VacationRentalDirect.com - Your Ultimate Rental Destination
Started to think already about the place you would be visiting this winter vacation! Yes, you need a well-deserved break, much the same way I required one after spending all those long hours at work. Just as I was about to pack my bags and head North, something hit me to read some rental directories before I do so!
By chance, I stumbled upon Vacation Rental Direct, and of course, it promised me all the information I required to go to the Swiss Alps! Importantly, I found the site www.vacationrentaldirect.com so inviting that if given a choice, I would have gone away from sight to visit the place I had decided on!
I wanted to know more about a place called JjungFraudoch in the Alps Mountain ranges. I had tried searching on this a lot of times to get more information. Luckily, I came through this site and was confident I could get a lot of information on this place from here.
What’s hot about www.VacationRentalDirect.com?
Cool website
First things first, the appeal of the website is so enchanting, that I decided to give it a deeper thought. Yes, it is a bit cluttered with information here and there. I can understand that though because this is a directory site, and it needs to have information. So, full marks to the presentation of the website as it has left a lasting impression on me.
Featured Vacation Rentals
Towards the left side of the home page, I could see a motley group of ragged houses. Just as I was curious, I read the tag line that said “Featured Vacation Rentals”. Trust those houses looked to be ‘haunted’ for sure. In reality though, I found out that they were not really haunted or looking haunted, but just constructed that way for a more natural feel.
All right, I got the basic idea behind the reason of the so-called bad looks of the home. Fascinated by what they had to offer, I dug in deep to find out more and was impressed with all that they could give me. It was a shame I could not locate one in JjungFraudoch, else I would have immediately jumped on the deal.
Links connect to links, and they connect to more links
For starters, I knew I had to click on European Vacation Rentals if I wanted to get more details on the place I would be visiting. The number next to the text read 2167, that told me that this directory site had a listing of about 2167 rentals. Very good! I jumped on and clicked on the link. What happened next was an anti-climax of sorts?
I was shown a country wise listing – Andorra (100 some things), Belgium (200 some things) and so on. Fair enough, may be they are structured in a sense to give users the ease of navigation. Somewhere in the right hand corner, I located Switzerland and what! I could see only 7 vacation rentals. I could not believe what I saw!
To do justice to my time here, I dug in deep only to discover one thing – No JjungFraudoch! Just as I was about to move from here, I clicked on Zurich to see what it had.
Listing of the Rental
I was able to find one listing for Zurich, which in itself surprises me because it is one of the major cities of Switzerland. Nevertheless, I moved on and saw that all details required for this listing was given neatly to me. I was informed on how big the accommodation would be and what would it cost me for a week and so on.
But I do not see the point of no JjungFraudoch! I was more interested to see if this site offered similar results for other countries. And as I started searching, trust I was surprised. I could see about 400 odd listings for Spain and 450 odd for Italy and France. They were not bad choices for me either!
Areas of Improvement
Much as what Vacation Rental Direct had to give me, I observed some areas of improvement in the site. Please note I am doing it with an unbiased eye; quite opposed to your thought that I may hit this site with a hammer for not giving me a JjungFraudoch rental!
Good categorization of sites but too less information on the listing – I am a person with an eye for detail. Some listings that I had gone through for the sake of it – I saw that there were a lot of things missing in it. How do I approach the listing? After landing in the city, how do I get there?
Special Offers – Going for a fortnight tour, I was certainly looking out for a special deal that could save me money. So what if I could not find the listing for the place I wanted to visit? I had made up my mind to visit Spain. Once I did that, I wanted some kind of a special offer. I could not find that as well.
Almost no information on places to see once I go there – This is one area where this site has to buck up real fast. Any tourist would like to know all the places of interest nearby the city or the location he is going to. Not presenting this information could be robbing him of some valuable inputs.
My Rating
Based on what I saw from my neutral eyes, I rate www.vacationrentaldirect.com on the metrics mentioned below. Please note that 5 are the maximum points that can be awarded in any category.
Ease in Navigating the Website - 4
Number of locations - 3 (I found very few destinations in Switzerland! I can’t believe it is not a popular place for visitors!)
