Where we stay

I have had several people through the years of going to Dauphin Island ask me where do we stay? We have been going down there for seven years now and we always rent a house on the beach. Not one house back or across the street or on the bay side but on the gulf side on the beach with the water nearly at our back door. Not sure I had ever rented a house before we started going to the island but I figured if I went with a realty company surely I wouldn't get scammed. I looked for months at all the realty company websites there, VRBO, Homeaway and just googled "beach houses". I finally settled on Dauphin Island Realty. Houses to rent on the beach are kind of expensive unless you go in the off season which is what we have done because the grandkids were either young enough to not be in school or it was OK to take them out for a week. Another thing you have to be very careful of is the pictures of the house. If you don't see a picture from the deck looking right at the water and it says "gulf views", look out. Probably not right on the beach and you better at least talk to the realtor about the location. Pictures can be deceiving. Dauphin Island Realty (DIRE) has been great to work with. We have never ever had any problems. This year we even had to deal with a coming tropical storm/hurricane in which we had to evacuate for one night. And yes, we got reimbursed for that one night without even having to ask for it.
I'm sure there are other companies to rent from but this has been our experience and it has been Great.