Dancing Dolphin is a spacious, nicely decorated modern home with a huge open kitchen, a comfortable living room, a large dining room with a marble-top table large enough to invite half the Island over for dinner. There were 7 of us, 2 of whom were ages 3 and 5, the rest of us 39-72 y/o. We had plenty of room. We had most of our meals there and enjoyed working together in the well-appointed kitchen. The kids absolutely loved the pool as well as the short walk to the white-sand beach. We were thankful that the house came with a large beach wagon, and that there were plenty of beach chairs and (most of all) a beach tent/tarp which was easy to put up and take down. We also appreciated the abundance of bath and beach towels. We do have a few suggestions: (1) There wasn’t a single, solitary chest of drawers in any of the bedrooms! We think that was an oversight. When you’re staying a week or longer, one needs drawers! (2) The walkway to the pool is at one end of the garage, down a long, dark hallway which is treacherously slippery, being epoxied concrete. There were several falls during our week there. (3) When we arrived, we had already stopped at the grocery store (Publix — loved it!) and STOCKED up, I mean seriously bought everything we could think of for a week. Unfortunately, we didn’t think of things like a dish-cleaning sponge, salt & pepper, some basic cleaning supplies, coffee filters. So we had to fight the traffic and go back for several basics which should have been provided! (4) God help the person who tries to use the charcoal grill! My son-in-law spent the better part of one day trying to clean the rust off. It was basically unusable. (5) Watch out for the placement of the switch for the garbage disposal! It is precariously located on one side of the large center island, at waist height, so that every time we walked around the island, we brushed against it and turned it on. With little kids especially, that’s a concern. (6) Most worrisome of all, the railing on the 3rd floor deck was completely unattached at one end. We discovered this accidentally, just by leaning on it. The fall would have been fatal. On a positive note, the property manager for our house came over within a short time once we called the rental office. He recommended that we not use that deck at all for the remainder of the trip. Otherwise, thank you to AMI Rentals for all your help! This was our first trip to Anna Maria Island, and we can’t wait to return! We will especially miss those sunsets — most beautiful we’ve ever seen, night after night!
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