After dealing with the horrible water, among other things (broken fridge door handle, etc.), at our Florida rental home I couldn’t wait to contact Great Ocean Condos and let them know how unhappy we were. I didn’t take my computer on vacation – I don’t work while I am on break, but the first time we went back to my son’s house to do laundry I used his computer to shoot a letter to the rental agency, and I told them how disgusting I thought the place was. They ended up refunding $75 to my credit card. That’s it! For putting up with lousy water a week. And we left a day early because of it. Fortunately I had some place else to go – my son’s house.
In my e-mail to GreatOceanCondos I also mentioned that I planned to review the place with photos, which is what I have done here on my blog that gets 200-300 views a day, in hopes that no one else will fall for the photos and description of a less than idyllic place, because it’s also available to rent by the month in winter.
We didn’t let the water issue totally ruin our fun. We went to the beach, visited old friends, and enjoyed the Florida atmosphere. We even rented a boat and cruised the river one day. We’ll go back and rent next year, but I will never use Great Ocean Condos again. They are based in Altamonte Springs which is way inland, so how often do they ever see the places they rent out? Their lack of sending upfront info bothers me. I think I will stick with VRBO and deal directly with owners when renting from now on.
Next year… rental review #2… hope it’s about a really great place.
Related articles
- Florida Vacation Rental House Review, Part 1 (seashellsbymillhill.com)
- The Fisherman’s Cottage Rental, A Review Part 2 (seashellsbymillhill.com)
- Florida Vacation Rental: Fisherman’s ICW Cottage, Part 3 (seashellsbymillhill.com)
- Florida Vacation Rental Review, Part 4 (seashellsbymillhill.com)
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I’ve always used VRBO in the past and have stayed in some wonderful places. I don’t know much about homeaway.com. Maybe someone will chime in. I can’t imagine people thinking for a minute that they should rent out such a nasty place as this – owners or agency. Thanks Jody!
Yeah, that sounds pretty crummy! Thanks for the heads up! I stayed (for years) at the same condo complex on Waikiki Beach. Every year the condos seemed to go down hill more and more. -Same complex, different condo- The last one was so bad that I won’t go back. Still, I’m leery of using an out-of-network owner. I was thinking of using homeaway.com. Do you know anything about them? They seem to be a pretty big network.