CASA DE PALISADES - EXQUISITE ESTATE IN PRIVATE COUNTRY CLUB

A group of 8 Canadian golfers rented this house for 5 nights in early December 2011. In speaking with the owner and property manager, we were assured this house was a comfortable, high end rental house - as she put it "it is the same as staying in a Four Seasons resort". If this is what you are expecting - I would strongly recommend not booking this property. There are other nearby properties that are much higher end at the same price. 1. The furniture is cheap and tacky. Think - old black leather overstuffed sofa and chairs, with room for 3-4 people to sit at one time in one room. Our group of 8 could not all sit together at one time. There are two tables in the house. One in the kitchen and one in the formal dining room. They both seat 6 comfortably. So if your group is larger than 6 (we had 8 squeezed around a table with not enough room for chairs) this is not the rental for you. If you are 6 people or less, or don't mind eating in separate rooms, than this won't be a problem. 2. Many of the fixtures were either not working - or broke during our stay. My 65 year old mother had an entire cupboard door fall off as she was trying to reach for dish soap. The house has very cheap fixtures and is in desperate need of a renovation. 3. The pool and hot tub heater (which we had paid an extra fee to have heated during our stay) were not working properly. We showed up (in December) and the hot tub was freezing cold. The outdoor heaters were not working meaning we could not use the outside patios in the evening. I had gone over all of this prior to arriving - and Connie assured us it would be working. Well it wasn't. This obviously won't be an issue in the summer - but to pay an extra fee for a freezing cold hot tub in December was ridiculous. We weren't able to use it at all. 4. The house is large - but not an open concept space. Again - if your group is larger than 6 it is impossible to be together in the same space at the same time. 5. Beware - the video describing the house contains some false information. The "climate controlled wine cellar" is an empty concrete room. There is no chiller and no racking for wine. Yes there is wifi in the house - but it doesn't work very well. We had to move houses after two nights. It was not a pleasant experience. We moved to a less expensive house, and the owner did not reimburse us the difference in the price. Very disappointing, indeed. There are definitely better high end rentals to be found in this area!