THESE PEOPLE ARE UNPROFESSIONAL AND DO NOT DO THINGS ETHICALLY If you are a renter in Galveston and are looking for a property management: DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE!!!! When we arrived the house was very very dirty (we actually took pictures). We called Castaways and they were short and slightly rude, as if we were making it up. So I sent them the pictures and they finally admitted it and had a maid come out SIX HOURS LATER!!! Then we found out they charge us $50 (!!!!) for a bag with ONE roll of toilet paper! REALLY??? No apology, would not call us back - just terrible. read more

Want to warn you in advance.... We just returned from a week rental in Galveston in the Pirates Beach area. We rented a Castaways property and found them easy to rent from. We never spoke with anyone, only communicated by email and paid with a credit card. The home was in a great location and close to the beach, but that is all that I can say that was a positive in this experience. Castaways does not allow you to pick up keys until 4pm and not after 5pm. O, you have a 1 hour window or you pay a $30 service for late pick up. We got to our rental home at 5:30pm, excited for the week. We went into the house and immediately noticed the furnishings were very worn down and actually quite stained. Even the throw pillows on the couch looked bad. The floors were linoleum squares that were stained and after walking around without shoes, all of us had black, dirty feet. Yikes! We had only been in the house for an hour. We decided to make the best of it and poured a glass of wine and went to sit on the patio. View to the beach was nice and we started planning our week. We sat down at the patio table and one of the chairs immediately lost a leg, when we pulled it away from the table. Clearly, it had been that way and made to look like it was not broken. Dinner was fast approaching, so we made our way into the kitchen to make an easy meal. The refrigerator was so dirty,I quickly decided to clean it before I would unpack anything or start a meal. There was not a sharp knife in the entire kitchen or even a cookie sheet to bake a frozen pizza on. The evening passed and we started to get towels out of a laundry bag that was part of our 'linen service'. There were two laundry bags and we found that one of them held sheets and one held towels. It is not fun to make beds at 9pm on the first night of your vacation, when you assumed that 'linen service' meant that towels and sheets would be on the bed and in the bathroom! There were pillows on the beds but they were very thin and I went to check the closets for extras. I found 4 extra pillows but two of them had substantial water stains and smelled musty. The other two pillows had large blood stains on them. Needless to say, we did not use them. I share this review with you so that you will know that Castaways Rental and Realty does not have a good Housekeeping standard and that the homes they rent do not need to be updated, well stocked or functional. I did call the next morning to report the pillows, dirty floor and refrigerator, broken chair, and unmowed yard. I was told that their policy requires that you call in housekeeping issues within your first hour of occupancy on the same day and they would not do anything after that time. I was told that pillows and lawn furniture were the responsibility of the homeowner and they could not offer any assistance. We spent three nights there and jumped ship. It was too much to deal with on a vacation! read more

