We had a great week in Gulf Shores, Alabama! The condo met our needs. There were 4 of us in the condo, two adults, an 8 year old and 6 year old. It’s not the Ritz Carlton but all we really did in the condo was sleep and bathe. We were in town for our sons baseball World Series that we played at the Orange Beach Sportsplex. We seemed to be centrally located to everything. We drove to The Hangout but it is definitely walking distance.
GOOD:
-Direct and quick beach access.
-Condo is fully stocked with everything you would need for a week (cookware, dishes, coffee pot, towels, toilet paper and paper towels-though might be smart to buy some extra, broom and dust pan, shower towels, sheets for master, fold out couch and extra bedroom, rotating floor fan in master)
-Both pools are great. My kids preferred the pool that had the beach walk in area and was shallower than the other pool.
-Friendly on site staff.
-Free wifi that worked great.
-Two full bathrooms (part of the reason I booked this room).
-AC worked great.
-Washer and dryer worked great. We put both to use a lot during the week washing baseball uniforms and towels.
-How water for numerous showers. Just don’t run the washing machine and shower at the same time. That will give you warmish water in the shower. Easy fix, start the washer after showers.
-Dishwasher works.
-Bring trash bags with you. I’m always shocked at the amount of trash we produce. The unit comes with two trash bags.
NOT SO GOOD:
-The entry door does not have any locks from the inside. It has a keypad on the outside of the door so people can’t get in but nothing to keep kids inside. Our 6 year old has Down syndrome and is a “wanderer” and the entry door has a paddle handle which she is able to open on her own. The “kids” bedroom is directly by the entry door. Since there were no inside locks on that door we couldn’t let our daughter sleep in that room because the chances of her escaping in the middle of the night were VERY high. She loves water so we were anxious most of the week. We would move a bar stool in front of the door every night in an effort to keep her from escaping. She also slept with us in the master so we would know if she got up in the middle of the night.
-The balcony door has no lock on it either. Flat out not lock on the inside or outside. Again, that made us anxious with the kids. The balcony door is very heavy and was not easy for our 6 year old to open. Our 8 year could open the balcony door on his own.
-You have to make sure the entry door is completely closed after opening and closing. It’s a heavy door and when it shut you would assume it would be closed all the way, but the I guess the mechanism in the door didn’t always catch to close the door? The first few days we would come back from being out and about and you could push out entry door open because it had not “caught” to completely close. We realized this fairly quickly and made sure we pulled the door to coming and going to make sure you couldn’t push it open.
-We were locked out of the condo twice. The first time my 6 year old beat us to the door and pushed a bunch of numbers on the key pad that locked us out for about 30 minutes. We called the lobby for assistance and they told us to wait 3-5 minutes and try again and if that did not work they could come let us in one time but if it happened again then we would need to contact Vacasa. After three rounds of waiting 5 minutes for the keypad to reset we finally go it in.
-Our last night there we were again locked out of the condo for two hours. Super fun with two kids. I’m not sure how we got locked out this time but it did seem the batteries in the keypad were dying. When trying to punch in numbers, each key would beep when you pressed it. The keys weren’t beeping anymore. We waited the 5 minutes several times ...