PEACEFUL AND QUIET

Guest: Penelope (Broken Arrow, OK)
Date of Stay: 10/21/11 Review Submitted: 10/27/11

The house was nice and comfortable, pier was solid to walk out to covered deck on. Clean and kitchen was well stocked with "utensils". We caught a few blue crab. Great place for a family. Beautiful sunsets!! About an hour away from the Gulf. Would recommend taking the time to visit downtown Fairhope. We ran out of time and drove through on our way out...wished we had driven through sooner!

Owner response:We are delighted that you enjoyed your stay! Your are so right that Fairhope is worth a visit. It has wonderful galleries,restaurants and such unique shopping.Hopefully you will stay with us again and have more time to discover Fairhope.

Recommended for:Sightseeing, romantic getaway, families with young children, families with teenagers, age 55+.

Loved your bay house!!

Guest: Kathryn (Mobile, AL)
Date of Stay: 08/19/11 Review Submitted: 08/22/11

We just completed a three-day stay at your bay house and loved every minute of it! The house was so clean, comfortable, and beautifully decorated! Air conditioning kept us very cool, inspite of the high-90 temperatures outside. The grounds were in good order. We really appreciated how you supplied all the basic things we needed, including the paper products. The pier was great; we had no concerns about our young children going up and down the pier unassisted. All of us enjoyed the waterfront scenery and the safe bicycle trails in front of the house. We were located close enough to grocery and department stores, yet enjoyed the quiet solitude of the location. The only hint we would give future visitors to the house is this: Those who want to go to bed early should stay in the guest house. Sound travels very well throughout the main house. Our group included folks, aged 7 years to 90 years. Your agent was so nice. She responded to phone calls and emails quickly and greeted us warmly when we arrived. Instructions for assistance and for end-of-visit clean-up were communicated well. We hope to stay with you again next year. Thanks for a great visit and for providing a place that was perfect for our mother's 90th birthday celebration! We would gladly recommend this property to future visitors. Dr. Kathryn Griffin and Family

Owner response:We are delighted that you enjoyed your stay in our cottage and were able to enjoy the peace and tranqility that the Bay has to offer. We do hope that you will come back again!

Recommended for:Sightseeing, romantic getaway, people with disabilities, families with young children, girls getaway, adventure seekers, families with teenagers, age 55+.

Thank you for sharing your cottage. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

Guest: Our time on the bay (Mobile, Al)
Date of Stay: 04/07/11 Review Submitted: 04/13/11

We rented your cottage first week in April and thoroughly enjoyed our stay!!! So tastefully decorated! We found it very comfortable, and "exceptionally" clean. I especially loved the cozy cottage decor and feel to it, very warm and inviting. Our purpose for our stay was to celebrate a special birthday with family on the bay. And indeed it was a great memorable experience. We enjoyed the sunrise and sunset on the deck, we fished, crabbed, and swam while cooking out (that was when I would get dumped out of the hammock). We even saw a couple of dauphins very close by. The guest house is another great plus. Although we did not need to use it, we found it to be just as inviting as the house. Overall we spent a very enjoyable time and look forward to coming back. It is just, if not more, as the photos display it. Thank you for sharing your cottage.

Recommended for:Sightseeing, romantic getaway, tourists without a car, families with young children, girls getaway, adventure seekers, families with teenagers, age 55+.

not what I hoped it would be

Guest: Lea (Mobile, AL)
Date of Stay: 06/12/10 Review Submitted: 08/03/10

This house was NOT what I would have chosen had I seen it before our arrival. The pier is not in good shape, and it has no built in seating or elecricity, so taking kids out there at night is impossible. There were nails sticking up out of the pier that my husband had to hammer down, and a piece of one of the walkway boards fell into the bay while we were there because it was rotted. The house is okay, but not "extensively renovated." The air conditioner is not adequate to keep the house cool (not my words, but the actual words of the repairman who came to see why it was 85 degrees in the house when we had the a.c. set on 65). We live in Mobile, AL, so we know that no matter how hot it gets, the air conditioner should cool it to the temperature you actually set, not struggle to keep it below 80. The refrigerator broke, which the owner could not foresee, but was not repaired until the day before we left, so we had to bring over our own mini fridge to keep from going all the way up the steps to the guest house every time we wanted something to eat. This wasn't the owner's fault, but it did add to our dissatisfaction with the pier and the house temperature. She did offer us a little extra time at the rental, which we could not do with our schedule, but would not refund any of our money in place of that offer when I asked her to do so. For the price, I expected better.

Owner response:We were so disappointed to read this review as it is the first negative feedback we have had since we have been renting out our home.It was a real shame that the the fridge needed repair during the stay and unfortunate that the new part had to be shipped which caused further delay.There is a second fridge in the guest house but we know this was an inconvenience which is why we offered additional days at no cost to try and compensate for this.As for the AC, we stay in our bay cottage as much as possible over the summer and we have never had a problem with the AC:We paid for an AC company to go out twice during this rental week to double check that there wasn't a problem. However the living room is harder to cool during extremely hot weather due to the large west facing windows which take the brunt of the afternoon/evening sun: we find that keeping the shades down and the ceiling fans running helps a lot. We have also now installed solar shades in the living room that cut down UV rays by up to 90% so we believe that the problem has now been addressed. We have taken care of the loose board which tends to be part of the weathering process on the water especially after storms.Ours is not a typical rental unit;it is full of original art and vintage furniture and may be not for everyone. We take great pride and joy in our bayhouse and love the fact that so many of our renters share such happy and precious memories with their families and friends whilst staying on beautiful Mobile Bay.We are so very sorry that these guests did not share that experience.

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