Sea Sage: Quaint Beach Cottage on East Beach

If you want “low rent” this is it! 60’s interior. Appliances that barely work. 2 by 4 bathrooms with shower impossible to regulate or get hot water. Great part of the beach tho’. Would look for something better and pay more next time. Oak Island is a nice getaway with lovely Southport nearby.

An overall good family vacation. Property was a bit rundown but comfortable enough...and a great location. Some repair work especially in the bathrooms would work wonders. Mgmt was responsive to our needs but I think your 9 a.m. checkout is an absurd inconvenience especially since check-in is not until 4 p.m.

This place was absolutely filthy and defiantly had not been cleaned for a longgggg time. Everything that was plugged in was old, frayed and sparked when you plugged it in. We ended up unplugging all of the lamps and TVs during our stay to be safe. When we got there, we immediately wanted to leave and find somewhere else to stay. I looked at my reservation online and it said no refunds so I figured we would have to tough it out. The is the kind of place you would expect for $50 a night at some cheap, dirty motel but definitely not for $320 a night! I tried to make the most of it and cleaned what I could with the one bottle of cleaner I brought with me. It emptied quickly and still didn’t touch the dirt at this place. I cleaned the counter tops 4 times before black stopped coming up. I spilled some water on the floor while I was cleaning and wiped it up off the floor and the paper towel came up black. Everywhere was filthy and I spent the whole first day of vacation cleaning. The showers were DISGUSTING. We used the outdoor shower everyday instead because we could at least wear shoes in there. I couldn’t wait for the vacation to be over since every time we came back to the house we felt gross. We actually ended up leaving early because we just couldn’t stand it there anymore. Beach access was great, and that is where the benefits to this place end. I wish this review would let me upload pictures, because you better believe that I took them.

We ended up enjoying our stay. We do have a few complaints, but I’ll start with the good. Great location, easy beach access, nice deck. House appeared to be clean which is the most important thing to me. We did find a cockroach in the kitchen...we were there all week and only saw one so we are hoping it was a fluke. Definitely checking all of our belongings before bringing them into the house when we get home. There was no hand soap or toilet paper in the bathrooms, we assume this was just a mishap on the cleaner’s part. We just grabbed some while we were at the store (not a big deal). The bathrooms appeared clean but the showers were in rough condition (walls peeling), they could probably use exhaust fans in the bathrooms (not a big deal just a heads up). Also, during our stay they happened to be doing this major sand pumping project on the beach and we were not able to utilize the beachfront access and did have heavy construction equipment in front of the house making noise most of the time (day and night). We were only notified of this 3 days prior to our stay, too late to cancel the rental not to mention find other vacation plans. I’m pretty sure they knew this would be a possibility before hand but did not mention it when we booked. We specifically chose this house for the easy beachfront access...and didn’t really get it. Overall this is probably a good place to stay but we just happened to be there during the beach construction, happened to find a random cockroach, and happened to have a house cleaner forget a couple things. Bad luck I guess?

The house is comfortable but extremely dated. It needs to have an overall refurbishing outside and in especially the bathrooms which are extremely small with the master bath shower in terrible shape. Also, as promised in the property description, there was no covered seating area on the deck, perhaps this was due to 2020 hurricane but the description needs to be updated.

I used to come to Long Beach as a kid many, many moons ago, and we decided to stay for Thanksgiving and visit family in Southport. There were 4 of us in the 3 bedroom house. The views of the water were spectacular from the living room. It was really nice to see that every morning! The house itself has got that old, beachy, no frills feel about it. This house is a bit weathered, but if you're looking for a place close to the beach, relatively inexpensive, for 4 people, and don't need the most modern appliances, fixtures, or decor, then this place is fine. It's about 100 yards or so from the pier, which has a nice restaurant for dinner. It was relatively easy to check-in and check-out with the key-less entry system, and there are instructions for check-out. However, I found that there were 2 check-out times (10 AM and 10:30 AM) in the rental agreement/instructions, so that should be clarified. Also, there's one step on the stairs leading down to the beach that is broken and needs to be repaired. All in all, it was a good stay (2.5 days), even though the weather was a bit cold and windy. Can't do anything about that, though!