Island Getaways — Local services in Chincoteague

Worst travel experience I've ever had with Island Getaways. A fuse shorted and a lamp caught on fire in our rented house (Pinesway). We quickly took it outside and used the fire extinguisher to put it out, luckily before anything (or anyone) in the house was damaged or injured. The company seemed shockingly unconcerned, and the person I spoke to on their emergency line actually said "well, things happen."

As a family who looks forward to visiting Chincoteague every year and always has a great time, we were disappointed by the response to our concerns. We never received an apology. They resisted giving any compensation, and when they did (after a lot of complaining), they held back money for the cleaning fee, which is amazing considering that the house was not in great condition to begin with and how much more of a mess things would have been if we had used the fire extinguisher inside when the lamp caught fire, or if we hadn't got the fire out so quickly.

There were about a dozen other things wrong with the house that were not just annoying but in some cases dangerous, which we would have ignored if not for the larger problem of the fire. A few examples: a large portion of the screen on the screened-in porch was unattached at the bottom, to the point where a small child could easily fall through (we had small children); three inch gap between the back deck and the door to the house which a child could easily fall through, and open railings which meant we couldn't even let the kids out on that deck; leaking showers that meant the bathroom floor was constantly wet; electrical wires protruding from outside of house in the back where it looks like they meant to install a light, but never did (which meant we had to use a flashlight to grill in the evening); dishwasher falling out of the cabinet; no hose to rinse off sandy things from the beach; no hooks or clothes lines to hang wet bathing suits or towels.

On the plus side, the fire extinguisher worked.

For people in the hospitality industry, it's clear Island Getaways does not care much about their customers. My family and I have been going to Chincoteague for 10+ years - there are so many friendly people and great companies there, but Island Getaways is not one of them. Find somewhere else...

Let me start out by saying we’ve rented from this company personally once before and didn’t have too many issues. My family has rented from them quite a few times and their experience was always great. I can vouch for this as well because we came and stayed with them while they were renting. Last year, the check in/out process went smoothly. It stated on the rental home description that there was a sofa bed, but when we arrived there wasn’t one. We called and made them aware and they gave us an air mattress for my son to sleep on for a week. The house was clean but things like toilet paper holders and towel racks were loose and ready to fall off the walls. This year, we got our keys at 3:30 as promised but when we arrived to the townhouse around 4:00 the door was open and there were still people inside cleaning. We had to wait 15-20 minutes outside in the car for them to finish up and leave. We started carrying our luggage inside and up the stairs from the garage (it was a 3 story townhouse) to the first door that entered the townhouse. The people that cleaned had accidentally locked the door from the inside and shut the door so we couldn’t get in and you couldn’t use the house key to unlock it. We called and they informed us someone would be driving back and would let us in, apologized, and stated this had actually happened a few times before. After about 20-30 minutes, nobody had shown up and we had to use a paper clip to essentially break into the house. We thought nothing else could go wrong but when we took our things to the 3rd story bedroom, the duvet that was spread over the bed was warm and soaking wet and left the mattress pad underneath very damp. We called again to make them aware and all they said was that they had put it in the dryer so they weren’t sure how that could have happened. The house was clean and had been recently updated but the pillows available for use were old and stained. I’m disappointed with how things turned out and unfortunately, we will be looking to use a different rental company next year when we vacation in...

We have been vacationing on Chincoteague for over thirty-five years. We first came into contact with Island Getaways when a cottage we had been renting moved from the company we used to use to IG. On the whole, our experience with IG has been very positive. When we first rented from them, the phone in the cottage was not working, and they were very responsive, got it fixed quickly. We have now been renting from them for over twenty years and have now stayed in five different cottages of theirs. They have always accommodated our needs. Most recently, the house we rented had a TV we could not get to work. It took a couple of days but their efforts included a personal visit from one of their office personnel as well as a phone call from the out-of-state owner to make sure our needs were met. The problem was not with the TV. In another instance, I got confused about arrival time which caused us to arrive a day early. They hurried it up and we got in (with no additional cost as I recall). We even got them to arrange with an owner for us to bring our small dog (despite firm statements that NO PETS are allowed.) Initially, we paid an additional deposit, but in later years they didn't even take the pet deposit. I'm purposely not mentioning the name of the cottage. I judge IG not on the houses they handle but on the services they provide to meet the vacationer's' needs, and their services to us have left nothing else to want. I think a rental organization such as IG can be vulnerable to criticism due to the fact that they represent a large number of owners' homes, which can vary considerably in adequacy. But for that matter, we have never rented a house that had any significant problems, such as plumbing, electrical or A/C. I really should give them five stars were I to rate service alone. But sometimes they can seem a bit dismissive or annoyed when a problem is reported. The only improvement I would imagine would be a bit more friendless in personal attitude. So call it four and...