Carolina Retreats Reviews 

We have booked with Carolina Retreats for years and this was the second time staying at Carolina Cottage. The pool was not clean when we arrived on Saturday and it started turning green with algae growing all over it it was disgusting . They sent someone to look at it and was supposed to clean it and didn’t. They sent the manager that looked at it and sent another pool guy out and he didn’t clean it either. This went on for 3 days couldn’t use the pool at all slow customer service and not resolving the problem quickly so we could use the pool is bad business.

We recently stayed at a Carolina Retreats cottage called A Charm of Finches in Topsail Beach, NC. I have visited Topsail Beach for 25+ years and stayed at a few CR managed homes. This cottage was badly misrepresented in that it had NO view of the ocean from the deck because of vegetation and it sat lower in the dunes. It is an older TB home which we enjoy but we paid the cost of an ocean view with ABSOLUTELY NO VIEW. It’s one thing to choose that knowing what you will get but this was FALSE ADVERTISING. CR was diligent about a few other problems we had like a broken ice maker and a broken toilet seat but the “oceanfront” home was a waste of $. We could have been sound side or one street back with no ocean view for less $. I’m seriously disappointed in their representation of this cottage.

Do not rent from this rental agency. I bought the insurance and they told me I could cancel up until the day of the trip I had to cancel due to my work schedule and I have got to go through all kinds of hoops to attempt to get the money back from the insurance company.And it has been a process, and I still don't have the money.. They should have explained this when I booked

Such a great spot—literally right across the street from the beach! The beds were so comfortable and the rooms were nice and clean. The only tiny things I noticed: no facial tissues in the rooms and no ice trays in the freezer. But overall, a wonderful stay!

Seaship beautiful home but don’t rent until you can be absolutely sure that the construction is over. Yes at the very bottom of our agreement it stated there was some construction occurring across the street. However when you look at the pictures they used online to represent home there is a vacant lot across the street and a house to the left.

You can call it misleading or what I will call it is “False Advertising”! From 6:45AM to close to 7PM or shortly after you will hear loud construction noises and lots of heavy music!!!

No fun to the point we left early because we were sick of it and it was not relaxing! You go on vacation to relax and destress and all this did was the opposite!

We booked a property through Airbnb and made the necessary down payments, only to be informed afterward that there was a "mistake" in the listing. The company then increased the price by approximately $6,000 and refused to honor the original reservation—even though the error was entirely on their end.
They offered no discount, no meaningful resolution, and no comparable alternative. Every other property they suggested was either smaller, overpriced, or both. Their customer service throughout this experience was incredibly disappointing—unhelpful, inflexible, and dismissive.
I’m incredibly frustrated and disgusted by how this situation was handled. This experience has completely eroded any trust I had in this company, and I would strongly caution others to be wary when booking through them.

This review is built upon a vrbo reservation that started terribly. We went to Carolina Retreats office and let them know the issues with the neighbors (not something that was their fault) and they took care of us and seemed like they cared while doing it. Kelli stepped in and moved us to a place where we could finish our vacation in peace and comfort.

Now to be clear, I don't recommend staying down at the Ocean Dunes place.

My family recently had the misfortunate of staying at one of their managed properties in Kure Beach in a condo community we've stayed in several times over the years. We have occasionally encountered minor issues - none dealing with health or safety - and the respective management companies have always responded promptly and accordingly.

This time, we did not encounter such luck. This Carolina Retreats property had a variety of issues - some of which I'm sure were related to ownership cutting corners - but major issues with basic cleanliness/hygiene and health/safety. Amongst the issues with our stay:

1. Upon check in, property management was surprised to learn about a broken floor tile, hole in the wall, and dented appliance;

2. Refrigerator shelves contained crumbs on the surface and had a brown, sludge-like liquid caked under the shelves;

3. Basement level was at 90% humidity and smell was unbearable on that level;

4. Woke up one day with a bug infestation. Was told the house was treated monthly for pests. Pest management company then came & did the monthly threatment while we were there.

5. Mold in the master bedroom walk-in closet. The first solution was to treat with bleach and paint. We initially said no to this as we had health concerns with this occurring while we were in the house. The room was sealed off. Then, the management came back within 2 hours and unsealed it and treated it anyway - setting up a dehumifidier running from the closet to drip in the master bath sink. The room and bathroom reeked of mold the entire week.

