First what went right:
Room: Furthest away from the restaurant FloraBama. You'll want this because outdoor live music until 2AM only works if you plan on being up that late daily. The view of the ocean was ideal for us. We could see the waves come in but had less innate fear of a high balcony with small kids. The sinks were deep, the shower was powerful, and the couch did fold out into a bed, which we used. The dishwasher was a newer model and it did well with our dishes (of which there were plenty provided). The furnishing were adequate for the most part; it wasn't luxury but that wasn't important to us.
Phoenix 10: Walking distance to one of the prominent restaurants in Orange Beach, no DD required! Indoor pool was great, kids loved it - outdoor pool was good too - these were well maintained. The staff were as helpful as they were allowed to be.
Now what didn't go right:
Room: We had stayed in a Phoenix (V) before but it was private owned, when a small problem arose, the owner got back to us next day and remedied it for us, our vacation was not impacted. This room is owned and maintained by BRGC. We didn't understand that would be a problem until it was. The room was still dirty despite the multi-hundred dollar cleaning fee attached to the room. There was a used toothette flosser in the bathroom (could still be there for all I know, it was on top of the shower where I didn't need to and choose not to touch it). The dishes required scrubbing to remove the food of previous renters from them. While its tacky not to clean your own dishes, I had hoped the cleaning staff would have picked up the slack. To be fair, a scrunge was included in the starter package and I used it so we could cook breakfast the next days. These minor cleaning issues may be a result of there being a short-handed and rushed staff secondary to covid stimulus checks and unemployment.
However, the following issues and why this review went from 5 stars to 3 were the real noteworthy pickups of this review. The kitchen chairs were disintegrating. They were composed of a faux leather that must have been cleaned too many times. The black substance was flaking off on our clothes, the floor, sticking and being tracked around by our feet and shoes. The screen door fell off its tracks and nearly got my 4year old - when I told BRGC about these problems, they said, tell the front staff. I did. Nothing happened since; I hope they fix it for future renters.