Islander Bayside Villas and Boatslips

When we arrived at Bayside 124 the smell of mold was terrible. We looked through the room and found what appeared to be mold by the fire alarm upstairs. I called the front desk and they sent someone over to let us into another room. Room …

The townhouses are beautiful. They have 2 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Downstairs they have a well equipped kitchen/diner, comfy lounge and toilet.||They have a pool onsite which we never used as we drove in the car 5 minutes to use …

My wife and I stayed 5 days at the Islander Bayside Resort. Pretty good experience. I would recommend with certain caveats. The staff was great, everyone was friendly and helpful. Very pet friendly. The grounds and amenities at the oceanfront property are great. The marina slips are nice for small boats, not sure anything over 20-22 ft would fit. The exterior of the bayside property look good, but the inside has some deferred maintenance and the interior could use some updating. The bayside units are two bedroom with 1 1/2 baths, so both bedrooms share the upstairs bath / shower and can get cramped for more than two people. There are limited amenities at the bayside property, so you have to travel to the oceanside property to utilize most amenities and visit their bars, restaurants, etc. Regarding bars and restaurants, the bar was OK and the bar food was mediocre at best (limited options). Our experience at the main restaurant, Drift, was just bad. The food was bad, it took a long time to get the food, and the server (who was very nice) seemed overwhelmed (and there were only 4 tables occupied in the restaurant counting us totaling 8 people). During our stay, we had four entrees at drift, and none of them were good. The challenge is we had a daily resort credit included in our nightly rate that had to be spent daily, or it expired. So we felt obliged to go to the bar or restaurant daily. The credit could also be spent at the lobby, but the selection of items there were limited and not interesting to us. Also, if a resort credit is included in the rate, you will want to ask for a paper receipt for every purchase, as I had to address multiple discrepancies on my bill (all resolved). Overall I would recommend the oceanfront rooms over the bayside rooms, depending upon the room rate. Keep in mind the property charges a resort fee, slip fee if you have a boat, and a pet fee in addition to the nightly rate. We utilized the “near inclusive” rate structure, which included these fees plus a resort credit. But the resort credit just ended up causing us stress as we didn’t want to eat anything on property after the second day. Overall, I would give our experience at the bayside property 3 - 3.5 stars (would be 4 stars if some maintenance items were addressed and if the food situation was better).