Coastal Palms Vacation Rentals — Local services in Dr. Phillips

The night before we left to drive 9 hours to Kissimmee for our Christmas vacation, I got an email and phone call from Bonni and Brian that the house we'd chosen to rent was no longer available and they were changing us to a different property. When we arrived at the new house, it had a horrible odor and one of the smoke detectors was chirping. We took out the battery and opened the windows. I emailed that night to let them know we were having issues with the house but didn't hear back. At 3:45 am the smoke detector started chirping again. We had to go buy a new battery to make it stop. I called in the morning and left a message about the smell and smoke detector but never heard back from anyone that day. During our 4 night stay, the AC unit upstairs stopped working and flooded the carpet between 2 of the bedrooms. The smoke detector went off every morning at some point before we were awake. But the worst issue was RAW SEWAGE backing up in the primary bedroom on the main floor--yellow liquid in the bathtub and brown solid in the shower. I made numerous calls and sent emails throughout our stay. I heard back from Bonni on day 3 and 4 that someone would address the smoke detector and sewage issues but neither was fixed when we left. This rental was such a disappointment and not at all what we were planning on for our family vacation. I had chosen a house in a resort area where we could take advantage of the amenities (lazy river, pools, workout room, etc) but this "new" house had none of those things. And because of the smell, broken AC and noise from the pool pump next door (it ran loudly our entire visit except for the last night), relaxing and hanging out at the house was not an option. I have emailed Coastal Palms since we've been home but there has been no response. And no effort on their part to reach out to a customer who obviously had a bad stay because of their property choice. This was definitely not the "luxury experience" promised on...

I would never book again with red awning and coastal Florida rentals they are quick to answer calls and emails until they take your money. The house we booked at encore Resort 7708 Fairfax in Kissimmee Florida had issues from Jacuzzi not working, no cushions on the pool chairs (just the metal base), leaks in living area coming from the bathrooms, broken fridge draws, broken ice machine, bulbs missing plus plus. I have pictures of everything. Called the company a hour after we arrived, they made all promises but never came through. They simply lied and wouldn't reimburse us a penny. The only thing they changed was the bulbs. This house is far from elegant, pictures are deceiving, it's run down and ugly. Do not use this company, you cannot trust them. I guess there's a reason this house is for sale, so many nasty reviews. The property manager Bonnie sawyer is a waste of time. She lied every day and promised someone was coming to handle the issues. One guy came by and took pictures after he installed the light bulbs, we actually made him take pictures. I have all the calls and text saved for proof between Bonnie and I. She promised to call but obviously called once during our 8 day stay and ignored us when we tried to call back. I probably reached out to her 10 times and left voicemails but she gives 0 customer service. Stay away from this company if you know what's good for you. I travel 3 times a year to Florida and have always used jeeves and top villas with 0 issues. This was bad...

VERY DISHONEST! STAY AWAY!! We booked a vacation rental in Orlando with Coastal Palms around 15 months in advance of our family trip to Orlando and paid them a significant deposit to secure our reservation. We then booked flights for our entire family, reserved car rentals, bought theme park tickets, etc. A year after we had made the reservation, we received a notification from Coastal Palms Vacation Rentals that our rental reservation was cancelled. Bonni informed us that they had to cancel our reservation because of a change in ownership, and then they immediately relisted the rental property at a higher rate. Sadly, we've learned that this is a fairly common tactic used by rental agencies to raise the rates on customers after they book the vacation rental.

At that point, we were certainly not going to play along with this company's extortion, but we had already spent almost $8k (aside from the vacation rental) on all of our family's flights, tickets, etc., so we had no choice but to look for a different vacation rental. Of course, at that point there was far less availability than when we had booked our original rental and we then had to pay around $2k more as a result of our original rental being cancelled by Coastal Palms Vacation Rentals.

Needless to say... companies like this should not be in business, and if they are, then nobody should be...