The large planned resort community occupying much of Amelia Island's south end, now largely operated as the Omni Amelia Island Resort. Golf, villas, marsh-side trails, a nature centre and oceanfront behind the dune, inside a gated development.
Amelia Island Plantation is the big planned community on the island's south end, developed from the early 1970s and now largely operated as the Omni Amelia Island Resort. The naming is genuinely confusing and worth untangling before you book anything.
"Amelia Island Plantation" refers to the development — the roads, the golf courses, the villa buildings, the gated entrances, the whole several-hundred-acre footprint.
The Omni Amelia Island Resort is the hotel and resort operation inside it. Much of the villa inventory is separately owned and rented through various management companies, which is why you will see the same complex marketed under several names.
If you are booking a villa, check carefully who you are booking with and what resort facilities that booking includes. It is the single most common source of confusion on the south end.
Golf — multiple courses, which is a large part of why the development exists. Tennis. The oceanfront hotel and a spread of villa buildings, some oceanfront, many on the golf course or the marsh. Pools. A spa. A nature centre and a programme of guided marsh and ecology activities, which is a genuine differentiator among Florida resorts.
Restaurants and bars, at resort scale and resort prices, plus a small pocket of independent shops and restaurants at the Plantation and Palmetto Walk shops.
This is the best of the island's natural south end. Salt marsh on the west side with boardwalks and trails through it, maritime hammock in between, and wide quiet beach behind the dune on the east. The development kept a lot of tree cover, so it reads as green rather than built-up.
Families, golf trips, and multi-generation groups who want everyone in one place with a pool and the sand a short walk away. It genuinely works for a week without moving the car.
Downtown. It is ten to fifteen minutes north to Centre Street and its twenty-plus independent kitchens, and there is nothing walkable outside the gate. For some trips that is irrelevant; for a food-and-history trip it is the wrong base.
The development is gated, and the roads inside are private. The beach is not — Florida beaches are public below the mean high-water line — but the walkovers within the Plantation are for residents and guests. Non-guests should use Peters Point Beachfront Park or Burney Park, both nearby with free lots and restrooms.
Resort fees, what a villa booking includes, current restaurant line-ups, pet policies and the status of individual golf courses all change and we have not confirmed the present position. Check directly with whoever you are booking through.
The island's largest full-service resort, occupying a big oceanfront and marsh parcel on the south end within the former Amelia Island Plantation. Golf, tennis, pools, a nature centre, multiple restaurants and direct beach access behind the dune.
Amelia Island's golf is concentrated on the south end at the resort courses within the former Amelia Island Plantation and around the Ritz-Carlton, laid out through maritime forest, marsh and oceanfront dune.
Details unconfirmed
The museum interpreting American Beach, the oceanfront community founded in 1935 by the Afro-American Life Insurance Company so that Black Floridians could reach a beach under segregation. Includes the story of Evans' Rendezvous and the protected NaNa dune.
Details unconfirmed
Part of Areas of Amelia Island — our full guide to the complete amelia island, florida visitor guide.