First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals — Local services in Saint Augustine Beach

DO NOT BOOK WITH FIRST CHOICE FLORIDA VACATION. Cindy is extremely rude and terrible to get in contact with and their cleaning company they use are THIEVES! Long review ahead but because of the multitude of problems…

My family recently took a trip to Vilano Beach, Fl and stayed at the 409 12th Street “Modern Vibe” rental. For it to have the name “Modern Vibe”, it was the farthest thing from modern. All the furniture and appliances were cheap and outdated, the carpet had a mildew smell to it, and the bathrooms were smaller than the ones in cruise ships.

Those were all minor problems to us, however, the problems continued when an extremely loud buzzing sound came from the locked utility room downstairs. My dad tried calling and explaining the situation and asking how to make the buzzing stop. No one was ever sent to check on the house and to turn off the sound, my dad had to mess with it and luckily got it to stop.

The final problem began when we left the rental on Saturday at 9AM for checkout. We accidentally left our Nintendo Switch console, case, and all games at the house. This was realized around noon; we immediately called my sister who fortunately lives in the area and asked her to go back and grab it. When she arrived at the house (3 hours after we left), she could not find the Switch or any of the accessories and said the house had been cleaned. We tried to reach out to Cindy several times and she would not answer my calls and when she did, was extremely agitated and unwilling to help. After a weekend of silence we resulted to asking Cindy for the cleaning company’s information, seeing how going through her was getting us nowhere and she had become incompliant. I reached out to the owner and explained to him the situation. He said he had briefly spoken to Cindy and was aware of the situation and would look for our PlayStation. THE COMPLETELY WRONG CONSOLE. Cindy didn’t even get our information right, so the cleaning owner had been looking for the wrong console the entire time. The owner told us to give him a few days to ask around to see if he could find the Nintendo Switch (the right console) as well as mentioning he had a lot of employees to talk to. Several days later we reached back out and he told us that he “did not find it in the house”, “had not seen it” and “none of his employees have it.” I let him know that I would be filing a police report and never heard from him nor Cindy again.

I realize that I might be digressing, but the absurdity of the situation along with the fact that the business, that I put my trust in, actions actively led to the loss of my property. This is ridiculous and extremely annoying especially when my only contact with the company provided no help and seemed irritated with me every time we spoke on the phone.

In conclusion, due to the incompetence and lack of effort put forth by both parties led to us having a terrible time and even led to the loss of our property. This business is based solely on making profit and does not care about their customers. Our vacation was ruined throughout with consistent problems related to First Choice Florida Vacation. I have completely lost faith with this business and honestly regret ever using their services. I hope that anyone reading this realizes the kind of business that this company is running and decides...

After booking a vacation home in St. Augustine Florida through VRBO one week before hurricane Milton devastated much of the state, I found myself dealing with a representative of First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals for the booking. Initially it came to my attention that the property listing on VRBO did not indicate the cleaning fee in "Price Details" ($446 with tax?). However it appeared to be a great choice for a beach reunion with 8 family members arriving from around the Midwest and Southeast. I received an email form VRBO on Wednesday prior to our arrival date referencing "Extenuating Circumstances" regarding the imminent arrival of hurricane Milton and advising that the property rented was in a mandatory evacuation zone. This email included directions for cancelling your reservation if necessary. The day after Milton traveled completely across Florida, I called the rental company for any potential damage assessment either to the property or the surrounding area including the beaches. I did not receive a return call the entire day, and absent any damage level communication other than internet shown flooding and beach destruction for the area, I reached out to VRBO to discuss cancelling. (I must note that this rental listing did stat no cancellations) A very professional VRBO agent advised that I should expect a full refund and that he would attempt to contact the host. He returned to the line in a few minutes and advised that since it was now after business hours he too had left a request for a call. He also sent an email to the rental agency requesting information on cancelling. The next morning I received a rather pointed email from the agent handling the property saying that it's 2 days until your arrival and other than some wind and rain everything was fine and it's "business as usual". My family members were experiencing difficulty with travel arrangements due to Milton and we mutually agreed to cancel following the advice form VRBO. Again I received an email form the agent saying the evacuation order was lifted and it " business as usual" in St. Augustine. After filing a cancellation notice with VRBO, I received another email from the agent advising there would be no refund as the property was not affected and he would need the home owner to approve any refunds OTHER THAN rent. i.e. $446 cleaning fee for a property never visited or $129 vacation rental damage fee. VRBO appears to have advocated for us and we received two refunds totaling $575 ($212.58 for pool heating that had been requested and paid separately, and a balance of $362.42) I conducted a public record search only to learn that the property is owned by the principle owner of the rental agency. My overall interactions with this business have been curt, unprofessional and tinged with mild sarcasm. it would be my advice to be thorough in your dealings with these...

We rented from First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals via AirB&B and had the worst rental experience. I would never recommend this company, will contact the Better Business Bureau about them, and hope that no one else has to go through what we did. When we arrived at our rental property on Vilano Beach, we were disappointed that the property was not as it was pictured in the photos- it was pretty run down. As we spend the next 24 hours getting settled, we noticed many more issues and we mentioned was that the toilet in the master bath wouldn't flush. Marty denied he'd ever had a complaint and made no effort to address the problem. At this point we realized that the cabinets were full of food crumbs, the furniture smelled really bad and the pool furniture was stained and broken, the rugs were stained and ripping at the seams and there was trash (including a dirty q-tip) in the pool area and human hair floating in the pool. I sent Marty a message with comments about the property and expressing my disappointment and inquiring about my options for checking out after one week. Rather then replying to me, he contacted AirB&B and was, according to AirB&B "adamant" that we be removed from the property the next day at 10am (it was 12 pm). We were not told what we did wrong, we were not given any warning, we had to pack up two little kids and drive late that night to a new location because at this point the situation with Marty felt hostile. We were literally evicted with less then 24 hours notice and lost even more money relating to packages that are expected to arrive today. Marty's hostile attitude was the most unprofessional experience I could possibly imagine. As I reflect, it started before we even arrived as two days before he contacted me and informed me that I had to pay him $200 extra that day to get the pool heated or it wouldn't be done on time. I had told him that I wanted to heat the pool when I was negotiating pricing with him and was surprised it wasn't included in my upfront cost. I was also surprised that the property didn't come with a grill and that it was going to cost us over $200 to rent one....more hidden costs by First Choice. I wish I had read reviews here on Google rather then relying on the AirB&B reviews of the property managed by First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals as I might have been forewarned. Bottom line- steer clear if you want to enjoy your vacation.

*Edited * Marty has finally responded claiming this is false and that I'm stacking reviews against him. My sister has also written a review which includes her perspective as she was also a guest along with pictures of the property. We will let Airb&B figure it out from here based on our documentation and hopefully this company won't be able to do this to...