The house is beautiful, but the management company ruins the experience quite a bit. The communication and service is terrible. RESEARCH Surf and Sound Realty, which is the management company. Perhaps they don't identify themselves here because they have many bad ratings.
1. After booking via vrbo, Surf and Sound sent email requiring payment electronically on a SEPARATE WEBSITE than vrbo. I did not want to use a separate website but was concerned about the non-refundable deposit. This means that if you have a dispute you have NO PROTECTION from a 3rd party as the funds are not held with vrbo, as expected with agreements on this site.
2. Check in is at 6 pm, which is the latest I ever saw.
3. Based on the lost day with late check in (and driving from NJ), we planned to arrive around 10 pm. The confirmation email indicated that clients must to go to the management office in a nearby town to check in and get the keys. I emailed and called for two weeks to try to ensure our late check in was OK. They do not answer their phone! I left a number of messages. Finally, the day before the trip I tried a different phone extension for new bookings. I was getting the idea that they are more interested in getting bookings than dealing with clients that already paid. I got through. The good news is that they had a keyless entry and we could arrive at our leisure. However they had absolutely no reason, remorse, or kindness about the lack of response and just generally unfriendly
4. Cleanliness wasn't great. The place looked clean but had a musty smell. The carpets were not well vacuumed - I got glass shard splinters in the bottom of my feet while sitting at the dining table. It's also worth noting that when I called about check in, I asked about comforters because they weren't supplying linens. The sales rep said bed coverings are available, but that they are not regularly laundered. I am glad they admitted this! Although, I wouldn't like that answer even if it wasn't during COVID, so we brought our own.
4. No gas in the grill when we arrived. The "welcome" pack instructs renters to go to one of their locations in another town to swap the propane tank. We called to ask if they would bring it since it was never supplied in the first place. They ignored our voice message. We purchased at a gas station that was close by after a day of no response.
5. Pool is cold. $500 extra to heat it.
I could go on, but there is a character limit. Hope this helps others!