Details on locations - 3 (Not a lot of details given to the visitors)
Online Booking Interface - 2 (Though this site allows me to contact owners directly, I would have preferred an Online Interface through the site allowing me to book directly)
Conclusion
I might have been a bit critical in my review of the Vacation Rental Direct. It is a good website but needs some work on it. Any traveler who wishes to go to places like Spain, France, Italy or Mexico, should be seeing this site for more information. This site also has excellent locales in Central America and Asian continent.
This is review Nr 13 of the series vacation rentals websites reviews. Enjoy!
December 23rd, 2008
Posted by
Rumi |
Vacation Rentals Website Reviews |
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www.vacationrealty.com - is Vacation Realty the right source to vacation rentals online
I am a person who likes to prepare myself before I try my hands on anything, even if that is one of the vacations that I want to go for! I was looking for a site that could give me all the required information of the place I wished to go before I went there. For example, the climate of the place, the modes of transportation, the availability of rooms, how safe the place is for me to visit – I required these bits of information.
I came across this site vacationreality.com. Instantly, I knew it was a rental site for holidays; at least that is the first impression I got of it. When I was browsing through this site, I was amazed with the kind of detailed information this site had forcing me to change my opinion.
Few reasons why I think Vacation Realty can be one of the most admired holiday rental site on the web.
All locations listed systematically
I was surprised to see few Florida destinations, as I wished to spend an exotic vacation there. When you browse through Vacation Realty it provides a lot of vacations to choose from. There were a numerous locations listed and it took me a couple of days to go through them. At the end of it though, I did manage to freeze on a rental that looked like the dream one for me.
What I liked most about Vacation Realty was the systematic manner in which they presented their information!
Listings of featured vacation rentals
Vacation Realty will give you various options to choose a featured vacation rental in the United States of America. Spending a fortune for my dream vacation was definitely not on top of my mind! With that said, I was on the look out for a vacation rental site that could take of my austerity measures.
I was happy after visiting Vacation Realty I could choose a rental that fit my budget as it gave me details about the cost and room size, availability of the rooms, amenities provided in the room. It also had a list of things I could do when I am at that place! Did I need any other invitation to go the place I wanted to?
Are there places available at the destinations of your choice?
Once I had seen the listings of rentals in Florida, I decided I would be heading to the Miami beaches for my vacation. Before I took a step forward I had to be confident if I would get an accommodation close to the beach. After the various options Vacation Realty had given me, I was assuming it would have the option of checking the availability of an accommodation at Miami.
In fact it did have, and that gave me the option of finding out something that was just what I wanted.
Additional benefits this site provides
Visit this site, if you wish to glance on multiple special offers! In fact, this is one of the few sites that I have visited, which contained a lot of information on special offers for travelers.
Once you visit this site, if initially you just had 1 reason to go for a vacation, at the end you will have 10 more reasons to go for a holiday. One of the best things about Vacation Realty was I could directly speak to the owner of the vacation rental and proceed with my bookings.
Areas of Improvement
Surely, I am a detail-oriented person and I was impressed with certain details that were mentioned in the site. At the same time, I must say that couple of bits of information was missed, which for me was a big let down.
While I was browsing through Vacation Realty, I was always on the lookout for things I must avoid doing in the place I was visiting. No doubt – this site had all the to-dos in the place but nowhere did I find any advisory or a not-to-do mentioned. This way, I was completely in dark on things that I should avoid doing in my dream vacation.
When travelers do go to places that have a high crime rate, this could prove to be deciding. In fact, travelers missing out on this bit of information can sour their vacation.
My Rating
Trust I went through vacationrealty.com in an unbiased manner. After reading the entire site, I found that there were couple of areas this site could work on. Taking all the factors in count, I can give this site a rating of 7 on 10. The only reason why it loses on 3 points is because at many places I found some unnecessary bits of information mentioned.
Conclusion
If you know where you wish to go and what you need to do, Vacation Realty is not meant for you. At least with the amount of information it provides, you can be sure of getting bored reading all of that. For people who do not know a lot about a particular place and the kind of rentals that are being offered, Vacation Realty is a complete blessing.
This is review Nr 12 of the series vacation rentals websites reviews. Enjoy!
December 17th, 2008
Posted by
Rumi |
Vacation Rentals Website Reviews |
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www.beachhouse.com - Are only beach houses available?
