Some of you may know the story of how and why we rented a vacation home for our family trip to Disney World. For those who don’t, here’s the summary: Planned to rent an RV for the trip. Did an RV test rental for a long weekend with our family, daughter, son-in-law and two grand kids. Decided to rent a home for our week-long Orlando trip instead!
As always, we learned a few lessons in the planning and vacation stages. Here are a few tips that might help you in considering and planning a vacation home rental:
- Know your rental goals. There’s a reason — and likely, several — why you’re considering a home rather than a hotel, motel, condo, RV or tent. Think hard about the answer because your home choice and location will depend heavily on your goal. For us — following our RV rental test — we knew we needed more space for grandchildren, better privacy and soundproofing for adults, and sufficient (indoor) bathrooms to accommodate everyone without a wait. Already knowing our destination, we made our selections first on bedroom and bathroom counts. Once we narrowed our options based on those criteria, we focused on our next most important factors, which included convenience to our daily destinations and available amenities. We used VRBO.com (which offers excellent filtering and sorting criteria) to identify a 6-bedroom, 6 bath home on the Solana development just of US-27 west of the Disney complex.
- Check the home and owner ratings. Frankly, Orlando is awash in a sea of private rentals. While we did check a number of other options, again we used VRBO.com for reviews, comments and owner ratings. We found the renter comments to be robust, straightforward, and honest. We eliminated a number of potential choices based on comments (everything from poor maintenance and poor owner response time to spiders, roaches and ants — oh my!). In addition to checking rentals where we had specific interest, we checked others nearby to get a better feel for overall neighborhood conditions or problems. And we picked up a few time-and-money-saving tips along the way for our selected rental, including bringing along extra cleaning supplies and towels from home since we had space in the car.
The Solana Resort community where we rented offered a broad range of amenities including pool, cabanas, hot tub, miniature golf and more, which provided a welcome respite from the park crowds. - Don’t forget community amenities. Our rental home was in Solana Resort, a gated community that includes rental and residential properties. The location and guarded gate cut down on traffic and made us feel more secure. The community offered a clubhouse with pool, cabanas, hot tub, playground, sand volleyball, workout room and miniature golf course. There was food and beverage service available from lunch to closing at the pool — a great convenience with very, very reasonable prices. OK, it wasn’t a golf resort, and neither was it the Ritz. Still, we made good use of these free amenities, especially on our arrival and “rest” day away from the parks.
- You’re doing housework. Unless you opt for regular housekeeping service, you’ll be doing some cleaning for an extended rental. For us,that meant preparing family breakfasts in the mornings, making sandwich and snack packs on several days, and some sharing of dinner duties. I also personally did more loads of laundry and folded more towels on our vacation that I had for the prior six months (hint: Mama’s gotta have a vacation sometime!) If that’s a problem, many rental companies offer full or limited housekeeping service for an additional fee.
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Unless you hire a housekeeping service, chances are you’re going to be doing some housework . - Bring some touches of home. Again, we had the luxury of driving, so we were able to pack our trusty Vitamix blender for breakfast smoothies. Our daughters packed favorite toys for their girl and boys. I stashed away my favorite brand of regional coffee and a few local brews that likely weren’t going to be available in Orlando, plus my travel-size spray bottle of lavender for a nightly pillow spray. Some other items you might consider: personal pillows, your favorite scent of air freshener and your portable music player with an external speaker. (Don’t forget or hesitate to download a white noise app if strange sounds tend to keep you awake.)
- Take house pictures on arrival and departure. Since this is the 201Xs and you’re not paying for film or developing, use a few megabytes of camera storage to avoid potential problems. We had a few very minor maintenance issues during our rental period, and our owner (Michelle) was reasonable to work with. But we also heard (and read) some real horror stories about home conditions, cleaning and mechanical problems, and deposit disagreements. A few pictures at arrival and departure can help to protect you — and the owner — in the event of problems. If you do find specific problems like preexisting damage, items missing from the home inventory, or other items amiss, be sure to capture pictures and provide a written description of the situation. To best protect yourself, submit the pictures and description immediately to the owner and rental management company. If you do it by e-mail, request a receipt or confirmation through your e-mail system and directly of the addressees.
