Come in, drop the bags, take a drink out to the rail.
A corner unit. The living and dining rooms open onto the balcony with the Gulf straight out front, and it wraps around the corner to a second balcony on the north side. Five floors up, with sea oats and a private walkover between you and the sand. Three bedrooms, two baths, sleeps eight. Full kitchen, washer and dryer in the unit, covered parking, and two pools, hot tubs, a sauna and a pirate splash pad downstairs.
We are Gene and Jennifer, and we own this one. There is no management company between you and us. Phoenix V itself is run by an Association with rules we do not control and staff who enforce them, so the first half of this guide is the practical business: what happens at the desk, what it costs, and the two or three rules that get families turned away when nobody warned them. The second half is the reward. Please read the first half anyway.
Phoenix V is replacing windows and sliding doors across the building and restoring the exterior, with completion expected in May 2027. Unit 501's own work finishes before you arrive, so you are walking into a finished unit. Elsewhere in the building there is weekday construction activity: crews on site, some noise and dust, and work platforms on other sections of the exterior at times. During winter months the ground-level pool and splash pad are partially closed for overhead protection. The indoor pool, hot tubs, sauna and fitness center stay open throughout. We would rather tell you now than have you find out at check-in.
$55 at the desk, on arrival
Everyone in your party registers in person at the Phoenix V desk before you settle in. It is not optional and we cannot waive it.
Twelve wristbands, worn all week
The registration fee covers one vehicle pass and up to twelve amenity wristbands. Staff will turn you away from the pools, hot tubs and fitness room without one.
A second car is another $55
A three-bedroom unit may register two vehicles total. Budget roughly $110 if you are arriving in two cars.
Hot tubs and sauna are 16 and over
The Association sets a hard age limit with no supervised exception, and staff enforce it. Younger kids have the two pools and the splash pad.
The part that saves you a bad first evening
Phoenix V is an Association building. These are its rules, not ours, and the staff do enforce them. Read the first three before you park.
Check-in is from 4:00 PM and you let yourself in with a keypad code. There is no key handoff and nobody will meet you at the door.
Your entry code arrives in the message we send on arrival morning, so it is already on your phone before you are on the road. We do not print it on this page, because this page is public. If the message has not landed by the time you pull in, message us and we will send it straight back.
We are on the fifth floor. That is low enough that the stairs are a real option when the elevators back up, which they do, especially on Saturday mornings.
Before you settle in, everyone in your party registers in person at the Phoenix V desk. It is not optional and it is not ours to waive.
The fee is $55, and for a three-bedroom unit it covers one vehicle pass and up to twelve amenity wristbands. Wear the wristbands all week. The pools, hot tubs, fitness room and courts all require them, and staff will turn you away without one. Replacements are $10 at the desk.
Arriving in two cars? A second vehicle is another $55, two vehicles maximum, so budget roughly $110. That is the Association's schedule rather than ours, and we would rather you hear it from us now than at the desk.
Ask for the door codes while you are there. The fitness room, racquetball court and sauna are all on Association key codes handed out at the desk. Pick them up now rather than finding a locked door later.
Your vehicle pass gets you the surface lot. It does not reserve a space, so at busy times you may circle for a few minutes. Keep the pass visible on the windshield, because an unmarked car can get booted or towed.
We also own a deeded underground space, P99, and you are welcome to use it. Covered, reserved, out of the sun and the summer squalls. The building's rules allow a rental guest to use an owner's underground space when the owner authorizes it, and we do. Ask at the desk when you register. It is entirely optional; the surface lot is completely fine if you would rather not bother.
If anyone at the desk or in security questions your use of P99, please do not argue. Message us right away and we will take care of it. We would much rather take a phone call than have you standing in a garage at ten at night.
The internet here is the building's network, and it is open. There is no password to enter. Just connect and you are on.
