This inn is a real gem. We missed out on the Living Social Deal, but were able to get another deal where you pay for four nights and get the fifth free. They may have a special deal that is unadvertised, so it's worth asking about. The building looks quite unassuming and small from the street, and it is easy to drive past it. We read that the house is "noisy," so we chose a second floor room that was away from the common area. We awoke before breakfast everyday to walk over to the beach, so we did not experience any noise problems, except for when our neighbors showered late at night. Something that was unfortunate, but I'm sure is not the norm, is that our particular room's air conditioning ducts were blocked, and were unable to be repaired the entire time we stayed (this is the reason for the 4 stars rather than 5). We had the ceiling fan cranked, but during the hot part of the day during August it didn't help much. For some reason, the beautiful purple shutters that are in the photos of the inn were not there when we visited. Breakfast was prepared fresh everyday, and we had a variety of quiche, eggs, muffins, apple fritters, hash browns, French toast and fruit. The meal is the same for everyone, though - it is not like a buffet - and served at 9am. If you have special dietary needs like we did (no meat), Wendy was glad to leave that out of our dishes. Just let her know ahead of time. Her husband Glen assisted and was also very nice. It was relaxing to eat on the deck during the morning. Our favorite thing to do was to borrow one of the Inn's kayaks and go out along the bay. The nature viewing is really incredible. We saw eagles, cranes, heron, pelican, deer, sting rays, blue crabs, horseshoe crab, sand crab, hermit crab, catfish, silver fish, jellyfish, sharks, dolphins, scallops, sand dollars, finger fish, puff fish, squirt fish, pipefish, sea urchins, spider crab, pen shell crabs and snails. (Many of these animals we saw while taking a snorkeling excursion with Seahorse Tours, which is highly recommended! It is the best $30 you can spend - read my review.) The beach is walking distance, a couple hundred feet across the street. The beach is always uncrowded and clean. We found abundant shells during our morning and evening strolls. You have to really look into the water to see some of these things, but we had fun trying to search for all the little animals. Beware of stingrays and jellyfish, though. The interesting thing is that we kept seeing the same people from around the town on the beach, and everyone would always say "hi" to us. Wendy was quite the resource for providing us information about the area. We took side trips to Mexico Beach, which has even more shells than CSB, and Apalachicola, which is small, and has a few more (but not that many more) shops and restaurants than Port St. Joe. There is a hot tub at the end of the dock of the Inn, but the weather was so hot we never had the desire to use it. There is something else that potential visitors should be aware of - which has nothing to do with the quality of the Cape San Blas Inn: This area is boring. There is no direct highway there, and you drive through some extremely sparse/rough areas to get to the Inn. It's something you have to deal with, given the pristine nature of the area and that everything is undeveloped. There is only so long you can sit on the beach before getting sunburnt and exhausted. It would be nice if the town had something - even a small movie theater. The Inn has a few DVDs, but the player in our room did not have the proper remote, so we couldn't use it. All shops close at 5pm, and are completely closed on Sunday, so you really have to plan out every second of your trip or you will die of boredom. We went before Labor Day, and it was surprising how "shut down" the entire area of Port St. Joe all the way to Apalachicola seemed. Driving 15 miles into Port St. Joe for each meal and spending money at a restaurant got old, fast. There are basically three good restaurants (Peppers, Provisions and Joe Mama's) and a Subway, and we ended up going to each of them heavily over the five days we were there. It cost us a lot of money and time, driving back and forth. Thankfully, the CSB Inn is directly across the street from a little store. The food products we bought there were cheaper and fresher than the horrendous Piggly Wiggly (read my separate review). My only complaint about the CSB Inn is that, considering the lack of food in the area, it would be nice if guests were allowed to use the little kitchen upstairs to prepare a meal or two. My advice to visitors is: Bring food that can be prepared in your room, such as sandwich fixings (there is a refrigerator in each room and microwave in the reading room.) If we return, we will not come in August because it was miserably hot, and we will only stay 2-3 days. Otherwise, we had a great time and would recommend it to others.
