If you landed on this review, there is a reason why this property is priced below other comparable properties in Carillon Beach: The property owner manages the property from out of state, and does not invest the time, resources, and energy to ensure that his guests have an amazing experience.
CHECK-IN: The information about access to the property is not updated in the mobile VRBO app. If you didn’t bring a computer or printed instructions, your only option is to call the property owner and hope he is available… we walked around the house for 30 minutes until property manager called us back with instructions.
BEACH CHAIR SERVICE: Head to the beach, and if you’re lucky, you’ll find the beach chairs that belong to “Dolphin Smiles”. We walked up and down the beach for another 45 minutes, and when we finally tracked down beach guy, he was not informed of our arrival by the property owner…
CLEANLINESS: If your allergic to dust or a cleanliness freak, this is NOT the property for you… Dust all around TV/major appliances and uncollected trash from previous guest are another sign that the property owner is not paying top dollar for cleaning services.
KITCHEN: When we called the property owner because the kitchen garbage disposal was not working, he called us back to give us instructions on “finding a wrench” to unclog the disposal ourselves… I was not expecting to spend valuable vacation time fixing the owners appliance problems…
BATHROOMS: Blue bathroom sinks show every little piece of dirt… My wife spent a good 30 minutes/day cleaning both bathroom sinks because she couldn’t stand seeing the sink dirty every morning before she brushed her teeth.
BEDS: Every single bed needs to be replaced. All beds (made of foam) are terribly worm down… If you stay there a full week (like we did), you’ll be counting the days to arrive home to sleep in your own bed…
CHECK-OUT PROCESS: 3 days after my check-out I receive an email saying there has been a deduction in my deposit claiming “extra cleaning was needed”. I’ve called/texted the property owner for an explanation or proof of check-out conditions and have yet to receive a response (5 days after checkout). Because this owner is not onsite, owner blindly trusts what the cleaning crew is tells him (cleaning crew makes more money the longer the job!), owner does not take pictures as proof, and passes on his extra costs to his guests… At Dolphin Smiles, I would recommend you take pictures/video