The kind of name it is – beachhouse.com, I was forced to think that this site could give me the list of all the rentals by the beach. Okay, this should be the site where I had to be, because I wanted to take a rental by the beach. Which beach – Well, that’s not decided as yet, but some place in the world that could offer me to put up my feet and relax.
www.beachhouse.com might have had some, or maybe lot of information on rentals by the beach. Certainly, the homepage did not quite appeal to me. This is one page that has to take the attention of any visitor to the site. If this page does not appeal to people, chances are that people would go away as soon as they came to the site.
That for me was a big letdown, because I was looking up to this site to give me the information required for me to go hunting for a beach rental.
Four reasons on why Beach House can get popular!
Information, Information and many more – It has it all!
Do not worry about hunting for a different travel or vacation rental site for information. You could find almost the entire Wiki here! Trust me; expect to find a remote isolated island in Mauritius with ease. At the same time, you could also find the tropical beaches of Copa Cabana having some vacation rentals with the same ease! Isn’t that what you call a comprehensive directory?
Do not bother on the ease of navigation! Well, I say do not bother because what would you navigate on. The first page itself has so much information, that you do not need to look anywhere else.
Excellent Listings – I was certainly impressed!
One thing I was eagerly on the lookout after the first page mishap was the beach houses listings. After all, that’s why I had come to this site. If this site had not given me that information, I would have easily been convinced that this one is surely a dud. And to my surprise, I found that the beach listings did not disappoint me at all.
I could take the name of any beach that I knew of, and could expect to find a listing besides the place. After some time, I quite exhausted my knowledge on the beaches I knew around the globe, but this site went on with its listings.
Search linking is easy!
Much as we would be complaining on the plethora of the information provided to you, and it is justified, the site does make it easy for you to search for your vacation rentals. The issue is where to click, because some of the font size is so invisible that you would take some time figuring that out.
If you have managed that, I am sure you would be able to get clicking on some really good vacation listings.
Only beach rentals and nothing else, sorry!
One thing that attracted me to this site was the name www.beachhouse.com. I knew that this could be a site that had all the information on rentals by the beaches. To that extent, I should say I am not going back empty handed. But at the same time, I also found some intruders here! What I mean to say is I could find rentals at places that do not have any remote connection with beaches.
Please – why ever did you name the site www.beachhouse.com if it was giving information on all listings. I felt let down, and though it did not make much of a difference to my end opinion of this site, I would think twice of recommending this site to my friends.
Quality information for every listing!
Yes, there was information aplenty on one beach house, but it was neatly presented to me. This was more than enough to convince me on the quality of the site. Almost 1 full page was given to each listing, ensuring that no bit of information was really missed out on. In doing so, I could get a whole load of information in a rather unobtrusive way.
Of course, the information given to me was more than enough for me to finalize on the beach house of my choice. And I must give credit to the complete and detailed information that this site gave me, without which I may not have been able to make a good choice.
Areas of Improvement
www.beachhouse.com promises a lot conceptually, but fails terribly in its implementation. The thought here I think is to make this site unique – With providing listings of rentals by beaches around the world. With that being said, something should have been done to ensure the site looks different and the information is being presented differently.
Instead, I found the Home Page bombarding with information, most of which I would have discarded on seeing at the first instance. That, per me is one major drawback of this site. I put up with this drawback because I desperately wished to go to a rental by the beach. I am not sure though if this site could get lucky with others.
My Rating
Book a vacation for by the beach – That was my objective with which I came to this site! Was I able to meet my objectives? I say, “Yes” and also add on to it by saying it has some teething problems that it has to sort out. Agreed that the information given to me was helpful, but I presume it needs to do a lot in keeping the visitors to the site interested overall.
This site gets 3.8 out of 5, and though I was able to achieve my objectives, I rate it down due to the fact that I had to put up with almost an hour of nonsense before I could find a way of getting to beach rentals.
Conclusion
In brief – This site is an excellent place for anyone to go through to book his or her beach rental. It just has beach rentals next to some really popular beaches across the globe. Some rentals are located near places, which you would not have even heard of until now.
This is review Nr 11 of the series vacation rentals websites reviews. Enjoy!
November 30th, 2008
Posted by
Rumi |
Vacation Rentals Website Reviews |
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perfectplaces.com - Indeed gave me my perfect place for vacations!
