Just Like Living on a Cruise Ship
FORT MYERS, FL (September 1, 2001) – What does Shell Point have in common with a cruise ship? A couple of recent media appearances have tried to answer the question.
One story happened inadvertently, as a barge ran aground on a sandbar near the north end of The Island. While it was stuck, it attracted quite a bit of attention from passersby and the local media. While the 300-foot barge posed no danger (and eventually freed itself), two local television stations produced stories about the odd sight. They interviewed several residents, including Wes and Fran Allison (Junonia), who took a cameraman out on their pontoon boat to get a closer look. Remarking on the riverview from Junonia, Wes told the reporter, “It’s like living on a cruise ship.”
By pure coincidence, the September 2001 issue of Money Magazine chose this month to publish an article which compared living at Shell Point to living on a cruise ship. Telling the story of an 82-year-old British woman who retired to the Queen Elizabeth II cruise liner, reporter Stephanie Smith then sought out to do a literal comparison between the QE2 and the “creme de la creme” of retirement communities, as Shell Point was called. While Shell Point doesn’t serve 2,400 pounds of caviar each year (as the famed cruise ship does), we like to think that our 1,600 residents prefer Shell Point as their home.
