Days of Heaven

Sanibel Day Spa

2075 Periwinkle Way, Unit 27,

Sanibel Island. 395-2220 or

toll-free (877) 695-1588

Wellness Center of Cape Coral

609 S.E. 13th Court, Cape Coral.

573-4800 www.sanibeldayspa.com

Mother-and-daughter Jeanne Parks and Pamella Attuso's 3,000-square-foot spa in the Periwinkle Shopping Center boasts 10 treatment rooms, a Vichy shower wet room and hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and offers 14 different categories of spa services, including wellness mud, massages, specialty facials, Shirodhara hot oil drips and the Ultimate Bindi, a body treatment that combines Ayurvedic herb-infused oil with steam therapy and Vichy shower. "Our clients travel extensively," says Pamela Attuso. "But they say our services are the best they've had." And residents of Cape Coral are now enjoying the services of Sanibel without the commute.

Sbarra Day Spa

11508 Andy Rosse Lane, Captiva Island. 472-5337 www.sbarraspa.com

Located in an island cottage built in the 1940s and furnished with period furniture, Amy Sbarra Michelland's day spa reflects her love for the '40s. Even the package names fit that era-the Benny Goodman and the Little Rascals, for example. Sbarra offers special half- or full-day packages that combine such services as aromatherapy massage, European facials, paraffin manicures and pedicures, and reflexology. A New York City it girl, Michelland left the bright lights to pursue furniture making and pottery. While she's barely had time for those, she has steadily built her spa business and recently opened a spa room at Tween Waters Inn.

Seaside Day Spa

651 S. Collier Blvd., Marco Island.

393-2288 toll-free (888) 393-4SPA or

www.seasidedayspa.com

Since 1991, Seaside Day Spa has been primping and pampering local residents and guests of the Radisson Hotel that's across the street. Favorite services include specialty masques, Shirodhara and Ayurvedic treatments, massages, body wraps and polishes, and there's a special menu for teen-agers and college students. Specialty services include the Echo2 oxygen treatment using 87 vitamins, minerals, amino acids and enzymes and an aromatherapy slimming-cellulite wrap.

Serenity Day Spa

300 Goodlette Road South,

Naples. 436-6713

It makes sense for a day spa to find its way into a hospital setting. Located in the Wellness Center of Naples Community Hospital, Serenity Day Spa performs facials, massages, body treatments, manicures and pedicures, and even takes its show on the road, offering massage, hair washing and other services to patients and the public in the hospital's Gulf View suite downtown.

Serenity Spa of Fort Myers

16387 S. Tamiami Trail

Fort Myers

437-0122

www.serenityspaoffortmyers.com

South Fort Myers residents of The Forest and Vines communities swear by the Thai massage-a combination of Shiatsu and deep stretching. So do many of the professional ball players who have been known to stop in for an after-game rubdown. Offering four treatment rooms and a hydrotub perfect for mudbaths, owner Denise Vega has expanded the facility's massage-only services since purchasing the business three years ago. Services include body scrubs and wraps, facials and other spa treatments.

Spa 41

4910 N. Tamiami Trail, Suite 200,

Naples. 263-1664

New owners had just purchased the business at press time, but planned to continue the same services-massages, body treatments, facials, salt scrubs and so on. A complete day spa, Spa 41 has five massage rooms, two facial rooms, a wet room and four tanning booths.

The Spa at Naples Beach Hotel

& Golf Club

851 Gulf Shore Blvd. N., Naples.

659-4304 www.naplesbeachhotel.com

Added in a renovation at the historic Naples Beach Hotel three years ago, the spa has nine treatment rooms ready to indulge the willing in a range of light to advanced massage including warm beach stone therapy, body treatments, mud wraps, facials and total hand and foot rejuvenation. Specialties include reiki and hydrotherapy. Fitting for its beach location is an aloe wrap that soothes sunburn, and a pain-relieving seaweed wrap.

The Spa at The Ritz-Carlton

280 Vanderbilt Beach Road, Naples.

514-6100

The 51,000-square-foot spa and fitness facility at The Ritz-Carlton is only two years old, but its 30 treatment rooms have already hosted some major politicians and Hollywood celebs. You have to check into the hotel to use this facility, unless you're one of the 200 members who've paid the $35,000 lifetime membership fee and annual dues. (Twenty memberships are still available.) Delicious services include massages, facials, exfoliation wraps and citrus-and-honey body smoothing with a warm drizzle of oil-it "makes people go wild," says spa director Bob Schrader. Also new: airbrush bronzing that gives the glow of a tan without the threat of a sunburn.