The name itself sounds inspiring – www.perfectplaces.com. Instantly, I knew that if there was a site that could give me a perfect place to go on my vacations, this was it. Trust when I got clicking, I was more than impressed with the site. Unlike other sites that load you with information galore, this one does not and in fact presents the information in a way that you would like it almost without wasting a second.
The homepage itself would make you feel at home. For starters, I must say that this is one of the best-structured websites, not only in terms of information but also in terms of the design as a whole. It takes away the notion from my mind that you need to have a lot of content to be successful as a travel site. Even less content would do, so long is it is relevant – Seems to be the message from perfectplaces.com!
Within seeing the site for the first 10 minutes, I knew this was the place I should have been much earlier to book my vacation rentals. Here are some reasons on why I think so.
Why Perfect Places can indeed give you information on “The Perfect Place”?
Simplicity
They say, “Keep it Simple”! This saying is true in terms of Perfect Places. Just the fact that they have designed their website in such a simple manner, gets me to sit up and take notice. I am being told that they started off with vacation rentals with not more than one odd city in the States, and look at how they have grown. They now seem to have more than 100 destinations across the globe.
They have expanded to show vacation listings in the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Central America, South America and many more geographies! It truly can’t get any better than this.
Information, as simple as the web design – that’s what you get from Perfect Places
As a traveler, all I want from a vacation rentals site is information on the place I plan to visit. Of course, without this information, I would not like to step further into booking my vacations. I surely would need all the information regarding the kind of rooms I am being offered, and other details. That I got all of these with www.perfectplaces.com is a different point altogether, but the way I was given this information is worth mentioning.
Most sites would give you this information just for the sake of it. And much before you would realize, you would have been conned into one sham of a deal! This site though is very credible with its information, and need I say, impressive also!
How many rentals are offered?
My friends tell me that this site would give you more than 50,000 rentals across the world. Well, may be, but I certainly did not have the patience to check all of them. After all, I relied on the fact that these guys are there in this space since 1996, and I knew someone as old as them in this domain, would always have been credible.
Just to check what my friends told me was true, I got clicking on the Europe link. 26,638 rentals – All of them only in Europe! That’s mind boggling, a must visit for anyone who wishes to be pampered by choice.
Quality of information – Key to the success of Perfect Places!
Spend some time in this site, if you are really looking for quality information. Taking the example of Europe, I could note that more than 26000 locations had been mentioned. All I wanted to know was if each of these rentals were supplied with good enough information. First things first, this site helped me freeze on the country that I wished to go to.
On choosing the country, I was told to choose the city. Just so that I feel helped, the site gave me the number of listings categorized by each city. Well, I choose a city in Denmark, which reported to have about 4500 rentals. Once I clicked on the city, I could see the list of all the rentals available in the city. So much for spending just 10 minutes in this site!
All the rentals had their contact information specified, just in case you wish to book without any delay. I did so, and called a number given besides a rental that I was impressed with and got my booking done in almost an hour’s time. Most importantly, I did so because I was given all the information that I wanted to have from any travel site.
All types of rentals – You get them all here!
If you thought that www.perfectplaces.com did not offer variety, you are mistaken. If that was the case, people would not have chosen this as the premier site since 1996. The fact that it has been in here for the last 13 odd years tells you that these guys have provided various types of rentals to travelers.
To see the kind of variety in rentals they offer, simply click on the destination you wish to be in and right in front of your eyes, you would see a whole list of rentals. Clearly in their descriptions, it would be mentioned if they were a villa or a chalet or something else.
Areas of Improvement
Quite honestly, I did not find anywhere this site could improve. It had everything – Number of listings, ease in user navigation, and other features. Even being critical, I could not find one minus point with this site.
My Rating
perfectplaces.com has to get 5 on 5, nothing less will do!
Conclusion
In terms of credibility of the information and quality of the information, www.perfectplaces.com, must rank as one of the best websites that give you all of this. Since 1996, these guys have been serving travelers, and I see the reason why. As a traveler, you should visit this site if you want to know the perfect place where you wish to spend your vacations.
This is review Nr 10 of the series vacation rentals websites reviews. Enjoy!
