We realize that Harcourts Avanti is highly regarded, so this is likely an anomaly. We do have pictures and email records.
IN ALL our prior vacation rentals, we had only ever contacted the host to say hello upon arrival, and thank you/goodbye on departure. We were at Seascape Sur Unit 166 (SS166 on VRBO), from 12/22 to 12/31/2021, and we needed to contact Harcourts numerous times for important matters.
DAY 1, we found that there was no heat in three rooms. The vents sometimes made noise, but emitted no heat. We also didn't notice, arriving late at night, that there were windows left open, which exacerbated the cold, and we spent a very uncomfortable night. Furthermore, there were no clean towels available.
DAY 2, two bags of towels were dropped off at the door early morning, presumably by Brandon who was covering for Ashley, our primary contact person. By phone/text later that day, he informed us that an HVAC person would come the next day. That same evening, a screen that we had reported earlier in the day as hanging off its hinge on the second floor, kept banging as it was very windy, again making for a very difficult night's sleep. We were also concerned that if it fell off, it could cause serious injury. We informed Harcourts about this the next day.
DAY 3, Victor the handyman, removed the screen. He also helped lock the sliding doors that we had reported to the office. The HVAC man came, but could not fix the problem, which he thought might just have been due to a circuit breaker. We could not locate the box, however. Brandon kindly delivered two space heaters and a bottle of wine late afternoon.
DAY 6, upon our prior request, Ashley sent a refund for two nights via Venmo.
THROUGHOUT all this time, we were wondering why we only had 1.5 bathrooms, when there were supposed to be 2.5. We chose to ignore this rather big detail, because frankly, we were just tired of complaining and thought the only remedy for this would be to move us to another unit, which would have been an additional inconvenience, were it even possible. We thought we would just make the best of it.
On DAY 7, however, the showerhead fell while one of us was taking a shower, hitting him on the back, luckily not the head. We had no choice but to contact Harcourts once again. No one could come on the same day.
DAY 8, Victor came to change the showerhead. When we arrived back at the condo, we were surprised that there was indeed another full bathroom, but it had been locked the entire time we were there. AND, in this BR was a linen closet stocked with clean towels and bath mats. FURTHER, in this BR, was the circuit breaker, that the HVAC man was looking for. In other rentals we've had, there would be locked doors presumably containing the owner's belongings, so we did not find this unusual. There was, incidentally, an unlocked door that opened to a very dirty linen/towel storage room, where we sincerely hope is not where the linens/towels used for guests are stored. We emailed Harcourts and asked for a refund for our entire stay.
DAY 9, Ashley emailed back and said no further refund would be issued and for us to feel free to reach out to VRBO.
ONE OTHER detail worth mentioning is that there is an unmarked step down to the living/dining room and to the small bedroom. The hardwood floor makes the different levels difficult to see, especially arriving at night. We should have been warned about this, as there was a near-fall that occurred.
WE THANK Harcourts Avanti for allowing us a late checkout. Our ride came at 12:30 pm. We tried to follow all the departure directives BUT forgot to remove from the refrigerator one can of beer, an opened carton of almond milk, and a half-consumed platter of fruit. We also could not lock the sliders again. We apologize for this. read more