Sand ‘N Sea Properties

Avoid. I have had three separate and distinct experiences with Sand ‘N Sea Properties over the course of 10 years and each one has demonstrated their ineptitude, laziness, and unprofessional approach to real estate transactions. I have completed multiple real estate deals in my lifetime and never have I encountered this level of incompetence and indifference. Call it «island time» if you want — I just call it lazy, small-​town, incompetence. There are much better, more professional brokerages on the island.

I have been renting houses on Galveston Island for over 12 years. I have used several different companies for the bookings and I will say this: Sand n Sea is by far the best company to work with. Their website is very easy to navigate (you can view pet friendly homes w/​out having to look at all of them), you can make installment payments (this is a plus as I’ve found it takes the sting out of the final payment), the houses have floor plans so you can see how the rooms are set up, & they have a Guest Advantage Program (which I’ve gotten free weekends). I have rented a variety of homes: beachside, beachfront, 1 bedroom, 4 bedrooms and all have been very clean upon arrival. I’ve only had to call maintenance once & the problem was taken care of quickly. Once the coffee machine was broken so I went to the office to pick up a new one (I was offered to have it delivered but I really needed my morning java).
Check-​in at the office is pretty easy, they have plenty of staff to help you out. Every one of the staff are very nice & quick to get you on the beach. They give a swag bag upon check-​in: a Sand n Sea reusable bag with doggie bowls, baseball hat, samples of dishwashing soap, dishwasher detergent & a sponge.
I rarely comment on another person’s review but I have to say this. Who in the hell expects a place to provide toilet paper for your stay? Sand n Sea provides each bathroom with one roll along with soap. This is much more than other companies I’ve used where we had to bring our own sheets, towels, etc. Not Sand n Sea. All beds are made & stripped with the exception of the bunk beds because of liability reasons that may affect their housekeeping staff. So seriously it is ridiculous to complain about supplying your own toilet paper, toiletries, & other paper products. But hey, some people just find fault in anything/​everything.
Check-​in is at 4pm & checkout is at 10am (this is to ensure the housekeeping staff has plenty of time to clean & prepare for the next guest) so don’t get your panties in a bunch. Their weekly rentals (during high season) have either a Friday or Monday (depending on the trash pickup schedule for the neighborhood) check-​in/​checkout. This info is easily found along with other details of the house you are interested in. Some homes have passes to the Galveston Country Club pool!
See you at the beach!

I made a reservation and signed an agreement for a rental property with Sand N Sea; however the company refused to honor the price I had on the document. Their excuse was that the website had a blip and miscalculated. What???
The sales person offer to have the manager call me back to take care of the issue but I never received a call. And so later during the day I decided to contact the manager myself; to my surprise, the manager was the most rude person I have encounter in my life. She didn’t stop at refusing to honor THEIR price but also suggested I didn’t have the funds to pay for the rental. Was it maybe because I have a foreign accent she couldn’t understand? Racist!
In reality the $ 200 difference in price was not a concerned because I couldn’t afford it, it was the fact that they would HONOR a price that was agreed in a legal document. For that reason –and the rude manager– I opted for not renting the property. I rather take my money else where.
So here I am writing this long review not only for a person who is debating to rent a property from this company; but also for the owners who have their properties managed by them. As an owner I would have to pass on $ 1400 revenue because of a computer blip which miscalculated $ 200 in the price that’s all!

I’ve used this company twice in the last year. I won’t again. While they do nothing inherently «wrong» and their maintenance department is great, they seem to have put customer service aside in lieu of the bottom line. There are just so many corners cut: bring your own toilet paper (and shampoo, and napkins, and blow dryer, etc.), make your own bunk beds, check out by 10 am, that it makes much more sense to spend the same amount of money on either a luxury hotel OR a smaller, family run rental who may actually prioritize your comfort and experience. It just feels like you’re a number in the spreadsheet, which with an organization so large managing so many homes, I guess we are. I’m sure the company has been operating like this for a very long time, but it’s time to get with what modern (younger) consumers are looking for: effortless booking policies (your deposit is returned via check up to a month after check out!) and more amenities. Again, the places are «fine» — a little run down and cheap furntiture, but hey, I can deal with that. It’s more just about not feeling like you’re getting a true getaway with someone caring for you. If that’s not what you’re after, this will work just fine. For me, it’s what I enjoy about vacations, so I’ll be looking elsewhere next time.

