Dauphin Island Beach Rentals — Local services in Dauphin Island

Debated between 3 or 4 stars and settled on 4. Overall it was a great vacation, and I would say Pelican’s perch would be the perfect beach house for its size if it got some much-needed attention.

Starting with the cons:

1. The ice maker in the freezer did not work. The filtered water from the fridge also came out at a drip, so I associated the two issues. I called this is in on our first full day, and a day or two later someone showed up with the incorrect replacement filter, did no other troubleshooting, and said he may or may not be back with the correct filter that day. He never came back again. The lights in the fridge and freezer were also burnt out.
2. there was mold in the showers and CLR deposits in the tub and around other wet area fixtures. There was also excessive dust on every. single. vent in the house. That was a charitable assessment. I didn’t dare look to closely and fingers crossed it wasn’t also mold. There also seemed to be mold in the washing machine, but I’m not entirely sure what I saw was mold, to be fair.
3. the pillows were all very thin and uncomfortable. The mattresses were also not very comfortable, but I can overlook that pretty easily. All of the quilts / comforters seemed dirty, but they could have just been grubby with age. Although it’s likely a combination of the two. The sheets were clean, so it wasn’t too much of an issue other than it added to the overall feel of neglect with the place.
4. the blinds in the gulf-side bedrooms were the plastic vertical blinds straight out of the 90’s. They were in very poor condition. Don’t expect them to block much light. Some of them are even zip-tied to the supporting bar. The window blinds in the other bedrooms are in decent condition; but an addition of curtains would be great.
5. there is a broken chair on the back deck. This did not affect us because we didn’t have a big enough group to fill the seats anyway.
6. they did not have even the most basic of seasonings available. We did not bring salt or pepper anticipating that there would be a stash there, but there wasn’t. We brought some of slightly more unique seasonings ourselves thinking that we probably wouldn’t have to use them, but they had none available at all. The grocery on the island has horrific prices, which we read about beforehand; but we did have to buy some salt and pepper. In our past beach trip experiences at other locations there was always a stash of seasonings that just kind of lived at the houses. You used what you needed and replaced what you used up. I suppose this isn’t the standard here, which is fine. Now we know.
7. last but not least, the internet went out during our stay. It turned out that the issue was not due to anything related to the hardware on the property but due to some higher order problem. Why do I bring this up, you might ask. Well I’ll tell you. All of the electronics in the house seemed to be Jerry-rigged together in some extremely fragile fashion. When the Internet in the house went out, all of the TV’s and dish network boxes stopped working properly, even after the Internet was restored. Only one of the five TV’s functioned properly after this event. I couldn’t make any sense of it, but maybe someone can.

Pro’s: The location I think is about as perfect as it gets. I think dauphin island has some (somewhat) weird regulations regarding beach access as far as I could tell, but we were able to bypass that with this property. We had private parking on site and a private beach. This property is on the short stretch of the island with only one row of houses on the gulf. Being situated directly on your own private beach was really excellent. The back deck was also lovely to sit on, barring the grubby neglected appearance in line with all of the cons listed above. It was really a near-perfect setup.

Bottom line is that we had a great trip. This house is definitely in need of some attention. If this house had a deep clean and a bit of a facelift, it would be a very easy 5 stars, and I would seek out Pelican’s perch...

Rented the OLD BAY HOUSE from 8-6-22 to 8-13-22. Place has great potential but it was not clean or kept up well. THEY USE VERY OLD OUTDATED PICS ON THE AD!!!!

Outside was overgrown in the (pics posted shwoing nice sitting area) outdoor area. Weeds/plants growing up through picnic tables. Sitting area w fire pit was muddy and had beer cans in fire pit thing. Inside had dust caked on everywhere. I had to wipe off all cieling fans that had 1/4 inch dust on the blades, go buy a mop and bucket and sweep and mop entire floor twice. That still didnt get all the dog hair out. Dog hair on couches and beds. Very disappointed to spend over $4k on a vacation just to have to deal with such OBVIOUSLY unkept and minimally cleaned house such as this! Will go back to dauphin island but will never rent from this company again bc if they arent any better w this house I can only assume the other properties aren't kept up well or cleaned properly either! Oh, almost forgot the construction going on next door...besides the noise the tractor caused ruts which allowed the water pooled up in the street to flow back into the propert causing nasty muddy water to flood the path to the beach area.

*edit in response to owners...

If we had pointed out how dirty things were at the time what would have been done? We drove 7 hours so its not like we would have stayed in a hotel while yall deep cleaned or whatever. Its wasnt dusty bc WE cleaned it up (to make best of it) quite a bit bc we had 4 small babues there we did t want exposed to all that. No point in complaining but have to be honest to warn others of the reality w that property.

As for the construction there should have been a notice so we coukd have made the decision to go elsewhere if we felt that woukd be inadequate for our relaxi.g vacariin, but you knew how unkept things were especially outside (so what's the point of your regrets? If you feel that bad refund %10 or something otherwise save the...

Rented Key Wester and had the absolute worst experience. The house was filthy on arrival. Floors, counters, windows all disgusting. Shower liners covered in mold, food in sink, trash not emptied, dirty coffee pot, water dispenser of fridg filled with mold, one bed wasn’t clean and filled with sand. Cockroaches, lots of cockroaches. The furniture was stained and dirty, the beds didn’t even have mattress pads to cover the grungy mattresses. On entry there was a fly strip hanging from the ceiling and there were nails sticking out of the walls where artwork should be. The walls were even splattered with who-knows-what and there were drawings in many areas. One of the primary rooms had a king bed that was broken. It folded like a taco. The rental company had tried to fix it with 2x4’s but it immediately failed. My guests had to share a double bed at the back of the house rather than the oceanfront king they were promised. Dauphin Island Rentals said the house cleaners would come at 7:30pm so we left and returned to find the house in the same condition. I spent an hour cleaning the house instead of visiting with my guests just to make it barely tolerable. There was a broken kite left on the deck but we couldn’t even throw it way because we had no outdoor trash bins. They promised them by Monday but we left on Sunday. The neighbors gave us one of theirs and shared their sand chairs because our rental had none. We also weren’t warned we’d have to drive through 2 feet of water and climb over a 9 foot sand dune just to get to the house. Finally, there was one extra roll of toilet paper, no paper towels, no laundry detergent, 2 dish washing pods in a baggy, and not a single cleaning supply. Obviously I had to go buy everything to make it habitable and to start a load of towels upon departure. Worst rental experience I’ve ever had. They told me there were no other houses so we were stuck with this disaster. I would...