Big letdown... We rented a condo in the Pirate's Beach community in Galveston for the 4th year in a row but this year we used Castaways. They had a home that was 4 doors from the beach, which was a great location with a large deck that had a great view of the beach...all good so far. After driving in from Dallas we were so ready to get our stuff unloaded and get to the beach. Upon arrival, we discovered the A/C was not working and it was 96 degrees and the usual high humidity outside. Not a great start. We also found pots and pans in the cabinets that were not cleaned and corroded. The sofas were dingy with stained pillows and the extra linens were more of the same condition. To their credit, the rental property management company sent a repair person over to fix the A/C within a few hours and we were told the unit outside was so dirty that he wasn't surprised that it didn't work. The manager that we dealt with came by to survey the conditions and took it upon herself to go buy new pots and pans for us to use and brought us extra towels so that was appreciated. So, at the end of day one, we had new pots and pans, extra towels, working A/C but missed our time at the beach. There's always tomorrow. ...and that is where it went downhill from there. After going to the beach on day 2, we of course had dirty towels and swimsuits to wash for 12 people. So the laundry was started in late evening and we put the clothes in the dryer and went to bed. We discovered the next morning that the dryer didn't dry the clothes at all, so we had to hang-dry towels and swimsuits in the morning and we called in a service order. On day 3, the service tech came out to repair the dryer and said he would have to order a part and would be back on day 4. Four days without a dryer. Lots of hang-drying clothes. The room on the ground level was infested with rodent droppings especially in the hot water heater cabinet and an A/C wall unit that was corroded and covered with dirt. The room smelled moldy and some of the ceiling tiles were moldy as well. The floors in general on both floors were never swept and dirty. The pantry in the kitchen had "stuff" on the floor that resembled droppings as well. The spacious balcony had recently be repaired in certain areas, but numerous railing pickets was ready to fall off and we had small children that could have fallen through. One railing was so loose if it was leaned on, surely someone could have fallen over the edge. There was a nice outdoor dining set...I say is "was nice" because it wasn't sturdy any longer with chairs that were about to collapse so that didn't get any use. There was another round patio table that had one leg rusted and broken so that table didn't see any action either. The house had lots of potted plants that would have been nice provided they had not been dead. The "outdoor shower" was merely a pipe connection to the main line plumbing so if one used it to wash off, the showers and kitchen sink had no water...I would love to get in the mind of the plumber who engineered that system....really? The house had no curtains in the living areas and our only way to close off the windows was to roll down the metal exterior storm shutters, which were rusty and a pain to move up and down. Maybe that's typical, but a set of drapes would have been nice. AND, we called in all these complaints and the answer we got was that they were sorry and we asked how often they inspect the properties for use to which we were told ONCE EVERY WINTER. Seriously? What is the property management company being paid to do here? I thought rental management companies tried to ensure the quality of the properties they rent so that things like what we went through don't occur. Wow, maybe quality control is too high of a bar we set for ourselves but we were seriously disappointed. AND here's the kicker...we were told the owner of the house stopped by before we arrived on day 1 to apparently have a look at things...really? you sure? Owner must have been at the beach because they didn't see anything. I guess their standard of living differs from ours. We got 10% knocked off the rental cost. Not enough to appease...should have been given 50% off for our trouble. A family vacation that was not good as it should have been. Next year...Hawaii! read more

So, we have only made it to the reservation part of our vacation coming up. But so far the ladies at castaways were very friendly & helpful! Kindness goes a long way! I am looking forward to our experience being wonderful, more to come... read more

I have been renting from Castaways for last 7 years. My best friend and I meet for a week and our favorite area is Sea Isle. We have run into minor problems before but that is not always the fault of the company, sometimes things happen even in the most upscale rental places. There have been many times we arrived early, bought our groceries, and called the office and they allowed us to check in hours early. I can only say I have always had a great times with this company, this is why I keep coming back year after year, as I have already booked my stay for July 2016. The ladies in the office..... your doing a great job, keep up the good work. See you in July. Donna Garrett. read more

We rented a beach house, Summervilla, during Labor Day weekend that was awfull. When checking in Friday, Castaway Proprtyies said the office would be closed that weekend. The problem was the air conditioner failed when it got to be 90 degrees outside. The air filters were filthy and did not appear to have been changed all summer. There was a sign on the refrig stating that if the air is turned down, the compressor freezes up and you have to turn off the air for 4-6 hours. The control was set at 77 and on the first afternoon the air failed. The air never came back on, even after off for over 6 hours. When it cooled down to 82 outside it stayed 88 inside. Castaway advertises full service rentals, but notified us one day before rental checkin that they left clean sheets for us to put on the striped beds and that we would need to bring toilet paper, paper towels, trash sacks ect. It was Labor Day weekend, so the yard needing to be mowed was not that big of a deal. You should not rent this house At Priates Beach - ocean view. read more

If you're planning a beach vacation to Galveston, DO NOT rent a beach house from Castaways Resort Properties. Three of our closest families booked a vacation, and paid a pretty penny, back in May. We all have special events to celebrate...one couple is taking a long awaited late honeymoon, we're celebrating our 10 yr anniversary, and another family is celebrating a special family trip. We've been planning, buying things for our vow renewal ceremony, cake was ordered and paid for, and then today we got a call that the homeowner does not want to leave for the weekend, and we will be getting a refund. They refuse to make things right and put us up somewhere else. If they do find an available home, they want us to pay for it. They refuse to return phone calls. This is a clear breach of contract, but they dont seem to care. AVOID CASTAWAYS RESORT PROPERTIES. They cancel reservations and refuse to return phone calls. read more