I had planned to attend a plastic surgery meeting at the Ritz on Amelia Island and the room block was full. The Ritz referred me to Summer Beach Resort. I had to cancel 24 days ahead of the meeting. Ritz had no problem with a refund. When I called they politely emailed me that since I was within their 30 day restriction I would "only be charged the deposit" which was over $450. A $450 dollar penalty for a 2 day stay cancelled 24 days in advance.

This review is on Summer Beach Resort in Amelia Island. My Fiancee and I won a stress free vacation to this resort from Central Florida Lifestyle Magazine. We were ecstatic, we have been to the area before and were looking forward to making time to visit again. We picked up our gift basket and looked at the stipulations that were stated with the gift certificate.
They had more than several black out dates, every holiday almost the whole summer and spring break, Christmas, you name it, it was blacked out. That was not a big deal we figured we would follow the stipulations and find a time that they stated on the certificate that would be available as long as they were not booked up, which is absolutely understandable. So we went ahead and called to see if they had anything available, in which they stated that they had several rooms available; we even chose a weekday. We then stated we had a gift certificate that we won from a magazine and the reservationist immediately stated that she was unsure she would be able to accept it. She then stated that we needed to speak to her manager that would not be in until Monday. After careful review we were 100% sure that the dates we were asking for were not black out dates and that they had more than enough available rooms for the time period we were trying to reserve. Monday comes and my Fiancee calls and asks directly for the manager who signed the gift certificate, to inquire about making reservations for the upcoming week. The manager comes on and is immediately short and rude with my Fiancee. She states that they are booked up, in which my Fiancee states the reservationist just stated they were not. The manager immediately states that they give out 20,000 thousand gift certificates out and cannot accommodate anymore gift certificate related rooms. She did not give anymore explanation and flatly stated we are not going to accommodate you. I don't know about anyone else, but we were truly looking forward to a stress free two night get away, we were not looking to be treated like a second class citizens. So with that said if you have any type of a gift certificate that you may have won or received as a gift from Summer Beach Resort, you may want to think twice about tying to redeem it....in fact you may just want to go ahead and give it away or throw it in the thrash.

Thank you for reading and I do hope you have a better experience than we have.

Summer Beach Resort is a wonderful choice for location, luxury and value on Amelia Island. Views toward Summer Beach can be subjective however, due to the fact that units are individually owned. All of the units that my family have stayed in were beautifully decorated and had wonderful views of the ocean. Staying at Summer Beach allows you to feel that you are at your own private beach condo, instead of feeling as if you are in a hotel. All areas of the resort are lush and beautifully landscaped and maintained, and are all very private and gated. Our family's favorite unit has been Sea Watch, due to it's large size (three bedrooms, three and a half baths, and over 2000 square feet) and great oceanfront pools. The resort is located near the town of Fernandina, but is situated far enough to escape whatever crowd might be at the north end of the island. In my opinion, Summer Beach, due to it's accommodations and location, and th Ritz- Carlton, simply because it's the Ritz, are the two best choices for a great vacation on Amelia Island.

We had both plumbing and AC problems. It took the owner 24 hrs to get someone out to fix the AC and the repair guy didn't bring what he needed. The resort office did move us to another unit, thankfully, but it was an ordeal moving. The repair people both told us the owner did not have a history of keeping us his properties. This is a shame because the resort office was very helpful and the area is beautiful. The condo association clearly has low standards.