Seaside Vacations — Attraction in Kitty Hawk

I went to the Outer Banks with my family in July 2015. We stayed at the Crystal Palace home on Elm Ct.

Pros: -Good location, only 1 mile from the beach. There is a parking lot right by the beach that isn't too busy.

-The home is in a secluded, quiet area but centrally located between Corolla and Roanoke Island (about a 40 minute drive for each). Also it's convenient to some nice local restaurants and mini-golf.

-Furnishings in the home are updated and very nice.

-Spacious, we had 7 adults and 4 children (1 infant) and had plenty of room.

-The pool was fantastic, and having it indoors was nice. It was refreshing to come back from the beach and jump right in. If you're staying in the summer months, DO NOT pay the $300 fee to have the pool heated. We opted to not do that, and it was plenty warm enough.

-Keyless entry was nice, so we didn't have to keep track of 7 different house keys.

-The reservation process was simple, and the website was easy to use and track our payments that we made.

-The staff I dealt with during the reservation process were very polite and professional.

Cons:

-My brother in law found on the Seaside Vacations website that we had the option of early check in for a minimal fee. So, we arrived early in the morning, planning to be able to check in at 1pm rather than 4pm, since we were happy to pay the fee. So, I called the Seaside office at 10am (the checkout time for the family that stayed before us), and asked how to go about paying for the early check-in. The staff member (Felicia) advised me that the owner doesn't allow early check-in, and then rather rudely informed me that under no circumstances were we to arrive at the property early. I had never suggested that we would! I felt that she handled the situation poorly, given that I asked a simple question, and then accepted the answer she gave me. I felt that she was implying that we'd just sit in the driveway and tailgate or something.

-On the day of our checkout, we were supposed to be off the property by 10am. The owner showed up at 9am and sat in the driveway in her car waiting for the last of us to leave. I felt that was very rude and inappropriate. We paid to stay until 10, no one should have been making us feel that we needed to get out earlier.

-The downstairs bathroom had a significant amount of hair in it. Clearly it had been hastily cleaned. Also, there was a lot of sand on the tile floors in the living room and kitchen areas.

-Only 3 rolls of toilet paper were provided for the entire week, even though the home's capacity is 10 people.

-We didn't get much use out of the backyard, because there were so many bugs, due to it being in a wooded area. That's the trade off for good location.

-The volleyball net wasn't really a usable amenity. It was so close to the fence that there's no way you could play without hitting the ball off of the property and into the woods, never to be seen again.

-The outdoor shower did not work. We made a maintenance request, and someone did come out the next day to fix it. However, even with those repairs, it still would not turn on. -The owner showed up unannounced our second evening there to inquire about a "report" of a broken toilet. No one in our party had made such a report. She was very friendly and appeared to want to be helpful, but it was odd that she would show up for a maintenance issue. She also came the next day to perform some maintenance on the pool, and left her direct phone number to contact for any further issues. We found that confusing, since previously our dealings had all been with Seaside Vacation. -The checkout procedures were not listed anywhere in the house. When I got home, I found an email with those procedures, dated the day before our departure. It would have made more sense to have them in the home, however, since I wasn't checking my emails during my vacation.

Overall, we enjoyed our stay, however the concerns listed above were significant. I don't regret staying at this particular home, but I certainly wouldn't do business with Seaside...

This was our first time using Seaside Vacations , and our first time in Rodanthe. We booked our trip online and conducted all transactions via e-mail with Seaside, with the exception of one phone call. The only problem we had was that we were given incorrect information in an e-mail about an amenity at the property, but Seaside did the right thing and made good on it. That was very much appreciated!

The property itself is in a pretty good location, with close access to the beach, but left much to be desired in terms of cleanliness, decor, and routine upkeep. It was not as clean as you would expect, with dust bunnies rolling around from under the beds. There was sand/dirt behind a dresser in one of the front bedrooms, the ceiling fan in the living room was caked in dust, and the vents were in need of a filter change, especially the one in the ceiling on the top floor. (There were filters there, but a note on them instructed us NOT to replace them). We ended up vacuuming the dirt/dust out of it. Many of the baseboards in the bathrooms were dirty.

