Gulf Coast Vacation Rentals — Local services in Bradenton

Regarding Rising Tide, 4113 Durant Street, Port Charlotte:

To the nameless Gulf Coast employee who responded to my review—I am sorry to inform you that your attempts to make yourself look superior have failed miserably. First of all, I have no idea how you could have misconstrued my comments to indicate that we have had 11 people staying in this (disgusting) house. It is beyond uncomfortable with just the THREE people and one small pet that we have had staying here. My comment referred to the fact that the bedrooms are jammed full of beds, with no other appropriate bedroom furniture or lighting. If sleeping 11 people is “a violation of occupancy rules and TLC’s,” then I suggest that you instruct the owners to remove some of the extraneous beds from the premises. Secondly, apparently your “further investigation” failed to reveal that the pool cage was replaced over a month ago. During the time that the cage was missing, the pool stayed consistently green. When the pool was vacuumed last week, at my request, it was the first time that it had been vacuumed since we took occupancy of the house in early April. Dirt and leaves continue to enter the lanai and pool because the sweeps on the pool cage doors are too short. Thirdly, as to the window debacle, there are numerous windows and one slider panel in the house that were clearly installed improperly. Both we and the air conditioning techs who have visited the house have noticed gaps that fail to seal the house properly against that pesky Florida heat, not to mention bugs and worms. The problems with the windows have nothing to do with hurricane damage and will require significant repairs. No contractor is going to rubber-stamp this work with a “permit approval.” Finally, I will point out that we have tried to be proactive in notifying Gulf Coast about the problems with this house. I have made multiple requests to be contacted by a member of upper management, particularly following the posting of the notice on the garage door back on June 22nd. I would have been happy to have had a reasonable, rational conversation if anyone had responded. It was not until I posted public reviews yesterday evening that I got any kind of response. We do appreciate the account manager visiting the house this morning and taking note of repairs that are needed. Unfortunately, my opinion of Gulf Coast Vacation Rentals has dropped considerably due to the nature of your written response.

This property leaves a lot to be desired. For one week, it might be tolerable; two weeks would be challenging; longer than that is unendurable. It certainly would not be comfortable for any length of stay for the 11 people it is set up to sleep. The owners obviously refurbished the house with an eye to making as much money as possible while investing as little money as possible, with little regard for guests' comfort. Most notably, they have been cited by Charlotte County for failing to get permits or after-the-fact inspections for the windows that they installed, and the management company has obviously failed to follow up with them regarding these infractions. The windows, sliders, and doors gap, allowing heat, bugs, and worms to regularly enter the house. On warm days, the indoor temperature consistently reaches 81 degrees. Those who have children or pets need to be aware that the yard is extremely uneven and consists solely of dirt and weeds, and the house is located on a busy through-street. The pool and lanai are dirty. TV service is extremely limited and does not support apps for any streaming services. The bedrooms are crammed full of beds and have no furniture pieces for storage of folded clothing. Anyone who prefers to sleep with a blanket needs to bring their own, as none are provided. Our notifications to the management company about problems have gone largely unaddressed, and requests for contact from upper management have...

Call for information on our reservation. Marge was great answering questions and providing information for our upcoming trip. We really appreciate her efforts and quick response.

After stay review: We rented the Beach House Residences Unit 1 during March 2025 with a family of 8 people (6 adults, 2 children). The unit had plenty of room and everyone had their space to enjoy the beautiful unit and wonderful Siesta Key. We had a nice time enjoying the private pool and the easy access to the beach. Unfortunately, we experienced a number of issues during our 7 day stay.

Communication with the property management company was a problem and required us to continuously request information and report unresolved issues. Additionally, there was no guide/instruction about the unit regarding beach access, parking space, check out timing, etc.

Upon arrival the unit was not ready and had to be cleaned. The cleaning staff did a great job turning the unit around quickly, but we had to finish the laundry to have clean towels and bedding. The unit was not scheduled for our arrival, and we got access 2+ hours later than promised.

The laundry dryer never worked efficiently and continuously turned off. It required someone to monitor the drying and continuously restart the machine multiple times per load. No effort made to have fixed.

A toilet on one end of the unit did not flush appropriately. We had to figure out a workaround to make it flush. A work ticket was turned into maintenance and no effort was made to fix it.