November 15th, 2008
Posted by
Rumi |
Vacation Rentals Website Reviews |
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vacation-rentals.com - The best place for information in a snapshot!
www.vacation-rentals.com, being one of the top holiday rental sites, does more than justice to its reputation. Talking of its reputation, a lot of my friends told me that here is a site that could give you information almost in an instant. On seeing the home page of www.vacation-rentals.com, I could more than agree with what they said.
Do not go berserk on getting bombarded with details on the home page. It surely can be intimidating for a new traveler to come up against lines of information presented to him. On reading this site, I came up with an easy way for people to make sense out of this site. With that being said, I still believe the web designers should have done their bit in making this site easy to read.
Here is why I think www.vacation-rentals.com can be popular amongst travelers
Why is Vacation-Rentals considered the best choice?
Just ignore the right section of the page, and all you get is pure information
The easiest way to make sense out of this site is by getting blindfolded in the right eye. Just do not look at the right section, at least on the home page, as that is not meant for you. That for me is one major drawback in this site, which we would discuss later. I believe that the homepage should have enough information readers can use. To its credit, this site’s homepage does present a lot of information.
Number of listings available per continent
Just as instantly, I could find the USA had 525 rentals listed, and the Caribbean Islands had about 57 rentals listed in them. This section of the home page will also tell you how many rentals are listed in each individual countries of that continent. Reading information could thus not get easier for any traveler, and you could then make your choice depending on what you want.
Are you really finicky on the number of options being provided to you? If that’s the case, you should be choosing United States that has 525 rentals, and be sure, you would be pampered for choice here. Do you wish to go to a place that is just quite out-of-the-box? You could look at places that do not have too many rentals. Whether those rentals are in those out-of-the-box locations, you would have to wait for some more time.
The point though is – This page does give you a lot of information in a very easy manner.
1079 rentals in all (26.12.2008)! But are they enough
This is one big question I had when I was greeted with the sight of 1079 rentals, I could possibly find in this site. Remember, I had absolutely no idea on where I had to go for my vacation in terms of the exact place, though I knew I wished to go to the Caribbean Islands. Just so to know if I had come to the right site, I clicked on Antigua and Barbuda to see what came up (Though I definitely did not wish to go here).
Instantly, I saw a list of places where I could find rentals. I found only 1 rental available in Clarkes Hill. Digging deep, I found that the information about this rental was presented in a manner that I would have liked. I did not require any second invitation to get clicking on the availability of rentals in Puerto Rico, and I was mighty surprised by what I saw?
I had video buttons that possibly indicated my preferences; about 8-9 of them. Let’s say I wanted a list of places that had pool facility and Jacuzzi. I just had to place a tick below the options provided, and I had the list of all the rentals that provided these facilities.
Quality of Information
As if all these benefits were not enough, I was also offered some top-drawer information on the rental itself. I just did not wish to face an anti-climax with the information on the rentals, and to that extent, I must say that this site did not disappoint me at all.
Area of Improvement
It really has to be the way the information has been presented. The intentions are right, but then look at the way information has been given to you off their pages. For me, it was an absolutely shabby effort. You just cannot have a website with links and links galore. For a naïve visitor, not only will this be intimidating, but it will also have him at a loss of what he needs to do.
Maybe, all this site should have had was a display of the continents and the number of listings they had for the continent. After someone clicking on the continents, it would then up another page that will display all the listings categorized place-wise. This, I believe would have the best option in structuring the content.
My Rating
Apart from the way information was presented, I did not find anything else missing in this site. But as they say, “1 bad negates 100 good things”, bad structuring of the information has indeed played a big role in bringing down my unbiased rating of this site. 6.5 out of 10 – That’s what this site gets from me.
While it scores on the concept and the thought, it loses a lot of marks on the designing and the implementation bit. Some improvements here, and this site could clearly be one of the best travel rental sites.
Conclusion
If you turn a blind eye to the fact that you would be pounded with information galore no sooner that you have stepped in this site, vacation-rentals.com is a real good one. This is a place where you would indeed get information at a fast clip. And trust when that happens, you would be able to take decisions fast!
This is review Nr 9 of the series vacation rentals websites reviews. Enjoy!
October 26th, 2008
Posted by
Rumi |
Vacation Rentals Website Reviews |
2 comments
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