Studio B

16050 S. Tamiami Trail

Fort Myers

454-4772

Tucked away in Horizon Plaza just north of Island Park Road, Studio B, formerly Vichy, is a full-service spa offering custom facials, detox and body wraps, body polishes, massage and "ear candling," an ancient home remedy that purportedly removes impurities and excess wax from the ear canal, and yes, does involve a lighted candle inserted in the ear.

Therapeutic Skin-Care Studio

12951 Metro Parkway

Fort Myers

561-8718

Owner Shirley Horner has been taking care of Fort Myers' skin care needs for more than 20 years, offering spa services long before they became en vogue. "I knew it was coming," she says of the day spa boom. "People from bigger cities travel here and want the same services." Horner's studio does it all-massage, body polishes and wraps. "Everybody's into skin care," says Horner, whose clientele includes adolescents (among them, a few teen-age boys). "It's important to take care of your skin at a young age."

WOMB WITH A VIEW

What's a watsu? I wondered as I wandered into the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point's Stillwater Spa in Bonita Springs. People had told me that this form of hydrotherapy, also called Zen Water Shiatsu, reminded them of being back in the womb, or of flying. But I can't remember my days in the womb-though I recall my mother saying I kicked a lot-and try as I might, I've never flown without mechanical assistance.

After Karen Phillips, spa director, gave me a tour of the Stillwater-lots of treatment and sauna rooms, muted colors and lighting, all Zenfully presented in a less-is-more kind of way-I suited up and met Iris Casteen, a serene-looking woman with friendly brown eyes who introduced herself as my therapist.

"We call Watsu assisted yoga," she explained as we entered the Watsu room. A large skylight capped it, and tall windows looked out toward Estero Bay.

We stepped into the pool-bigger than a hot tub but smaller than an average swimming pool. Casteen strapped floats on my legs for buoyancy, then floated me horizontally, cradling my neck and legs in her hands and arms. Watsu is an art, she said, and I thought of us-large man borne in thin woman's arms-briefly there as a kind of living statue: working title, White Woman's Burden, perhaps.

For 50 minutes, she whirled me in lazy circles through the 98-degree-Fahrenheit water, as if I were some kind of robotic pool vacuum. All the while she massaged my back, arms, scalp, legs, yea unto the soles of my feet.

Pleasantly relaxing and dreamlike, the treatment had a mildly hypnotic, faintly narcotic feel. A weak storm had blown in from the north, and when I did open my eyes, I saw clouds scudding by and palm fronds waving outside. Gently caressed, I enjoyed it, for the moment.

-Daniel Lindley

A SPOONFUL OF CHOCOLATE

Just the mere mention of chocolate awakens a craving in me. So when I heard that Blue Skies Bodyworks on Sanibel offers a chocolate aromatherapy massage, I couldn't resist. Another treatment, the silver- spoon facial, also intrigued me. Both are new to the world of pampering, so owner Bonnie Clancy offered to combine them in one session.

With soft piano tunes and a trickling table fountain lulling me into mellowness, Clancy began the facial with a mask of glacial mud and seaweed. The mud, excavated from the depths of upstate New York, is packed with minerals that extract impurities. Once the mud was removed, I could hear the clinking of spoons behind me. As the curve of the first spoon slid across my cheek, its warmth penetrated. Just as quickly, another spoon, this one chilled, ran across my forehead. Spoon after spoon, some hot, some cold, others lukewarm, glided across my skin. Why use spoons? "They retain and conduct temperature," Clancy said.

Clancy's expert hands moved slowly from my face to my neck and shoulders to begin the massage. I expected the chocolate to be an oil. Surprisingly, it's a cream, one that resembles pudding. "It's like chocolate mousse for the skin," she told me.

After every part of my body had been stretched, pulled and rubbed, Clancy finished with hot oil along my spine, to melt the chocolate.

Once I came to and faced the bright sun of the day again, I realized the experience had only increased my craving for chocolate. Clancy thoughtfully sent me on my way with a half-pound of fudge from Bailey's General Store. Now that's what I call truly indulgent.

-Alysia Shivers

OIL AND WATER

Wanting to be pampered, quite literally, from head to foot, I chose a combination Royal Taj Scalp Treatment and Hydrotherapy Tub at Danielle Spa for Beauty and Wellness in Bonita Springs. It felt like regressing to comfortable babyhood. I shed my awkward layers of clothes, and donned a loose paper bikini, soft and practical. My attendant, Erik, then led me down a hushed hallway to a softly lit room and into a swirling tub.