These were the things we notified management about; we didn't bother (until my conversation with guest services after the week was over) to mention the long expired food throughout the kitchen, rusted out bar sink, faulty power strips, and repeated power surges while we were there.

All in all, we had 4 separate visits from maintenance to the property while we were there, and the mold odor was never actually remedied despite us relenting to their solution. Also important to note: we also notified property management almost immediately that we had an immunocompromised party.

Upon trying to rectify this with the guest services manager, who apparently works in a different office, I was told the notes in my file reflected that she had staffed this with department heads, that our family DIDN'T LET THEM IN to resolve the issue (a boldface lie), so there was nothing they could do for us.

All of that said: Stay far, far away from Carolina Retreats properties if you value a company that will actually assist you should health and safety concerns arise on your stay.

330 North Shore Drive (Renegade) Surf City. Listed as six bedrooms with five usable. The biggest complaint is the garage level bedroom/bath. To get to it you have to go down open wooden steps through a construction site then step through a puddle of muddy water to enter the room. Of course that was not pictured in the original search. When we arrived, we pulled into a jungle in the front of the house, landscaping so bad opening car doors were tight. After complaining a crew did come out days later to cut most down. Ac filters so clogged, first floor ac was not working correctly. My husband asked for two of them and changed them himself. Be careful using the dryer, the filter screen is rusted and torn and the it is filled with dryer lint. Needs to be blown out. The kitchen refrigerator is very small and at first not working well. Brad, who works in maintenance brought us 2 small refrigerators to have for the week. Wall registers are encrusted in dust, top decking boards need to be replaced, top floor bathroom had soap scum that really grossed me out. Walking off the beach,you have to navigate walking up a dune since the bottom stairs are covered with sand. I would highly NOT recommend this house for a rental. My granddaughter only slept in garage level bedroom the first night. She did not like being down there in the “dungeon”. When (Brad) the maintenance man came, he agreed with us about the garage level living. I asked him about compensation and he told us that “yes” we should be compensated. Emails have been sent back and forth while we were there and he answered quickly. Of course a week later, now that we arrived home my emails about compensation are not being answered. Shame on Carolina Retreats, the owner of this disrepair home and Brad for not doing the right thing!

*Update - I discovered that Carolina Retreats actually charged me for this tray as soon as they accused us of breaking it. They never even allowed us to defend ourselves against the baseless accusation. Thankfully, I remembered I had taken a few photos as soon as we arrived and there, in one of the photos, was the infamous tray. Upon zooming in it was apparent the tray was already broken when we got to the house. I forwarded the photos to Carolina Retreats and received an email the next day stating they were refunding me, and they would use this experience to address their walkthrough and reporting system to keep this from happening in the future. #1 - Housekeeping shouldn’t be the representative to do walkthroughs. Clearly the tray was broken by them, they knew it, and tried to make us pay for their damage.*

We arrived at our oceanfront house and the outside looked great! The inside was not overly clean with large dust bunnies under beds and behind furniture, and I had to remove a giant hair blob from the master bathroom shower. Despite those things, we didn’t complain or leave a bad review of the house itself, because we still liked the house. We did call on Monday when the trash wasn’t emptied by the trash service because the lid wouldn’t close (they apparently won’t empty the can if the lid won’t close). The cans were full of the trash from the previous guests when we arrived on Saturday, and then we had no room for our trash when it was due to be emptied on Monday. They did send someone back to take care of the trash but made sure to tell us they had to pay a fee for it. Well, that’s not really my problem. We thanked them for having the trash issue fixed, and enjoyed the rest of our week. Then, 5 days after we checked out I get an email accusing us of breaking a circle tray (we have no clue what this circle tray is or where it was located) and telling us after careful review, they are charging us $21 to cover the broken tray, we didn’t even break mind you. I am now a lot less inclined to let things like the unclean state of some areas, or the trash situation, or the floors in the kitchen which are in horrible shape and coming up due to water damage, go. That isn’t even mentioning some of the interior doors which are damaged from peeling paint and wood, and trim which is losing paint in sheets. My family has never broken or damaged anything in any rental we’ve rented, and we didn’t start this year. What is different is that this is the first time we’ve ever used Carolina Retreats, and after this experience, it will be the last. Accusing guests that just paid around $7,000 for a house for 1 week, of damaging something as small as a tray (which we didn’t), doesn’t sit well with me.

