Occasionally, we read questions online about “beach chairs”. Are they available? Are they for rent? Should I buy some inexpensive beach chairs at Kmart and donate them to a thrift shop when I leave Sanibel to go home

Different hotels, inns and condo associations have different arrangements. At West Wind Island Resort Sanibel beach resort, we offer beach chairs for rent at the rate of $20 per day. While not as inexpensive as buying cheap chairs on your way here and disposing of them at the end of your trip, it has definite advantages.
West Wind Island Resort staff will take your chair – with your name on it – to the beach in the morning, and retrieve it at from the beach at 5:00 PM each day of your rental. Unless you are eager to spend your vacation carrying your chair to and from the beach each day of your rental, you will be relieved to know that someone else will do that for you..
Incidentally, if you take your own chair to the beach, you “must” take it in at sundown. Chairs and other gear left on the beach at night can interfere with nesting turtles by impeding both the mother’s crawl to the nest site and the ability of the turtle hatchlings to get to the water, where they are relatively safe from airborne predators. Turtle nesting season is from May to October and preservation of the nesting sites has a high priority among Sanibel residents and visitors.
You may ask what happens to your chair if you leave it on the beach or leave it in your room when you go home. The answer is that it is picked up and tossed into a dumpster for trash pick-up. So bringing your own chair is questionable when it come to the protecting the environment. Also, most people don’t spend every day sitting on the beach. There are many other things to do on Sanibel. So you can rent your West Wind Island Resort chair just for the days you don’t want to go to “Ding” Darling NWR, the Shell Museum, shopping or being entertained at BIG Arts.
Either way, some of the best beach time is spent strolling or stooping, making a beach chair a side issue.