Our extended family of 6 (my husband and I, our daughter and son-in-law, and our 5- and 7-year old grandchildren) just spent a week at the Chalonna Retreat in the Harbor Dunes subdivision of New Buffalo, Michigan. What attracted us to the house in the first place was free access to the Harbor Dunes community pool just a short walk away on our quiet shady street. The children loved swimming in the pool and had no problem social distancing since only a couple of other residents were using it most afternoons. The house had no yard where they could play, but they enjoyed watching for deer and passing trains on the wrap-around porch.
The staff at the WAYA Rentals office were quick to answer questions before our visit and also to deal with two maintenance problems soon after we arrived. A plumber came a couple of hours after we reported that our downstairs toilet wasn’t filling up, and WAYA’s maintenance guy came right away to change an overhead light bulb that had burnt out in the children’s bedroom.
The location of the house is somewhat problematic. Though in a wooded area, it borders on busy highway US12 and a parallel train line. Heavy traffic noise woke us early each morning and lasted until the evening, interspersed with frequent loud train whistles. The house has a nice screened-in porch, but sitting there with the traffic noise was unpleasant.
The house was clean with a well-furnished kitchen. However, since all the cabinets were filled with dishes, glasses, pans and bowls, there was almost no space to store all the groceries we brought for the week; we had to leave our supplies on the kitchen island, making the space unusable for food preparation and eating. With only a very small round dining table and four chairs inside the house, the six of us could not sit down together to eat a meal when it was too cool for the porch, which was the case most mornings and several evenings during our unseasonably cool week. Only three people could sit on the overstuffed sectional sofa in the small living room, and none of us found it comfortable anyway.
Another inconvenience was the locked closet in the master bedroom, leaving my daughter and her husband nowhere to hang their clothes. Our son-in-law found the mattress so firm, he had to sleep on the couch to avoid back pain.
Overall, the house seemed somewhat small for the six of us and was more expensive than it should have been, but we adapted and enjoyed our time there despite its drawbacks.
