The Ritz-Carlton, Naples

I am a person who always wants to fly under the radar and tries to ask for as little as possible, service-wise….but, my goodness, the acts of truly extraordinary service seemed to find me at every turn during our stay. Three prime examples: 1) We had to leave the hotel at 5:45 am one day to make an appointment and I stopped at the valet stand the night before to make sure someone would be available to get us our car so early in the morning. The valet asked for our name and room number and said he’d make note of it….which I didn’t take to mean much. The next morning we walked out of the lobby at 5:45 am to find our car waiting for us out front and a valet standing there with our keys and greeting us by name. 2) The restaurant Nolita had what I thought were the prettiest drinking glasses I had ever seen. On our last night here, I asked Claire, the assistant manager of the restaurant, whether she could possibly find out the name of the manufacturer. She assured me she would but then we left shortly after and I forgot to seek her out again….a few hours later there was a knock at our door to deliver a beautifully handwritten card from Claire letting me know the answer. (And I’ve already ordered the glasses for my home!) 3) The little coffee/ice cream shop in the lobby didn’t have posted hours and I think there was some confusion because it was open quite late on Presidents Day but then, the next evening, I took my kids just past 7 pm and it was closed. Another family and I were discussing that this seemed quite crazy for an ice cream shop not to be open all evening during one of the busiest holiday weeks of the year. A gentleman from the other family went to ask at the front desk and suddenly a lovely manager named Savannah appeared to open up the shop to serve our two families….and as she had already closed up the register for the evening, it was free! This was incredibly thoughtful and generous of her. (Side note: this shop really should be open every night until 9 pm!) All in all, the hotel was spectacular. Our room was 10/10, no notes, clean and elegant. We really enjoyed the water park at the Tiburón resort but were very glad we didn’t stay there as the Beach resort appears to be overall much newer and nicer. We were a little surprised that the water park closed as early as it did (5 pm, even on a holiday week) — and the towels and water cups were put away by about 5:01 pm, making it clear that people were not to linger.