Having never been to Carolina Beach, it is a hidden gem of a beach town and the beachfront location of this place is unbeatable. The apartment was clean and ad advertised, with a nice balcony overlooking the water and walking distance to good restaurants and the boardwalk.
A few pain points: There was no hot water in the master bathroom, and the water coming from the guest bathroom smelled like sulfur for the entire 3 days. In addition, while the clean, packaged linens were appreciated, having to put on the fitted sheet and other bed linens ourselves was less than ideal.
Lastly, in 2020 it's completely understandable that most rentals don't have cable, but it should be made clearer, or the TV's should be upgraded to be modern smart TV's. As out of towners, we struggled to stream playoff hockey on the TV in the living room which was frustrating. Also, the WiFi network that was listed in the welcome package was not available (not listed in available networks, despite massive amounts of technical troubleshooting). I called the 3rd party property management company as we were there for work, and unfortunately did not have the WiFi enabled. We were given the WiFi network next door/upstairs, but it was not stable nor reliable, which made working remotely difficult.
Lastly, the doorcode given to us in our welcome package was wrong, I believe due to as missing # sign not being written in the package. It was reset fairly quickly, but if the # sign is required, it's very frustrating that this was omitted in the welcome package, creating a delay and overhead while trying to get into the house.
Overall the house was great and the location was great, but I want to point out the things that create work/frustration/overhead for renters so that VRBO can improve and deliver an even better customer experience next time.