Finnishwife
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2006
I am mostly a lurker and I hardly ever post so here it goes.
I wanted to go to Florida for February school vacation. My family agreed to go but with two conditions. First, they wanted to drive (from MA) and the second they wanted to bring the dog. We have a twenty pound Cairn terrier. We think of him as a big little dog.
We love a drive, so that part of the trip was easy. I really didnt want to spend a week in a hotel room so I opted to rent a house. Bringing your pet really limits your housing possibilities. Only two people were willing to rent to us. We went with the aquamarine house from http://www.justfloridavacations.com/index.html . We paid a little over $1100 for a week with Internet and pool heat. The other house we inquired about wanted $1450 for the same size house in the same subdivision.
I was a bit worried. I e-mailed the owner and would get really short replies. For instance, when I asked if thee was a washer and dryer, the e-mail said, Yes, washer and dryer. Its not like I was expecting to have a full blown conversation with them, it seemed like they just werent that interested.
We arrived on Sunday night at 9pm. The house was located in the Indian Creek subdivision. The key was right were it was supposed to be and we let ourselves in. We had the instructions how to shut the house alarm off. We type in the code and nothing happens. It was still red. We type the code in again still the same. We call and leave the owner a voice mail.
The house was much better in person than on the web page. They must not update their web page very often. They had tiled the living/dining room. The carpet was new in the bedrooms. The furniture was updated. We were pleasantly surprised. And most importantly, it was clean.
The house had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The garage had a pool table and an air hockey table. We paid for WiFi which worked great.
Oh course, we were hoping that the police werent going to show up since we couldnt shut the alarm off. They didnt
I sent the owner a text message the next day. They said they knew the security system wasnt working.
My husband went to use the master bathroom and the toilet didnt flush. It needed water in the tank. He filled a bucket in the bathtub and low and behold when he turned on the bathtub water, the toilet water filled up. The trick to flushing was to flush and then turn the bathtub water on for a few seconds and then the water filled up. Hey, you do what works.
My 17 year old son, refused to shower in the extra bathroom. Tiles were missing around the water spout. But, his toilet flushed without any tricks. The pool (with pool heat) was fine but the hot tub was green and slimy. There was no way we were going to go into the murky water. I went to do a load of laundry and when I opened up the dryer, it was hot. Im asking my husband if this is right. He found if we ran the dryer on cool, the heat would shut off. If you ran it with heat, the heating element didnt shut off. For my piece of mind, I need to unplug the dryer while we were out. I just couldnt leave the dog there with a dryer that was always hot.
I know I am complaining. The thing to remember when renting a house is, the house is a business and no one takes are of it like a homeowner would. You live with the quirks because you are on vacation. I needed a dog friendly house which isnt easy to find.
All in all, renting a house is the way to go. We had tons of space and a neighborhood to walk the dog in. The grocery store was close by. So were restaurants and fast food. Disney was ten minutes away. You couldnt get a better location.
Would I rent from Just Florida Vacations again? Yes, if I was to bring the dog. .
I wanted to go to Florida for February school vacation. My family agreed to go but with two conditions. First, they wanted to drive (from MA) and the second they wanted to bring the dog. We have a twenty pound Cairn terrier. We think of him as a big little dog.
We love a drive, so that part of the trip was easy. I really didnt want to spend a week in a hotel room so I opted to rent a house. Bringing your pet really limits your housing possibilities. Only two people were willing to rent to us. We went with the aquamarine house from http://www.justfloridavacations.com/index.html . We paid a little over $1100 for a week with Internet and pool heat. The other house we inquired about wanted $1450 for the same size house in the same subdivision.
I was a bit worried. I e-mailed the owner and would get really short replies. For instance, when I asked if thee was a washer and dryer, the e-mail said, Yes, washer and dryer. Its not like I was expecting to have a full blown conversation with them, it seemed like they just werent that interested.
We arrived on Sunday night at 9pm. The house was located in the Indian Creek subdivision. The key was right were it was supposed to be and we let ourselves in. We had the instructions how to shut the house alarm off. We type in the code and nothing happens. It was still red. We type the code in again still the same. We call and leave the owner a voice mail.
The house was much better in person than on the web page. They must not update their web page very often. They had tiled the living/dining room. The carpet was new in the bedrooms. The furniture was updated. We were pleasantly surprised. And most importantly, it was clean.
The house had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The garage had a pool table and an air hockey table. We paid for WiFi which worked great.
Oh course, we were hoping that the police werent going to show up since we couldnt shut the alarm off. They didnt
I sent the owner a text message the next day. They said they knew the security system wasnt working.
My husband went to use the master bathroom and the toilet didnt flush. It needed water in the tank. He filled a bucket in the bathtub and low and behold when he turned on the bathtub water, the toilet water filled up. The trick to flushing was to flush and then turn the bathtub water on for a few seconds and then the water filled up. Hey, you do what works.
My 17 year old son, refused to shower in the extra bathroom. Tiles were missing around the water spout. But, his toilet flushed without any tricks. The pool (with pool heat) was fine but the hot tub was green and slimy. There was no way we were going to go into the murky water. I went to do a load of laundry and when I opened up the dryer, it was hot. Im asking my husband if this is right. He found if we ran the dryer on cool, the heat would shut off. If you ran it with heat, the heating element didnt shut off. For my piece of mind, I need to unplug the dryer while we were out. I just couldnt leave the dog there with a dryer that was always hot.
I know I am complaining. The thing to remember when renting a house is, the house is a business and no one takes are of it like a homeowner would. You live with the quirks because you are on vacation. I needed a dog friendly house which isnt easy to find.
All in all, renting a house is the way to go. We had tons of space and a neighborhood to walk the dog in. The grocery store was close by. So were restaurants and fast food. Disney was ten minutes away. You couldnt get a better location.
Would I rent from Just Florida Vacations again? Yes, if I was to bring the dog. .
