About TV Streaming Like everything in the digital age, TV Streaming is more complex than old-style cable TV (which was complicated enough!). To assist you, here is a guide to how the systems work, and what may be necessary to do if things aren’t working right. For a general guide
When staying in a vacation rental, remember that you’re renting someone’s home. It’s not a hotel. Nor a commercial building. It doesn’t have cleaning and maintenance going on every month, every week, every day, around the clock. It is someone’s home that comes with all of the quirks and challenges
Every guest should be able to leave a 5-Star review. Here’s why: A 5-Star review for a vacation rental property is not an indication of the quality of the property. It has nothing to do with 4-Star or 5-Star Hotel System you may have heard of. Rather, it is an
It has become fashionable in recent years to complain about having to ‘clean up’ when leaving a vacation rental. The typical comment is “I’ve paid a cleaning fee as part of my rental, why do I have to clean the place before I leave?” First of all, you don’t. But you
Hi Robert. I’m just wondering when my security deposit will be refunded. I haven’t seen it on my credit card statement… Thanks for your question. Unfortunately, you are sort of catching us in the midst of some long-term policy changes and the process of updating our information for guests, so
Do you provide AAA discounts or anything like that? What is the best price we can get? Our two vacation homes are privately owned, and self-managed. We don’t provide AAA or ‘military’ discounts because we give everyone the best price that we can. For a hotel to be able to
I’m trying to decide between your properties, and it appears that they rent for similar rates, but my quotes show a big discrepancy for the same dates at different homes. I thought one was bigger and nicer than the other? Why the difference in price? While what you say is
To our beloved guests! In the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic Our Cable Television Provider declared Bankruptcy!! And what this meant for us and guests of our Florida properties, is NO TV cable service as of July 2020. Welcome to the Digital Age! We are completing our transition to Streaming
We ask those guests who simply must smoke to please do so off the villa property. Here’s why… We have a pretty strict non-smoking policy, and we are aware that it presents a challenge for some guests. We get asked questions about it periodically, so here are some details of
If you’re not familiar with Plum Guide, before you devour this information, please go back to the beginning and read the article that is the first part of this series. In the first article of this series, we took a look at the Plum Guide and introduced the concept. In
If you’re not familiar with Plum Guide*, before you devour this information, please go back to the beginning and read the article that is the first part of this series. Before we get into things in detail, know that the Plum Guide is very AirBnB centric; some of their expectations
The Plum Guide* is a London, England based curated website of vacation rental homes. It’s produced by a company which personally evaluates homes using a 150-point test criteria, and then presents them on their own listing site. Their purpose is to do an ‘honest’ assessment of vacation rental homes (reviews
Help is coming for I4, but we will have to be patient, just like anyone must be lately if they use I4 between Highway 27 and Walt Disney World. UPDATE: There is a LOT of good news recently which affects the information in this article. A new post will be
About pool heating at Breezy Oak Villas, and why we charge extra for it. Pool Heating is the most common optional item that our guests choose, and yes we do charge extra for it, beyond our seasonal nightly rates. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of
Thank you for choosing to book our property and stay with us. As our guest, you and your booking are very important to us, and we want to provide you with the best in service and accommodations. In order to book our property, you must complete our own booking form
When it comes to booking a vacation rental, and the charges and fees you pay, the best surprise you can get with your rental is this: No Surprises! We do have some extra charges for optional items that our guests may choose to add to their booking. We realize that
Hi Robert. My husband and I are both retired and are planning a trip in the hopes that at sometime during the four week stay some of our children can visit for short intervals. That’s why we are looking for a house this size. Some of the websites advertise a
After a decade of renting out our properties, we just don’t get as many reviews as we used to. It doesn’t mean we are off our game. In fact, we keep improving the properties and our service all the time! I would love to get more reviews, but it keeps
Ask any vacation rental owner what the best part of owning and renting their property is, and most likely they will reply it is when they get a ‘5-Star’ review from an appreciative guest! There is nothing like that positive pat-on-the-back that tells a VR owner that they contributed to
A few years ago, during the winter months we would place out for our guest’s use a large floating pool blanket to cover the pool water at night. The blanket would float on the surface and reduce the temperature drop in the pool water over night. We no longer use
Thanks for your message and your interest in our property. First of all, please understand that our normal booking deposit is 20% of the value of the rental. However some listing sites, such as HomeAway/VRBO or TripAdvisor do not give us that option. The minimum percentage they will allow is
Requesting an Early Arrival or a Late Check Out? Unless you want to book the additional nights, we can not at this time offer you an early check-in or late check-out, however if we get very close to the dates and those nights have not been booked by other guests,
Occasionally guests who will be staying over the Christmas season ask us about seasonal decorating. This is not something that we have ‘traditionally’ done at our vacation rental properties. Now before you declare us the ‘Grinch’ who stole Christmas, please understand two things: We LOVE Christmas Decorations! We go CRAZY
Ah… a simple question, but a tricky one to answer! In truth, you likely don’t want to be close to the theme parks nearly so much as you want to be able to get to and from them fast, and hassle free. One doesn’t necessarily equal the other. This is
Periodically, I get asked for the specific address of the villa, either by someone curious about booking, or by a guest asking far in advance of their arrival. This always presents a challenge for us… we don’t want to be secretive, about where the villa is… but in a way,
Every once in a while, I get asked about our rates… because, well… frankly, we’re not the cheapest vacation rentals in the Orlando area. We’re also not the most expensive either. Frankly, what others charge is of little importance to us. We’re out to provide the best value in a
If you have seen both of our properties, and are wondering what the differences are between them, this information is for you. Talking about the differences between the two is a bit strange – because in truth, they are far more alike than they are different. So what do they
I received the following question from a prospective guest a few weeks ago. It covers a lot of ground and turns over a lot of worms! Her question: “I’m curious about one thing, most families go and stay on property with Disney (we did our first time too) and claim
One day, in a brief moment of brilliance, it occurred to me that this blog format would be a perfect place to organize and ‘store’ our reviews. We are constantly hearing back from our guests for various reasons, and most of them are very positive communications where they simply want