The televisions never worked as specified. There were cable boxes, but controllers did not work. We had to stream everything from our devices or sign into our accounts. Again, a ticket was submitted with no action taken by their support team.

Having the private pool available was great, but during our stay routine maintenance was required and the kids lost a couple of hours of play time. This we understand, but also during our stay a service company came to check for a water leak. This work was not shared with us and the service took another 3+ hours during the middle of the day where no access was available. Again, the management company did not communicate, and no effort was made to explain the situation to us. Sounds small but in the big picture just another issue not resolved. This type of work should be preformed on the owner/management company time, not on the guest’s time.

The unit lacked plates and eating utensils in the kitchen.

The private beach access was nice, but the space available for guests is very small and limited. The condominiums on the beach area surrounding the designated area were aggressive in questioning your presence and even challenged on one day our right to use the space and accused one of our party of stealing towels from the resort. This was not shared prior to the trip even though it was a question asked at time of reservation.

The interaction with the support team was very disappointing in the effort to solve issues. Almost daily the response to requests was a ticket was turned into maintenance, and they were waiting for scheduling. Additionally, we got access to the unit late per the designated check in time and were denied extending our check out time on leaving day. No effort was made to work with us, and we were basically told to get out our cleaning staff would be there, which was not the case.

I would not hesitate to recommend the unit for proximity and comfort, but the experience we had with the management team was very disappointing and their willingness to address issues would keep me from returning to the unit. When you spend a significant amount of money to reserve an expensive unit for a family you expect things and communication to match the compensation. It this case it did not and was very...

Rented a villa in Cape Coral, which was a holiday we had saved up for and looked forward to for over a year. At the time of booking all was good, easy & straightforward. We paid our deposit and thought nothing more of it. It wasn’t until after the hurricane in October that I noticed things started getting a little strange. The villa completely disappeared from the website, I emailed 3 times over the next 2mths, not wanting to hassle them as we knew they would be extremely busy, but we were curious as to whether or not we needed to find another villa in case the one we had booked had been damaged. Eventually I had to ring them to get any kind of response. Apparently all was fine and the villa would be ok for us to stay in, in June. We then heard nothing until April when I had an email from the saying they would be taking the balance from my card. Unfortunately I had needed to order a new card so the number wasn’t correct, and again, I sent 3 emails, all of which were ignored, asking for someone to contact me as I needed to give them new card details. Again, I had to call them to get any kind of response. I did at this point have reservations as to whether the villa even existed!! Eventually holiday time came, and we had been sent details of an app we needed to download for all the access codes - this did not work and I had to again ring them to get the door code to gain access to the villa. Once in, the villa was beautiful, but very hot and the air conditioning would not cool to anything below 75*. The owners car was locked in the garage so we couldn’t access that, and their boat was moored to the dock - something that the villa advert said we could have access to, if we wanted to hire our own boat - something we were looking forward to doing. And the pool……… well on first glance it looked beautiful, apart from the fact that it clearly hadn’t been cleaned. A film of dirt and bugs completely covered the surface and the bottom of the pool was covered in grime. We called again, to say that the pool hadn’t been cleaned and the filter wasn’t working, to be told that the pool had most definitely been cleaned as it was every Monday without fail, and there wasn’t anything wrong with the pool filter at all. The guy on the phone asked us to send over some pictures which we did. By this time it was getting late and there were no pool lights so we decided to wait until the morning. In the clear light of day the pool was disgustingly, so again we called the office and the guy on the phone, upon receiving the photos, agreed that he wouldn’t let his children in it. He was going to arrange for someone to come out and would sort some kind of compensation for the disruption. We then waited for the following Monday thinking we would have a quick chat with the pool guy when he came to clean the pool, but surprise, surprise, also another no show. Something I doubt takes place at all. Despite numerous emails to the office, we are still to this day waiting for a phone call back. None of our emails have been responded to and they have completely washed their hands of any issue. After arriving we discovered that the villa is now managed by another rental company, who we did pay a visit to, and whilst they couldn’t do anything to help, made a note of all the issues we had. Surprisingly, the email have received this afternoon to give feedback doesn’t work!!!! So in a round up, don’t use Gulf Coast Vacation Rentals for your once in a lifetime holiday, as they are happy to take your money, but in no way happy to help...