Lacking Basic Amenities for Comfortable Stay
Submitted: August 22, 2012
Stayed: June 2012
The apartment is beautifully situated with great beach access and nice view. Overall, a nice place to stay. But the apartment was essentially "stripped" of the things that one expects when renting a home away from home.
For example, if you want to cook in the kitchen, you'll find the tools, but not the extras. Salt, pepper, and two bottles of balsamic vinegar were all that was in the cupboards. Run out of paper towels, no extras. Want to take the garbage out mid week, no extra garbage bags. Do a load of laundry, no soap. Run the dishwasher, only enough soap for one load. Wrap the leftovers, no plastic wrap, foil, or anything. Tell the time, dead batteries in all the battery-operated clocks. Essentially, if you need it, you'll have to buy it. I've stayed in a number of homes listed on Home Away and never encountered this before. Most places have built up a collection of basic kitchen items as people buy then leave behind. I suspect here, whatever is bought is taken away again - I know I did. Of course one cannot expect a fully-stocked kitchen, but if the owner spent $50 at Walmart to pick up a few extras it would make for a more comfortable stay for all -- and start the collection growing.
It should also be noted that the beach is only a part-time beach. When the tide is up, the beach is gone. Apparently this is true for most of the island, and it did not matter to me, but beware if you are planning to spend long days on the beach.
I did enjoy my stay and the condo is in a great location. The property was clean. Check in and out is handled by a real estate company and was easy. It was just the petty annoyances that started to add up.
Owner's Response: We are happy that you enjoyed your stay in our condo, that it was clean, and that you appreciated the great location. I was sorry to learn that you missed some basic items such as spices or vinegar, washing powder or trash bags. As far as food items and washing powder are concerned it has been our experience that our renters prefer to use their own and bring those along or buy them on the Island. We did provide those earlier on but they were either unused or there were left-overs from renters' own supplies adding up. Not a good collection! Nobody seemed to be interested in either using somebody else's left-over items and what was left behind did not seem to be very appetizing.
However, there should be a supply for items such as garbage bags or similar to last for a one or two-weeks stay. This is the responsibility of the cleaning company and we will check with them to make sure that such supplies are indeed in the condo.
As far as the beach is concerned St. Simons Island is well known for having a very high tide and that consequently the Southern Part of the beach is covered by water part of every day. The exact times can be seen in the Tide Table that is published inside the Island Information brochure. The nearby Massengill Park Beach or East Beach are available all day though and can be easily reached with a ten minute walk or a five minute bicycle ride.
Helpful votes: 3/3
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