Emerald Isle — Hotel in North Redington Beach

My two friends and I come down to this area every couple of years, and look forward to our much needed vacation. To begin with, this unit has a great view of the beach. It is blocked on the right by the larger units and their balconies, but the rest of the view is wonderful. Outside furniture consists of plastic chairs with the straps where you sit (and sink through), and a wobbly 3 foot table. We put aluminum under the leg to level it. The paint is chipping pretty well on the deck floor. The sliding door to the balcony is old and hard to get in and out. It is constantly off track and leaves a gap, which allows air to escape from the unit. Speaking of air, the a/c unit needs attention. There is a note on the wall control that says "do not touch", and the lowest it is allowed to be set is 72. We all prefer to sleep in the 62-66 degree range, so if you fall in that category, this unit is not for you. The front room furniture is nice and actually quite comfortable. This is a smaller unit, you cannot sit at the dining table and stools at the island at the same time. The kitchen is very small with limited cabinet space; utensils are sparse. We do like to cook daily while on vacation, and the kitchen is lacking some items. A pie pan, pastry brush and cheese grater are a couple of items missing. Only a couple of non stick pans in the unit, the rest are aluminum and require extra scrubbing. Put a scrubbing pad on your grocery list for this unit! Items here are a couple rolls of 1 ply toilet paper and a couple rolls of paper towel. There were 3 Cascade cubes for the dishwasher. The fridge does not get real cold, but the freezer does. The master bedroom has a king size bed, and previous reviews said the bed was on the soft side. I was excited about that! But to my dismay, the bed had been replaced with a hard one. I woke up at 6 a.m. this morning with a stiff back and not happy! Coupled with the fact that there are only 3 pillows and a thin comforter, it was a rough night sleeping. There are two old extra polyester blankets in the closet, but they have holes in them from age. There are actually a few other shammed pillows, but there are small notes on the bedside tables that say "please do not sleep on the shams". Really?|There are nice sized closets facing each other in the hall leading to the master bath, which is a nice feature. The master bath is a whole different story. It is very small, with a window, and a 30 inch countertop for the sink. That is all the space you get for your toiletries. I guess a man wouldn't mind this limited space, but unacceptable for a woman. Decent shower. There are only 2 washcloths and hand towels, and 4 large towels in each bathroom. So plan on doing laundry every other day in this unit. The laundry is in the hall, in a little room. There are 3 laundry locations for this complex of 24 units, so you have to be flexible on time to wash and dry. The second bedroom has 2 quite comfy twin beds, but the room is very warm. It does not cool as well as the rest of the condo, to the point it is stuffy. We had 2 fans along with the ceiling fan going, and it still would not cool properly. The 2nd bath is the same as the 1st. We grilled out some locally bought salmon (Key West Shrimp Company on Tom Causeway...it was delicious and at a good price!) and purchased charcoal for the one grill located outside the office. The grill is a big beast, gets super hot, and has to be MacGyvered to close it. There is a mini sized scraping brush to clean the grates from the last person to cook, it is definitely the wrong tool for the job. There is a picnic table next to it to set your items for grilling, but don't get too comfy there, here comes the next family wanting to grill and crowding you out of the one spot. The pool was the perfect temperature, but older strap chairs that you sag through, and no tables to place your stuff. The beach is right there, so definitely no complaints about location! The biggest complaint we have is the keys required to move around this property. You have two keys on a ring, one for the doors in the building, and one for the pool and beach. So if you wanted to go to the beach, you need one key to lock your door, the same key to open the door to the exterior, the other key to open the gate to the pool, and the same key once again to get on the beach. The keys are not labeled, so you can imagine how much work it is, fumbling with keys while you are carrying all your stuff for the beach. This system is ancient and unacceptable, and one of the gate locks are stripped. This was the most frustrating part of our vacation. There are no chairs or umbrella in the unit, so we called the office to see if any were available for use. They said we could come to the main office and pick some up...20 minutes away. ||In summary, this unit needs some work compared to what else is out there in the area. It is not comfortable compared to other condos we have stayed. The saving grace is the location and the view. If you don't mind it warmer while sleeping, cook sparingly, and like a firm matress, this unit would be fine for you. I am hoping management reads this and changes some things, spending $2k for a week long rental should give you peace of mind that you don't have to deal with all these easily...

The location on North Redington Beach was perfect! Also, I liked the security @ the building/grounds.|We stayed in unit 604. Liked the fact that we were on the top floor with laundry facilities available! The unit was clean. Some of the furnishings & cooking utensils were very dated...|When we arrived @ the unit, the sliding glass door was ajar & the screen door was off the track. We were unable to close the door. This was a major problem because a major storm was coming...high winds & heavy rain. We had to wait for the handyman to arrive to repair the doors. The screen door remained problematic during our our entire stay!|A cold spell occurred with the storm. The furnace would not heat the unit...it kept blowing cold air! |The 2 top shelves of the refrigerator constantly had pools of water on them.|Some of the cookware was dirty & obviously had not been properly washed. Also, the Teflon coated cookware was very old & scratched! It needs to be replaced! The manual can opener would not work & needs to be replaced!|Since we had inclement weather, we were wanting to watch TV. The TV was not hooked up to Spectrum! An IT guy was in our unit 30-45 minutes trying to rectify the problem! He was not the most pleasant individual!|The light in the laundry room worked intermittently. |One day the lone elevator did not work!|There is no reason that anyone should encounter this many problems with a rental unit! Someone is not doing their quality assurance...

The condo building as a whole is nice with certain condos have parking under roof. Ours was one, that was a big plus in the summer heat. Our suite was beautiful with beachy, but comfortable furniture and beds. The kitchen was really nice and well stocked with silver and cook wear. My only complaint would be the skillets had seen better days but worked if well greased. All bedrooms were spacious and comfy. I only wish the fitted sheet actually fit. It was old and stretched out so it rode up if you moved . The bathrooms were stocked well with towels and clean. We had a washer and a dryer that didn't work, but was supposed to be fixed. We stayed 2 weeks and that was very inconvenient, especially since we counted on a working one. There's plenty of books, cards and puzzles to keep everyone content. My big complaint was, since we stayed 2 weeks it would have been ideal if they offered a weekly bed linen and bath towel exchange. All in all I would definitely rent this condo again. The beach is nice and the water clear. The...