We were lied to by Brad and told we could not check in before 4pm because the property was not ready, despite it having already been "cleaned." We were told cleaners were at the property, but no one was there. They also told us we could not park at the property while we waited--after having driven 15 hours with our two children under age three. Finally, after sitting outside for two hours waiting (and no cleaners coming), the lock was rusted out and would not unlock at 4pm, and it took over an hour to get inside the property. We were offered no refund or credit for our troubles. Very low-quality experience!

The Copper Top was a nice house that we rented. I think the owners of the property should know and renters should know as well. We rented April 3-6. This property comes with an elevator which our family needed because we had 5 seniors that need the elevator to reach the 2nd and 3rd levels. When we checked in the elevator went up to the 2nd level and back to the 1st and it never moved again. They sent a maintenance person that tried to repair the elevator the best he could which was April 3,2025 but he wasn’t an elevator technician. He put in a call to the office (Sandy) and the office said a technician would be there Friday morning April 4, 2025 to repair the elevator but never showed up. I called the office several times and I spoke with Sandy again. Fast forward no one showed on Friday April 4,2025. Saturday April 5,2025 I reached out to the office (Sandy), I was told unfortunately the technician doesn’t come out on weekends. Unfortunately we got bad end of the deal because our senior family members were confined to only 1 floor of the house. On Sunday April 6,2015 check out 8:45am). I called the office to make sure we were checked out ( around 9:00 am) because we really didn’t trust the keypad checkout system. The representative that answered the call said we were good, the checkout registered and we were checked out way before our check out time of 10:am. I told this representative about the situation with the elevator and how it never was repaired during our stay. I asked her to have your office manager to please give me a call. Evidently the office manager didn’t think it was high enough priority because today is April 17,2025 and I have not received a call from the manager of Carolina Retreats. I realize things happen but we paid in good faith that the elevator would be working do to the senior family members that was counting on being able to move from floor to floor not being confined to one floor. The elevator didn’t really work from day one. Renters beware!!! This is not an exaggeration, it’s 100% true……

House was dirty, full of Flys, and roaches, called for help immediately from carolina retreats only to be offered if cleaning needed to come in. They were not addressing the major issues. We drove from ny and are stuck, we cleaned everything ourselves! We were told they only surface clean! Nothing is washed .
Food on furniture, curtains, quilts rugs. Flys, ants roaches, worst ever!
Name (As You Wish) 1008 s shore rd NC.
DONT RENT! I have photos. I've never had this problem before.

Stay at Topsail Beach in June. They could not manage to get complete AC working from Sunday until Wednesday night. Excuses of under staffed and our AC man is old and can’t reach the unit to repair. The rat poop in the house for several days. Only made a small restitution for our suffering at over 80 for 4 days

Recently stayed at the property “Across the Pond” in Surf City. The house was beautiful, great amenities and excellent location. However, Carolina Retreats was awful to deal with. They were slow to respond and made little to no attempt to resolve an issues we had. In talking with locals, we began to hear from others how poorly their properties are run. We paid additional to have the pool heated for the week and it only worked the afternoon of 2 of the 6 days. They refuse to refund any of the funds. The listing also listed a grill for use— there was no grill and in the end the only thing we got was a simple ‘sorry’ that was our mistake, not the owners. We will stick with renting from Ward.

Rooms are modern and clean for the price and amenities are nice. Also, very friendly people.

Guest Services was wonderful. They treat you like family. Room smelled clean. Love the location and the small front porch. We will be back!

Excellent hotel accommodations at a great value.

Nice and clean. We requested 11am check out due to long drive and they were gracious to grant it. Cute renovation too.

Stayed at The Beach House on Oak Island for a couple of days and the apartment was immaculate. I would rate this place much higher except that we had an issue with the front door code. Our initial check in was fine, but after we left to go to the beach and come back our code was no longer working. The office was closed and there was no after hours phone number posted and the number that I did have just went to voice mail. It was a bit exasperating to say the least. I finally found a number in the many emails and lengthy rental contract that directed me to an emergency number. Finally spoke to a person who relayed my message. All in all we were sitting outside the apartment in wet suits for about 45 minutes. Amanda called and asked that we try a different code and jiggle the door back and forth to get the deadbolt to release. This hotel is totally basic, no extras like salt and pepper, but super clean, sheets and bed comfy, plenty of towels. I would recommend this place except for the locking code system which leaves a lot to be desired.