Happy 2 Year Anniversary to me and Ryan! Woo hoo :) We have vowed to visit a place that we have never been each year on our anniversary. Last year, we went to Hostel in the Forest and from there we visited Jekyll Island and St. Simons Island and had an all around adventure. This year, we decided to splurge on a more luxurious vacation and while it was really nice to relax and spend time together, we have both decided that it just wasn't us! We are better suited to hostels and chicken buses :) Anyway, here is a recap of our romantic island getaway:
Cape Haze is situated in between Sarasota, to the north, and Ft. Myers, to the south. The resort where we stayed, Palm Island Resort, can only be reached by car ferry. When we found this out, we expected the car ferry to take us on a long journey to a mysterious place only found by the pure of heart, but in reality, we could have probably jumped the water with our car, possibly even with a running start on foot. The fee for the ferry was included in the price of the vacation package we had purchased (Yeah Groupon!) but if it hadn't been, we may have chosen to stay somewhere else. At $55 r/t, you'd expect to be on the long mysterious voyage mentioned before and not crossing water about 3 arms lengths across. You do have the option of crossing on the ferry as a pedestrian ($6 r/t per person) but then you'd have a pretty long walk to the resort, which is on the opposite side of the island. But, it was included for us, so it wasn't an issue :) 
If you drive through Englewood on your way to Cape Haze, like we did, you will find a rare gem that will make your DAY like it did mine: A PASTY SHOP run by a YOOPER! Yeaaah! Pretty good pasty and a root beer from Wisconsin make for a happy Brandy at lunch time. They even sell Trenary Toast! But at $6.50 a bag, I'll just ask my grandma or friends to smuggle some down for me the next time they're in town. If you google "Pasty Shop in Englewood, FL" you'll see exactly where it is and also, a review from some "Brandy" dated October 21. If the car ferry is not included in the price you pay to stay at Palm Island and you would rather not make a bunch of trips on it, then I would recommend stopping at one of the hundreds of Publix's in the area to stock up on the essentials: ingredients to make monkey bread (or, if you type it wrong into google, it pulls up "Monkey break dancing"...we now have a new name for monkey bread), parchment paper to bake the fish you're about to buy at the Placida Fish Market, ingredients for pina coladas...and that should about cover you.
Recommendation: stay at the resort and just enjoy doing absolutely nothing but eating, drinking and soaking up the sun for a few days. Ryan and I, being Ryan and I, just HAD to try and find some adventure on our second to last day and we were sorely disappointed. Unless you bring a boat, it will take you a few hours to drive anywhere and there isn't a whole lot to see. We had a good time, but we would have had just as good of a time relaxing on the beach with our pina coladas....we would have saved quite a bit of money on gas and eating out too! The only thing I would recommend doing is visiting the Placida Fish Market for some local, fresh seafood and to pay the $5 to cross the bridge to Boca Grande. It's a pretty neat area and there is a lighthouse and beautiful beach to see, plus both of these places are within 10-15 minutes of Cape Haze.
In case you decide to be stubborn like us and TRY to find some adventure, you could follow our 2 hour path to Matlacha and Pine Island. Matlacha is a complete shock while driving down the otherwise very normal road to the end of Pine Island. The buildings are all painted bright colors and there are several neat shops and art galleries. We had a late lunch at Miceli's and sat right next to the water while we listened to live music and Ryan drank a $1.50 beer (They have awesome HH specials and their HH lasts practically all day). Our server was extremely polite and wonderful and it was a breath of fresh air after attempting an earlier lunch at Dean's South of the Border Tex Mex Cantina in Punta Gorda, where we ordered the bare minimum because we were afraid to tell our server that we didn't want to stay for lunch after we had already ordered drinks(If you like Mexican food, friendly service and happiness, this is the absolute last place on earth you want to be!)
If you decide to take my advice and simply enjoy your time at the resort, there are a few different ways to do so. You can play tennis on one of the many courts, ride your golf cart around (also included in our vacation package, awesome!), make shell art on the beach, hold your nose because of all the fish that washed up because of red tide (I really hope this doesn't happen while you're there), visit one of the restaurants, or enjoy coffee from your screened porch while the sun comes up<---by far my favorite moments of this trip
