Debo's Tiki Hut - OS3E

Nice, but a little underwhelming

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Reviewer's note: This review is a bit subjective as we've stayed at another property offered by Outer Banks Blue previous to our stay at the Margaritaville 2. Despite some shortcomings of Margaritaville 2, we still had a great time on our trip. How can you not when it comes to the Outer Banks? First, the good points: -Proximity to shopping is great. Harris Teeter, Duck Donuts, and a few other useful shops are close enough to walk to. The Timbuck II shopping village is a brief drive (or bike ride) up the road. -The kitchen was pretty well equipped with cookware, utensils, and dishware. There is a crockpot available, a blender, and a nice Keurig machine (there's a regular coffee maker too) along with plenty of other cookware. -The pool area is a nice size. The pool itself will have sun exposure all day as it is sort of offset to the side of the house in the backyard. The patio table in the pool area will be shaded in the evening as it is behind the house (the front of the house is west-facing). The not-so-good: - The king master suite. It's not as spacious as we thought it might be, and a large bath tub and vanity share the same space as the bedroom itself. A shower stall and toilet are in a small room with a pocket door separating it from the bedroom but that's still not enough space. It was just awkward...was not crazy about that setup at all. - The TV setup in this house, particularly in the main sitting/living area on the top floor, is not very user friendly. Each TV has at least 2 remotes...one for the TV and one for the DirecTV receiver connected to the TV. The system in the living area even adds some confusion to it with a DVD player, an audio receiver, and a Logitech universal remote that isn't very user friendly. It would be nice if each TV could just be reworked so that you just turn the TV on and change the channels with the remote. I don't want to figure out how to work a home theater setup when I'm on vacation to relax at the beach. - The grill that this property has is nothing more than one of those little charcoal grills you'd find at a public park or a campsite. If it were a gas grill (like we had at another property we rented from Blue) that would be nicer. - The game room is nice but it has both a pool table and a foosball table in the same small space. Even if the foosball table weren't there, it's still a bit tight to play pool. With the foosball table situated where it is, you almost can't get to one end of the pool table. - It would be nice if the keypad to the house were on the lower door rather than the front door (again, another comparison to the other property we rented). - Beach distance: Margaritaville 2 is listed as 550 feet from the beach, but I wonder how that's measured. The other property we rented listed a distance of just over 600 feet, yet that didn't seem like as long of a walk to get to the beach as it did walking from Margaritaville 2 to the beach. Maybe it's measured "as the crow flies" from a point on the house that is closest to the beach, which would kinda be a little deceitful since you can't exactly cut through properties here. So those are my "gripes" about the property. Again, despite the downfalls, we still had a great time on our trip. The early check-in was helpful too, and the Sunday-Sunday rental timeframe was nice as far as the traffic goes coming in on Sunday...we'd done a Saturday-Saturday rental at the other property we stayed at and it's definitely rough coming in on a Saturday.

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Response from Outer Banks Blue:

Thank you for all this feedback. We will be sharing this with the owner of the property to consider for improvements. Margaritaville is one of our popular properties that many seem to enjoy but there is always room for improvement. Thank you for your input. We also took a look at the distance to the beach. Distance to the Beach (DTB) is determined by measuring, in feet, from the driveway of the vacation rental property to the nearest community beach access and then up to the approximate position of oceanfront properties (which is considered the zero mark). This information is approximate and is not deemed to be a true source of accuracy. We have double checked the distance and find it to be about a minute longer of a walk. We've adjusted it.