We stayed at the Tusan Villas with San n Sea vacation rentals. We loved it, from booking, to check in, and check out it was a breeze! The property itself was magnificanet with granite countertops, gourmet kitchen, comfortable furniture, and did I say HOT TUB & POOL! My mother and I had a wonderful time around town and enjoying some down time at the villa. Thank you again Sand n’ Sea we loved it!

My family has been renting beach houses almost every year for the past 10 years, and Sand ‘N Sea Properties has been the best company to rent from in Galveston. All the homes have been nice, clean and just as described on the website. Renting from Sand ‘N Sea has been easy, and they have been able to accommodate our pets (although it may depend on the rental home). They even gave us a couple of dog food bowls when we checked in, which was a nice gesture.
Customer service seems to be pretty good, although we’ve hardly had anything to complain about! We only had one problem, back in 2009 when we rented a house with a pool and we were having issues with the pool. We called and explained the situation and someone was out the same day to fix it, so we were pretty pleased with that.
We will continue renting from Sand ‘N Sea whenever we plan a Galveston vacation. Our last rental, Aloha Paradise, was my favorite of all the homes we’ve rented from them. It’s a gorgeous, convenient, and nicely furnished house on the canal!

This has been SUCH a better experience thab we had at
Castaways Group which was so awful I was literally in tears!
Unlike Castaways Group, the place is clean they actually CALL ME BACK and conduct themselves as if they care. Although they are a bit more they are WELL worth it.

Great people and great properties. Don’t forget to sign up for their guest rewards program when you book — you can earn a free weekend trip in the future.

We chose our rental and booked online. Everything went quite smoothly. We stayed at Seas the Day. The rental was clean, neat, well equipped. Great beachfront location. Everything went as hoped for. We would use their services again.

I think the Sand n Sea service was definitely above par. The house we had (Girls Weekend) was amazing and slept 10 adults easily. (Given most grown women don’t want to bunk up it was a risky; most houses capacity is based on kids/​couples.) We had 2 minor service calls (tv/​cable and a/​c) while here — both were handled thoroughly and promptly even going into the holiday weekend. I don’t understand the «robot» comment about the staff — not my experience at all. Will definitely use them again if I visit Galveston — sadly probably not for a 500k home like this time, but alas i know its there if I want it!

A group of friends from high school rented a beach house from Sand ‘N Sea for a weekend, and couldn’t have been happier! The place was spacious and clean, a great view of the Gulf of Mexico, large decks and easy access to the beach. Ended up costing a lot less that everyone checking into a hotel, and there was a fully equipped kitchen, free parking and much more privacy. The staff couldn’t have been friendlier, made the weekend one of those lifetime memories. It was especially helpful to peruse available houses and make reservations online. Thanks, Sand ‘N Sea, for a vacation well-​done!

What can I tell you. As usual, the best service! The town-​home was immaculate and ready for me to rest and work with high speed internet. I felt right at home! The staff’s friendly attitude is such so refreshing. Thanks to you all — I’ll be back!

We rented Galveston beach houses through Sand N Sea for a number of years. The houses were very nice, clean and attractive — but Sand N Sea’s customer service was, unfortunately, quite poor.
The company’s representatives were like robots/​bureaucrats. They knew little, if anything, about a particular property, only what what they could read in the file. And they seemed stumped by simple requests like finding out what kind of Internet service an individual house had.
The company’s system for accepting payment was also antiquated and inconvenient. They insisted on payment by check for deposits on the houses and would only accept credit cards for the final payments. In other words, they didn’t want to pay credit card fees on the deposit, but didn’t trust repeat renters enough to accept their checks for final payment.
In general, they treated us like the Soup Nazi treated his customers on the TV show «Seinfeld».
The final straw came a couple of years ago when the rental contract they sent out contained a $ 25 math error, in their favor. Talked with several representatives of the company who insisted it was correct because «it came from the computer». I got understandably irritated and they became downright nasty. They also canceled our rental — less than two weeks before spring break.
That actually turned out to be a good thing because we subsequently discovered Vacation Rentals By Owner
. And we now rent from nice, intelligent property owners instead of the automatons at Sand N Sea.

I am approaching this review as a beach house renter and not a property owner. I have been renting homes through this group for the last 3 years and it really couldnt be any easier. From the website, the mailer they send out, to the contract terms and customer service, I think this manager makes it about as easy as you can. They called the day before to let us know we could check-​in early. They called the day after check-​in to make sure everything was in working order or if there was anything they could do or report to property owner. Check out is a little early at 10am but all you have to do is throw them the keys when you are ready to leave. They manage clean-​up (fee included) and even provide some first day essentials to get you started. If you want to stay on West Beach, this is a great way to do it.