Die rosa Orchidee: Atemberaubender Meerblick vom Haus am Wasser

Thank you, Marcia. You are welcome back to the Pink Orchid any time!

Thanks for the great review. You are welcome back any time! AL

There is a reason we have over fifty 5-star reviews on VRBO. We work hard to make sure our renters have an outstanding vacation. Thus we have never felt the need to write a response to a review in our 13 years of renting. In fact, the party that left on the very day this renter arrived, wrote another glowing 5-star review after their week-long stay at The Pink Orchid. This is our first negative review and we feel it was unwarranted due to circumstances mostly beyond our control. After an unfortunate day without internet, this person seems to have lost it and thus looked for things to criticize going forward. Yes, after the problem was resolved, there were hardware issues with the internet company and there were power outages, but that is life on a Caribbean Island and we hope our renters are able to go with the flow when this happens. Below are our counter-arguments to each point of this negative review: 1) Once we were alerted to the Internet problem, we took personal responsibility for it and corrected it. Unfortunately our credit card on file with our Roatan Internet provider was compromised in the states a few weeks beforehand, the card was discontinued, and while we were awaiting a replacement card our provider attempted to collect the auto payment. Unbeknownst to us, the payment didn’t go through, they neglected to inform us and instead turned off the service. Once the renter contacted us that the Internet wasn’t working, we jumped on it and service was reinstated the next day. However, power outages and hardware issues with our provider, none of which are within our control, caused the internet to continue to have issues for a couple days. Anyone who has been to a Caribbean Island understands that power outages can be a common occurrence and the internet is unreliable at best. 2) The “guest” phone is normally reloaded prior to arrival, but evidently this did not happen for the this renter. The code is communicated well ahead of time -- in this case it was provided two weeks in advance to the renter. In addition, we have now added the code to the backside of the phone for convenience. 3) It's atypical to have three outages in one week and especially at night, so we are assuming there was some major problem with RECO that required time to repair. Apparently, the entire neighborhood experienced this as well. Sadly, we do not have any control over this and luckily it is a rare occurrence to lose it overnight like this. 4) We have rarely had the batteries on remotes, the key fob, or the safes go out for our renters, much less all of them in one visit. These same batteries were apparently working fine for the previous renters. We replace the batteries often to prevent this problem, have additional batteries onsite, and insist our property managers check them as well, since the high humidity and salt air of the island can cause corrosion more easily. 5) The solar system is intended as a backup only. This backup system powers the essential items, like fans, refrigerator, water pump, hot water heater and there is a dedicated circuit in each room in the event of a power outage. This is much more backup than most homes in our area provide. The system is not powerful enough to power the AC’s without using up the stored batteries within a very short time -- it is merely intended power essential household needs in the unfortunate event of a power outage. 6) How to use the on-demand hot water heater is explained in communications prior to arrival and on a laminated info sheet located directly on the breakfast bar for all our renters. 7) As for the snorkel equipment, it is provided simply as a convenience and also quite heavily used. We go through it whenever onsite and weed out the damaged or problem equipment, but it's often a losing battle. Renters use the equipment freely and don't always leave it in pristine condition. We have the equipment available as a courtesy but our recommendation is for people to bring their own equipment if they are serious snorkelers. In closing, here are a couple of excerpts from the people who rented both before and after this stay in question: Received from the person who left the morning that this renter arrived: “The Pink Orchid was perfect! All of the pictures and reviews were spot on, and the house was in an awesome location for us between west end and west bay… Overall this was one of the most relaxing and fun vacations we’ve had, and we would highly recommend staying in Roatan and Pink Orchid.” Received from the person arriving a couple of days after this renter departed: “We just got here to The Pink Orchid. The house is wonderful and as I was telling the staff, we really feel welcome.”