The house looked like it had been renovated/updated at some point and was done very cheaply and it showed. The decor was sparse and what was there was lacking. There were large scuff marks across one of the walls in the living room presumably from the papasan chair that could easily have been cleaned and/or painted over. The floor on the top level in the dining area was unlevel and "coming up" for lack of a better description, in many spots. It also looked like it was covered in glued on vinyl. There were multiple nail heads popping up on the stairs, as we discovered while walking barefoot up the stairs one day, (Ouch). Beds were very low to the ground and not very comfortable. The best part of the furnishings was the large dining table and the navy blue console table in the living room. The kitchen was fairly well stocked, but for a house that sleeps 10, could use a few more pieces of each dinnerware/drinkware. I would recommend the owner do some routine maintenance and a thorough deep cleaning. Also recommend putting blinds on the windows in the front bedrooms in addition to the sheer curtains. The sun shines brightly and right through early in the mornings.

Beware on a "good wave" day, because the local surfers will descend on the "cul de sac" with their cars and bikes, along with lining the road leading to the house with their cars and bikes. They congregate right out in front of the house, changing clothes and waxing their boards. Not a very relaxing atmosphere when you are sitting out on the deck and there are upwards of 25 of them. There are 2 signs stating "No Parking Any Time" in that little "cul de sac" area that went ignored. Not sure who is supposed to enforce or police that, but they did not.

The view from the top floor deck was pretty good. You could see the ocean, but not really see much of the beach from there. Sunrises and sunsets from both front and back decks were stunning however, as was the moon over the ocean! On our last day of vacation, an unoccupied house not terribly far away collapsed into the ocean early that morning, and we were met with lots of debris floating in the water and contractor clean up efforts on the beach that day.

My family of 3 are not big fans of the Outer Banks, but this trip was for our parents and OBX is about as far as they were willing to travel due to age and some health issues. They have owned a timeshare in Duck for more than 40 years that they can no longer enjoy. All in all, it was nice to spend time with my family, but I would not recommend this particular property until some of the issues were addressed. I also would not return to Rodanthe. We have no issue with Seaside Vacations but will likely not use them again as we prefer the Georgia/Florida beaches now that we are living in Coastal Georgia. I would recommend others to use them.

Photos attached of some of the issues with the house. And one each of the beautiful sunset and the moon...

Ultimately, we had a great vacation. Were there things we noted that could have overall improved our stay at The Hideaway? Yes. But not all of those things are in Seaside Vacations ability to change--and when I did call them with concerns they were polite and quick to send someone over. First, let me explain that we found our rental rather last minute, so it was not our ideal location. However, the house has a great floor plan, was pet friendly( with hardwood floors on first level), and offers convenient parking near the beach (lot is tucked back in heavy foliage so it was easy to miss at first). However, with all the rain this summer, the mosquitos were plentiful and made it almost impossible to enjoy the decks/porch outside this house--certainly no one's fault. But this seemed to be made worse because the lot is very "natural" and not really landscaped (once you were on the street there were less bugs, so I do believe this had a lot to do with the care of the yard, and that there was a basin--a birdbath maybe?--that was teeming with mosquito larvae in the backyard). There were also plentiful cockroaches seen on the siding/decks trying to get in. Now, I've lived in the south previously, so I am well aware of what it entails. I did not go in search of any living insects inside (I was almost afraid to look, especially after reading other guests mention signs bugs in the guestbook lying on the coffee table), but we did have a dead cockroach behind the hall bathroom door downstairs--and there seemed to be a sticky residue (perhaps the house had been sprayed recently?) along the baseboards there. This really concerned me as we have small dogs and children. We decided to keep that door closed, and thankfully we saw no more dead (or live) bugs indoor with the exception of a few black millipedes that got in somehow. We also had to call Seaside to let them know the front exterior door handle fell off (to which they promptly sent someone over to fix) and to report that we were not getting cable in the bonus room downstairs, and the one and only DVD player in that room would not play (a disappointment, but honestly we didn't come to OBX to watch movies--and luckily the weather was nice so we could be out enjoying it). We've stayed in the OBX several years now, and we've never had an issue with a house being ready for us. I was very satisfied with Seaside Vacation staff that helped me book and handled our issue of the door--however, I did not have confidence in how this house was "cleaned." Besides the dead roach, the lower master bathroom had a remnant of bar soap left on the side of the sink--not my idea of clean...and I am by no means a neat-freak. This home had its charms (great quiet loop road location, well equipped kitchen, and plenty of room for many more people than our family of 4), but the experience could be improved by a greater attention to detail (by cleaning staff) and perhaps a little more TLC for this home (from the homeowners, as its obvious that the bathroom pics are ommitted because they could stand a facelift...even if the masterbath was cleaned, it didn't look it because of the stained grout and old tiles). But as I said, we still had a fantastic trip, as we always do in OBX. I am willing to give Seaside Vacations a try again (even with what I said above, although we most likely will not rent this home again as we prefer staying a bit further...