I read reviews and appreciate all the information that can be gleaned from them. I gave 3 stars not 5 because of Port St. Joe’s policy regarding driving on the beach. The house is 5 stars. It’s comfortable and well equipped, nicely decorated and plenty of room for everyone. Unfortunately for us, the hot tub was not operational for our entire stay, and also unfortunately for us we were unable to use the pool area on Thursday or Friday of our week because of the hot tub repair man was using the only lounge chair by the pool. (I do think the owners should have more than one lounge chair by the pool). Back to the practice of people driving on the beach....I, luckily, have never been on a beach that allows cars. It’s like you are lying or sitting in the street. We set up our umbrella and chairs on the beach, we were sitting a bit in front of our umbrella and a car drove UNDER OUR UMBRELLA! The car was within feet of us! There was no reason for the car to be that close to us. There was plenty of room for the car to drive away from us and there wasn’t another car passing. I called the city to inquire what the actual law is regarding vehicles on the beach and basically you just need a permit, everything else is fine until someone gets hurt, otherwise there isn’t anything that can be done about it. And don’t forget the car fumes! We were trying to enjoy the beach and we are getting fumed and almost run over! You can’t play bocce ball or volley ball or any game unless you are willing to move off the beach and let the cars go by. I would NEVER bring my grandchildren to this beach. It would be like allowing them to play in the street. The house is great, the beach is beautiful but the cars driving on the beach is a pure nuisance in my opinion.
Dawn with Natural Retreats was great with her customer service. She kept us up to date on the hot tub repair and was extremely apologetic and gave us a partial refund for the hot tub not working.