Would have loved to give this property a 5-star rating, but continued pool/hot tub issues dropped it to a 3. I'll start by outlining the pool/hot tub issues and finish by explaining why this is a 5-star property if they can fix the pool issues.
We arrived on 12/24 around 7:00 PM. Even though it was Christmas, communication with the owner was great. Upon arrival, we had a couple simple questions that she answered quickly. We unpacked and went out to the hot tub to relax after our long trip. Unfortunately the hot tub wouldn't heat up. I contacted her again and she said she'd turn the pool to 91 degrees and the hot tub to 101 degrees. She said it would take about 15 minutes for the hot tub to warm up. After 1 hour it hadn't warmed up at all so we just decided to skip it and go to bed.
Over the next 5 days we went back and forth on possible issues, but the bottom line is that she controls the heat for the pool and hot tub from an app on her phone so it's very cumbersome to try and troubleshoot issues. At first, she thought the issue was the cold air temperatures (even though other pools were working just fine), then possibly low water levels, then issues with the app. By Wednesday evening (mind you we were leaving Friday morning) I finally expressed my disappointment with her commitment to resolving our issue. We talked on the phone and she told me about an override on the side of the house that allows me to set the hot tub temp manually. THAT WORKED so we were able to enjoy the hot tub Wed and Thursday night. However, I question why that option wasn't given to me on day 1 or 2 and furthermore it didn't fix the pool water temp so we didn't get to use the pool at all during our stay. We paid a premium to get a house with a heated pool/hot tub and out of the 7 nights we were there, the hot tub worked 2 of them and the pool was unusable for all 7. I feel like we didn't get what we paid for.
Other than the pool issues, the house is immaculate. We have rented 5 VRBO's in the past four years. I'd say this house was the best stocked of all of them. Towels, linens, ample toilet paper, paper towel, well stocked kitchen (utensils, pots/pans, spices, oil, cooking spray, etc), plenty of TV's, clean rooms, bathrooms......top to bottom-probably the best house we rented. The grilling area on the lanai was awesome - top notch grill, a flat top cooker - plenty of propane. We loved the house and neighborhood.
ONLY disappointment was the pool.