Sea And Sound: Beachy Oceanfront Home on West Beach, Oak Island.

We had a great time this week staying! The kitchen was fully equipped, which was perfect for making family dinners. The beach was lovely, not too rough of waves and never crowded. Our favorite part was the back porch, great view of the beach and water! Would definitely come again.

The property is lovely, still quite quirky with that classic "box on stilts" feel but with lots of nice updates. It has a spacious porch and beach access. Really comfortable deck chairs and, that comfort extended to the inside as well, with sofa and chairs that were also quite comfy. Beds were great. Best equipped kitchen I've had in a rental, ever. Our visit encountered some problems, and required visits from the property agent's maintenance crew on 3 separate days, as well as a plumber, and the Town septic crew! My opinion is that problems often occur that can be outside of anyone's control, and it is HOW the problems are handled that are important. All the issues were resolved quickly, transparently, and to our satisfaction. I cannot praise the staff at Oak Island Accomodations enough! The house was lovely, but it was the customer service from OIA that really made our trip perfect.

There are many things to like about this house. The location is amazing--quiet and lovely. The porch is wonderful--we spent many happy hours sitting on it just watching and listening to the ocean. The house is old, but comfortable. The kitchen is well appointed, the beds are comfortable, the bedrooms and living spaces are good sized and the bathrooms are fine. Though perhaps unique to our visit, the issues seem to be with the owner/property management. The house had not been cleaned when we arrived--doing dishes and picking up dirty towels was not the way we wanted to start our vacation. The property manager told us the owner uses a different cleaning company than their other properties and they could do nothing to help us. We asked for someone to come and at least clean the bathrooms, but that never happened. The heat pump was broken as well, so our first night when outside temps hit 40 degrees was very cold. The property manager apparently went around and around with the owner on how to fix it, and it was never fixed the entire time we were there (five days). They did provide space heaters, but we had to drive about 25 minutes to get them as the property management company was too busy to deliver them. The days got a little warm, but the sea breezes kept the place very livable. We are going to ask for the owner/property manager to refund the cleaning fee since we cleaned the place for them, but we are not optimistic. Everybody we spoke to at the property management company was polite and promised to help, but we never saw a cleaner, we never had heat or AC, and we had to take time from our vacation to get the space heaters. Oh, and the water heater was leaking when we arrived--they did replace that!