us your beautiful home. We would love to rent it again if we return to the area.

Take care,

Cathy Shapero

Bonita Ct.
April 25 '03
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Hi Randy!

I just wanted to let you know that we loved staying at your home on Bonita Court. It is just beautiful, and we loved Marco Island! We enjoyed the quiet neighborhood and nice view. We had a great week. My sister-in-law and I managed to work in a little shopping while our husbands golfed nearly every day. Anyway, we were wondering if the same week is open for next year. If you could, please let me know as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Nancy Armstrong

Nassau Ct.
May 19 '03
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Hi Randy,

Well sadly we have returned to the U K.

Many thanks again for allowing us to rent your vacation home it was excellent. The interest in your home is amazing two visits during the week so hopefully you should be getting further bookings. For future updates to your web page you may consider its location as in the UK the expression "Location/Location" is a BIG sell feature and your home has the most amazing location. To sit by the pool is simply a "dream" of that postcard view. The wildlife is wonderful to appreciate and the sunrise is worth the effort of that early rise. We do plan a return next year and consider if available again renting one of your two homes.

Hope you have a "Profitable and Healthy" year.

Cheers
Dave Hudson.

Bonita Ct.
June 9th '03
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Hi Randy, We just got back from FL yesterday. My wife and I with two other couples all had good time staying in your very well maintained beautiful house. We did fishing, shopping and six rounds of golf. As you suggested, Kretch and Crazy Flamingo serve excellent food.

For your info, T-mobile and Verizon cell phone work very well in Macro Island and Naples with no roaming.

All six of us loves Marco Island and your house. We will go back again.

Charlie & Sally Lee

Nassau Ct.
May 26th '03
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Randy,
We had a wonderful time in Marco Island, the house felt like home imediatley, and was more than I expecteded. The two girls were very content just to play in the pool all day, also spent many hours on the beaches. We fished most evenings off the dock, caught Catfish, Lady Fish, Snappers, Jacks, nothing real big. One morning while we were having our breakfast we witnessed a Tarpon being caught, very entertaining. I could go on all day telling you how much we enjoyed our vacation. Well thanks for making your house available, I will certainley want to come back some day.

Best Regards
Paul & Deborah Dod

Bonita Ct.
June 9th '03
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Dear Randy and Carol,

Where do we begin? Our family reunion/vacation was fabulous! The Bonita Ct house is absolutely gorgeous-our children could not get over how spacious and private it was for them even though we spent most of the time together. Your e-mails about Marco were really great

Our two daughters and sons-in-law enjoyed an afternoon of golf while we got to babysit our 3 year old grandson and 2 granddaughters-both 9 months old. The golfers got rained on but we didn't! Seems Marco gets the June rains late in the afternoon or wee hours of the morning-lucky us. Everyone loved having our own private pool and our grandson learned to swim on his own.

One afternoon a dolphin came by to entertain us which was great fun to watch.

We can go on and on about all the fun things we did but we certainly don't have to tell you about how wonderful Marco Island is. Aside from us, the rest of the family had never visited Marco so needless to say, they all enjoyed it immensely-a little bit of beach, shopping and exploring and a whole lot of fun.

Carole and George

Bonita Ct.
Aug 3rd '03
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Hello Randy & Carol

Just a note to say how much we enjoyed our stay at Bonita Court. The house was wonderful and very spacious the kids enjoyed the TV and Play Station. Our son, Simon, spent rather too many hours watching DVDS but that's his way of relaxing! Andrea enjoyed the rest but the "piece de resistance" was definitely the fishing.

I spent a little time on our first evening doing some minor repairs to the reel then on the first morning tried some ham! and bread! as bait both these worked very well for catfish of which there must be hundreds. It was not until the second day we realised the importance of tethering the poles, I inexcusably left one of the poles unattended and within the blink of eyelid I spotted it disappearing into the water. Luckily I had already cast out the other pole and used this to hook the rod and pull it back to the dock. The fish was still hooked we eventually brought it in and identified it as a Crevalle Jack of about 8-10lbs. We caught several more during our stay and lost many more due to their ability to wind the line around the dock piles - the answer is to land large fish well away from the piles.

Between us we caught Crevalle Jacks, Florida Pompano, Stingray, catfish (numerous), Red Drum, Sheepshead and many Gray Snappers (which were very tasty cooked on the barbecue), Striped Burrfish(Spiky fish with big eyes) and one species which went unidentified, we used live and frozen shrimp and squid with equal success.

A total of three poles were pulled in and many more were just saved! but none were lost as we sensibly tied them down after the first encounter with a Jack. I serviced all the reels with WD40 to make sure they would not corrode after their swimming experiences.

On our last day I tried a couple of casts by your neighbours dock and caught some snappers together with a fishing pole and reel complete with line, barnacles and starfish, it must have been in the water for several months or even years the culprit fish long since gone! I left a notice attached to your fishing tackle warning people about the risks of unattended fishing poles on the dock being pulled into the water. We used and lost some fishing tackle but we replaced it all before leaving.

We saw a school of dolphins go by on our first day and others in the second week and on many evenings witnessed some huge fish which were obviously chasing other species with tremendous speed and vigour causing big shoals of fish to scatter in all directions.

It was so nice to relax and enjoy the accommodation at Bonita Court we probably did not see as much of the local area as we had anticipated, but we did have an interesting boat trip at Everglades City and also canoeing at Collier Seminole park but unfortunately the rest of my family were attacked my insects on this occasion (these were big See'ums!). We visited Tiger Tail beach and saw many fish and a pair of Ospreys which are a very rare site in the UK. The South beach was wonderful and good for watching the pelicans diving into the sea very close to where we were swimming.

Though we found prices a bit higher than on our last visit to the States we did enjoy browsing the shops and purchasing (especially my wife Andrea and my daughter Charlotte). We enjoyed many of the Marco Island restaurants but especially Snook Inn which we ate at on 3 occasions.

We are looking forward to visiting your lovely home sometime again in the not too distant future.

Philip & Andrea Evans

Nassau Ct.
July 16th '03
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We had a wonderful time! The kids (and most of the adults) practically stayed in the pool. We had great breezes in the morning and beautiful skies at night. It was a perfect place for all of us, one that I'm sure we will all remember with smiles.

The two fishermen in our group caught enough snapper for a fish fry lunch for all of us.

I have told alot of people about your house and hope to come back again. I'm sure you have no trouble keeping it booked!

Thanks!
Ramona Conley

Bonita Ct.
Aug 12th '03
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Randy,

How else can I say, "it doesn't get any better than this"? We are hooked on Marco Island!!!!!!!!! Thank you for allowing us to stay at your home on Bonita Court. It was beautiful and just what we had all expected after we saw the pictures on the internet.

The pool was wonderful! The kids really enjoyed this luxury. Our three year old grandson really had a lot of fun watching the little gecko's on the lanai.

The guys loved fishing off of your dock. They even bought a "snook" light with an extension cord to use at night and left it in your garage for other fishermen to use.

Bob and I enjoyed watching the fish jump early in the morning as we had our first cup of coffee. We did see dolphin playing a couple of times from your dock.

Storms popped up in the afternoon just when it was time for the kids to go in and take a nap before dinner. By the time we left for dinner, the sun was out and no hint of an earlier storm could be found.

We ended up renting a pontoon boat for three days which was wonderful. We explored all parts of the island and even ventured to Naples for a day! We truly recommend future renters to do this.

Please let your wife know that she is to be commended for her decorating! We loved it and felt right at home.

Again, thanks for making our vacation a wonderful time!
Sincerely,
Anne Buchanan

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