Conduct an inventory on arrival, take pictures, and report any damage or unusual conditions immediately. - Someone is a slob. You know it. Your family knows it. Likely even that one person in your party who is the slob knows it. So be prepared for it. Complaining, harassment and threats aren’t going to change their behavior. In fact, it’s more likely to escalate a tense situation. So if gentle hints don’t work, try kicking their stuff to the side, have another cocktail, and remember you’re supposed to be relaxing.
Someone’s a slob. You know it, and chances are they know it. Kick their stuff to the side and have another beverage — this is vacation!
A Few More Details
Just in case you’re curious, our property was located at 630 Solana Circle, Davenport, FL. That’s on the West side of the Disney area, and away from International Drive, the Orlando Convention Center and the more crowded US 192 area in Kissimmee. We had been Tampa-area residents for 10+ years, and watched this area grow from rural landscape to a bustling X-burb in that period. Traffic isn’t as heavy on the West side of the main entrance to Disney, and there’s still plenty of dining and retail infrastructure.
Generally, our morning travel times (to the Disney parking lots) averaged 30 minutes. We made two round-trips to the airport (one on Saturday afternoon, and another on the following Saturday morning), each of which was completed door-to-door in under 90 minutes — including pick-up and drop-off time traffic at MCO. We also made a weekday trip to Legoland, and one-way drive time was approximately 45 minutes.
If you’re driving in Orlando, be forewarned about toll roads — they’re everywhere! And you want to use them, as traffic (typically) moves faster on the toll roads than on Interstate 4, any of the US Highways, or the other surface streets. To avoid long toll lines and the inconvenience of paying with cash, you can get an E-Pass at Florida welcome centers. They are also on sale at most chain drug stores, grocery stores and convenience stores. If you’re renting a car, ask your rental agency if they offer a toll payment program.
Our House and Owner
I mentioned earlier that we read and heard horror stories about some rental management companies and owners. We were fortunate, and had a reasonable experience with Michelle (our owner: https://www.facebook.com/OrlandoVacationRentalsByMichelle/ ) and Orlando Vacation Rental Service (the management company).
The house itself was “as advertised” with regard to space, layout, pictures and amenities. Precheck-in housekeeping could have used some improvement, specifically floor and kitchen cleaning. So we swept up the floors and rewashed any dishes before using them.
We also encountered a few of Florida’s most prevalent animals — insects. And they were not as cute or entertaining as those you find at Animal Kingdom’s Bugs’ Life attraction. Having been Florida residents for 10+ years, I won’t overplay the presence of a few roaches and ants in kitchen and bath areas. But it’s important to note that the presence of these in any significant numbers points to a housekeeping and pest maintenance problem. In our research, we eliminate multiple home options where the reviews mentioned bugs. Suffice it to say that our trip to the local Publix for groceries and supplies included a can of bug spray.
While we had a minor problem with the washing machine during our stay, both OVRS and Michelle were attentive, responsive and generally communicative. We also reported immediately fallen wires in the garage that made the game room unusable. We were surprised after the rental to have a $25 damage claim filed with the insurance company for bleach-stains on several towels. We didn’t do it, but then, we also didn’t capture it on an inventory at check in. Thus, the owner and insurance company are working out what I consider to be a false and frivolous claim. While we used the insurance option through VRBO.com, we’ve also used previously and had great travel insurance services and reimbursement experiences through Roam Right.
Our Conclusion: Yes, We’d Do It Again!
Would we rent a vacation home again? Most definitely! We had a great time, enjoyed the family, and did it all on a very reasonable budget. That said, we also will continue taking future vacations — without a group of 11 — that are high on service, amenities and luxury.
Next up for our family of three is a 3-week Pacific Northwest tour, that includes a self-guided visit to Denali National Park, a 7-day cruise on Royal Caribbean (a first for us, as we are usually Holland America devotees), a weekend in Vancouver, then 10 days in Washington and Oregon. We’ll be sharing our planning process here. We also welcome any suggestions or ideas for activities through our e-mail.
