Anna Maria island is a beautiful destination (been multiple times now) and this house is located only a few minutes walk from the beach and 10min from shops/restaurants so pretty good location (that being said, pretty much everything is few min from the beach because of the shape of the island so you can’t really go wrong).
We had a string of issues which is why I’m giving 2 stars (we selected on basis of good ratings so don’t want others to have same issue we did)... the living room rug was filthy (nail clippings and debris), dishwasher wasn’t working, arcade/game machine from the pictures was stored away with “out of order” on it, bbq didn’t work, one of the pool lights didn’t work, and worst of all the garden was completely overgrown like a jungle and lots of dead leaves and berries in and around the pool and very little sun getting through. AMI then also incorrectly charged me 50% of the rent while I was there when all had been paid off months before which caused more headache!
In all fairness AMI were pretty responsive (once I was able to get hold of them) and at one stage on day 3 we had dishwasher repair guy, general maintenance guy, 3 landscapers with chainsaws taking down trees (which helped a bit but still way overgrown), and pool cleaning guy all round within a few hours, but this was all reactive (and not what you want when you have 3 toddlers to look after) and in my mind could have been easily prevented if the house was better maintained in the first place. Disappointed that AMI rentals don’t keep a better check on the houses that they are renting out and hold them to a higher standard, but grateful that they at least fixed everything they could while we were there. Also disappointed that there was no follow-up from them to check in on us after the number of issues we had.
The bedrooms are all lovely and clean so no complains there, but overall this house is tired and feels like it’s held together with string and paper clips and definitely misses that loved / charming feel that you get with other types of properties. The house is up for sale and I’m guessing the owner doesn’t want to spend any money on upkeep which is probably why the garden is such a mess.
Bottom line - I will return to Anna Maria as we love it, I would even consider going through AMI again, but I wouldn’t stay at this house again (there were numerous houses on the same street that looked in better keep).