If you're looking for a great condo on South Padre, this one is excellent. There is a great view of the ocean and beach from the living area. This balcony also overlooks a very nice landscape area of the Aquarius with a pool, hot tub, and cookout gazebo. Both bedrooms share an additional balcony with a partial view of the gulf and a view up the street.
HVAC system is loud, but apartment has a great kitchen and a walk-in shower (not a tub combo), which is super nice. Also kitchen is well-stocked with equipment to cook a meal. There is a coffeemaker and apartment has a dishwasher, range, and nice-sized fridge.There are some walkable eating places -- not like next door, but they are not a bad walk, and the bay front hip-area eating places are less than a mile.
I really thought SPI weather would be good, even though it was December, but I was really, really wrong. High winds and blowing water from the gulf and bay were terrible...needed gloves and caps and a couple of layers, and your clothes got soaked..seriously, it was almost as bad as a hurricane, except no flooding.
There is an exercise room with a ping pong table in the Aquarius, so that helped, but most all Padre activities are outdoors -- so not a lot to do that's inside, other than eat at a restaurant or cook and play games at the apartment. We did enjoy the Sea Turtle Rescue and braved the elements at the Bird Watching facility. We had one partial day that was nice and did the Southern Wave catamaran that served a nice meal and offered a great view of the New Year's Eve fireworks on 12/30/17 (moved up a day because the weather was going to be worse on 12/31).
Honestly, I'm not sure if we could have done better weather-wise if we had gone somewhere else besides Padre-- I think most of the country was hit...at least there was no ice in SPI!
Apartment-wise, this one is fantastic and the room was at the end of a hall so there was not any foot traffic by the door, and the apartment is not near the elevator either...and that was nice as well.
One more thing...the apartment lacked a little in its cleaning, there was a used Q-Tip left on the floor in the king bedroom and our son mentioned that his comforter didn't seem entirely clean.
Overall, though, I would give it an 8 out of 10. Sandy's welcome letter was nice (and helpful) and you can tell she desires to give her customers a high-quality product!