We took our 21 month old to this resort and had an awesome time. Stayed in the Bayside villas with a quick walk to the beach, full kitchen, walk to Captiva Village. They have a great kids club and nature center. Staff is very attentive and helpful. Best of paradise and ease with kids!
For JJohnson: South Seas island resort - Captiva FL
I am new to this site and don't know if this is the right place to respond to your question, but here it goes!
Shelling, walking on the beach and the pool were our main events. We could look for shells for days and never get bored. Also there is an abundance of wildlife right on the beach - herons walking right near you, pelicans diving into the water and catching their lunch. You could rent items on the beach - tubes, floats etc.
As far as other activities:
We would recommend the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge (tip: it is closed on Friday's so plan accordingly) Also we wanted to take a Captiva cruise however was already booked the day we called and we did not have any time left. So if you are interested call ahead. (They have coupons at the hotel so ask) We did not eat at any of the resort restaurants expect ice cream at Scoops, which was good.
Because of the baby we did some meals in (would recommend the fresh gulf shrimp from the fish truck located outside the Captiva Island store http://www.captivaislandstore.com http://www.andysislandseafood.com/
Stayed in Bayside villa which means you must drive or take trolley to main area of hotel where the zero entry pool and water slides are. We rented a Hertz car and used this to get around the property. We liked this better because at night we were close enough to the town to get to those restaurants. If you are looking to stay at the hotel and use all of their dining options you might want to stay closer to the pool/main area.
We dined at:
1. Sunshine Seafood Cafe- dinner
2. Mucky Duck -lunch
3. Bubble Room - dinner
4. Keylime bistro- lunch
All were very kid friendly with crayons etc. at most. Food was good. Mucky Duck lunch was fun - picnic tables near the beach - you grab a table, send someone from your party in to order the food and then they call your number. Easy and good fare. Keylime Bistro - would recommend the crabcakes and the grouper sandwich (local item and very tasty)
Because we had a late departure flight, we asked to have a later checkout. We were able to stay in our room until 2pm without being charged extra. We did stay until 6pm paying 1.5 the room cost.
Be sure to visit the welcome center in Sanibel after you go over the brigde for info brochures. Also we found most of our info from the chamber of commer site
http://www.sanibel-captiva.org/
Hope this helps!