Port Royal vs. Aqualane Shores vs. Royal Harbor

On Naples Bay, three neighborhoods of single-family homes share one thing: every dock reaches the Gulf without passing under a fixed bridge. Port Royal and Aqualane Shores sit on the west side of the bay, Royal Harbor on the east. A sailboat, a sportfisher with a tower or a motor yacht with a flybridge can live behind the house in any of them.

What separates them is price, and the gap is wide. Over the last twelve months the median home sold for about $17.7 million in Port Royal, $9.75 million in Aqualane Shores and $3.0 million in Royal Harbor. Here is what each of those numbers buys, using the closed sales from the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® MLS.

One Bay, One Pass, No Bridges

All three open onto Naples Bay, and the route to open water runs south through Gordon Pass. Port Royal sits at the southern tip of the city with Gordon Pass on its border, the shortest run of the three. Aqualane Shores lies just north of it, between Olde Naples and the Jamaica Channel, with canals cut along the avenues from 14th to 21st Avenue South. Royal Harbor faces them across the bay, south of the Tamiami Trail, and its boats run south down the bay to the same pass.

Naples Bay’s four bridge-free waterfront neighborhoods. Map by Alpizar & Company.

A fourth bridge-free neighborhood, Oyster Bay, sits beside Royal Harbor and is mostly condominiums and villas with boating from about $300,000. For every boating neighborhood in the city, bridged and bridge-free, see our guide to Naples Gulf access homes.

The Three Markets at a Glance

Sales are the twelve months to September 30, 2026, and supply is the homes for sale on October 1 measured against that pace. Port Royal moved $628.9 million on thirty sales, Aqualane Shores $279.4 million on twenty-seven and Royal Harbor $89.3 million on twenty-two. The year’s highest prices were $55 million for 4296 Cutlass Lane in Port Royal, $20.9 million for 1731 Gordon Drive in Aqualane Shores and $15.15 million for 1640 Dolphin Court on the bay in Royal Harbor.

What the Water Is Worth

Within each neighborhood, the position on the water sets the price as much as the house. Over the two years from September 2024 to September 2026:

Port Royal trades almost entirely on deep water. Forty-eight of its 58 sales sat on the bays, basins and canals behind Galleon Drive, Rum Row, Gin Lane, Spyglass Lane, Fort Charles Drive and Admiralty Parade, at a median $18.3 million and $2,946 per square foot. The interior and lake lots on Lantern Lane and Half Moon Walk, without a private dock, are the entry point at a median $9.5 million.

Aqualane Shores splits three ways. Homes on Naples Bay or a basin sold at a median $10.45 million and $2,437 per square foot, canal homes at $7.24 million and $1,723. Homes with no water at all, on Gordon Drive and the streets nearest the beach, sold at $10.1 million, above the canals, because the new estates there sit a short walk from the Gulf and Third Street South.

Royal Harbor is a canal neighborhood with a bay edge. Thirty-one of its 40 sales were on the canals, at a median $2.9 million and $1,139 per square foot. The nine on Naples Bay, looking west toward Aqualane Shores and Port Royal, sold at a median $6.21 million and included all three of the neighborhood’s highest sales.

Land, Teardowns and New Construction

All three are being rebuilt, and in all three the oldest houses sell for their land. Aqualane Shores homes built before 1990 sold at a median $4.38 million, close to what a vacant canal lot brings, and Royal Harbor homes from before 1990 at $2.45 million, below the median vacant lot. In Port Royal, older deep-water homes sold for $8.55 million to $22.25 million, most of them to buyers planning to build.

The distance between the land and the finished house is the cost and time of building, and it is widest in Port Royal, where new estates now set the neighborhood’s prices. For what each neighborhood’s land has sold for, see Port Royal lots and teardowns, Aqualane Shores lots and teardowns and Royal Harbor new construction and lots; finished new homes in Aqualane Shores are on our Aqualane Shores new construction page.

Supply and Room to Negotiate

Port Royal is the most balanced, at about seven months of supply. On the water, buyers paid a median 92% of the original asking price against 81% a year earlier, and price per square foot rose about 18%. Below $20 million there is little to buy; above $30 million buyers have time and leverage.

Aqualane Shores has more than a year of supply, about twice Port Royal’s, and two-thirds of it is on the canals. The median sale closed at 83% of its original asking price after 174 days, and in September two homes that started high sold at 51% and 66% of their first price after nine months or more.

Royal Harbor carries almost eleven months, with sellers asking about 40% more per square foot than buyers have paid. The market is tight below $3 million, where older canal homes sell near land value, often to builders, and long above $5 million. Its sales come in a short window: thirteen of the year’s 22 closed in February, March and April.

Clubs, Associations and Daily Life

Port Royal is not gated, but security patrols run around the clock and a voluntary property owners association enforces the deed restrictions. The private Port Royal Club, with its Gulf-front beach, pool, tennis and dining, does not come with the house: only eligible properties carry membership, which must be claimed within 90 days of closing. The initiation fee rises from $400,000 to $500,000 on January 1, 2027. Little Harbour, a guard-gated enclave of 34 homes, sits inside the neighborhood, and the Gulf-front estates along Gordon Drive and Bay Road are a market of their own, covered on our Port Royal beachfront estates page.

Aqualane Shores has no mandatory association, only a voluntary one at about $100 a year, and no gate. Its northern streets are a few blocks from Third Street South and the Saturday farmers market, and the Gulf beach is a few minutes away on foot or by bicycle from most of the neighborhood.

Royal Harbor also has a voluntary association and no gate. Its streets are named for game fish, from Snook Drive to Dolphin Court, and the Bayshore Arts District and the Naples Botanical Garden are a few minutes away, with Fifth Avenue South across the Tamiami Trail bridge.

All three are in the City of Naples, ZIP code 34102. Aqualane Shores and Royal Harbor have no architectural review board, so what a neighbor builds there is decided by City zoning, building and flood rules.

Which One Fits You

Port Royal suits a buyer who wants deep-water bays wide enough to turn a large yacht, the shortest run to Gordon Pass and the option of the Port Royal Club, with a budget from about $6 million on an interior street and typically $15 million and up on the water.

Aqualane Shores suits a buyer who wants bridge-free boating with Third Street South and the beach within walking distance, on lots of about a third of an acre, from about $5 million for land and about $10 million for a new estate on a canal.

Royal Harbor suits a buyer who wants the same bay and the same pass for a fraction of the price: a canal home or lot, often under $3 million, or a bay-front home looking back across the water to the other two.

Tell us the boat, the budget and whether you want to build or move in, and we will narrow all three to the streets and docks that fit. Call (239) 438-1102. Each neighborhood is updated every month in our Port Royal, Aqualane Shores and Royal Harbor market reports, and owners weighing a sale can start with selling in Port Royal, Aqualane Shores or Royal Harbor.

Twelve-month figures cover sales closed October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, with inventory as of October 1, 2026; two-year figures cover September 2024 through September 2026. Source: Naples Area Board of REALTORS® MLS. Club fees and eligibility rules change; confirm them with the Port Royal Club before relying on them.

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