DGS49
Diamond Member
My wife and I are apparently the renters that Florida property owners don't want to deal with. We want to go down for a couple (3?) weeks in February, just to get away from the worst of the Winter.
I have no particular place in mind, although my wife wants to be able to "walk to the beach," and presumably she doesn't mean a 10 mile forced march.
But you go to the various websites that specialize in those places, and they make you feel like a red-headed stepchild. In addition to rates that are VERY high, they play games with you, like,
Any suggestions? We want to go south of Orlando & Tampa, so we are sure to get good weather, and we want to be near saltwater.
I have no particular place in mind, although my wife wants to be able to "walk to the beach," and presumably she doesn't mean a 10 mile forced march.
But you go to the various websites that specialize in those places, and they make you feel like a red-headed stepchild. In addition to rates that are VERY high, they play games with you, like,
- Quoting nightly rates PER PERSON. WTF? Do they rent the same unit to strangers sometimes? This is bullshit.
- They add a thousand dollars in fees and taxes to the "low" rates that are quoted. (The VRBO "Administrative Fee" is particularly galling to me because last year the Owner of the house I rented - a German in Deutchland - stiffed me out of a $350 security deposit, and VRBO told me there was "nothing they could do about it").
- They quote for twice as many days as you put in the calendar. I guess in those cases there is a minimum number of days that is simply not stated anywhere.
- They show you a thousand properties that, when you plug in your dates, are not available (some filter the requests and some do not).
Any suggestions? We want to go south of Orlando & Tampa, so we are sure to get good weather, and we want to be near saltwater.