Because it is open it is not encrypted, and it is shared with the rest of the building. It is completely fine for streaming, maps and messaging. For banking, work email or anything you would rather keep private, please use your phone's hotspot or a VPN. We would rather tell you that than let you find out.
There is a private walkover from the building straight to the sand. Please read the posted swimming rules at the beach access, and check the flag color every single day, not just on the day you arrive. It changes daily, there is no lifeguard, and swimming is at your own risk.
Yellow is moderate hazard. Red is high hazard. Purple means dangerous marine life. Double red means the water is closed, and entering it then is illegal inside Orange Beach city limits.
Text ALBEACHES to 888777 for the day's conditions, or call 251-981-SURF (7873).
We would rather you had this from us than discovered it from a scaffold.
Phoenix V is replacing windows and sliding doors across the building and restoring the exterior, with completion expected in May 2027. Unit 501's own turn came early in that schedule, so you arrive to a finished unit with new impact glazing.
What it means for your stay: there is weekday construction activity elsewhere in the building, with crews on site, some noise and dust, and work platforms on other sections of the exterior at times. During winter months the ground-level pool and splash pad are partially closed for overhead protection. The indoor pool, hot tubs, sauna and fitness center stay open throughout.
If a completely quiet stay is essential to you, we would genuinely rather you booked us after May 2027, and we would love to have you then.
Quiet hours are 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM. Sound carries between units and off the water far more than you would expect, so if you are out on the balcony late, please keep it low. The pools, hot tubs, sauna and splash pad close at 11:00 PM and reopen at 7:00 AM.
Nothing hangs on the balcony rail. Not towels, not swimsuits. It is a building rule, it is the one that trips people up, and things blow off a fifth-floor balcony more easily than you would think. There is a washer and dryer in the unit; use it freely.
No grills on the balcony, no smoking or vaping, and please never drop or throw anything over the rail. One more small thing that saves the unit: keep the sliders closed when you are not going in and out. The Gulf breeze brings insects, and salt air is hard on everything inside.
Phoenix V does not allow guest pets of any kind. This is the building's rule. Only trained service animals qualify, and the Association's rules state that comfort animals and emotional support animals are not allowed on the property. Pets are also barred from the beach by City of Orange Beach ordinance.
Building security enforces this directly and can require that an animal be boarded or that your party relocate to another property. Please do not book if you are traveling with a pet. We would hate for your trip to start that way.
Checkout is 10:00 AM, and here is the whole list. It is short on purpose.
Start the dishwasher. Clear anything perishable out of the fridge. Toss towels in the tub or on the laundry room floor. Take the trash down. Lock the slider and pull the door shut behind you. Leave the wristbands and parking pass behind if you are done with them. That is it. Our cleaner handles the rest.
Leave the A/C set at 78°F. Please do not switch it off. Closing up a coastal condo with no air moving is how mold starts, and this unit has a bathroom that needs the air kept dry.
We leave a starter supply of paper products, soap, trash bags and coffee, enough to get you through arrival day without a store run. After that it is yours to restock. Walmart Neighborhood Market and Rouses are both about a mile away, and Publix is five minutes east.
Trash goes down to the chute rather than out into the hallway. And the balcony is the whole point of this unit, so take a drink out there on the first night. Take a drink out there tonight.
What is here, and how it works
Spread out on the granite and actually cook. Full-size range and oven, dishwasher, full-size fridge with an icemaker, coffee maker, and a bar with four stools for whoever wanders in first.
There is counter space for two people working at once and a double sink deep enough to rinse a cooler in. Seat six at the table and four more at the bar, so everybody eats at once.
Run a load of sandy towels mid-week instead of hauling them home. The washer and dryer are in the unit, right down the hall, and you should use them freely.
Use them rather than the balcony rail: the building does not allow towels or swimsuits out there.
Let yourself in with a code. No key handoff, no meeting anyone, no matter how late you land.
Your code arrives in the message we send on arrival morning, so it is on your phone before you hit the road. We do not publish it on this page.
The balcony wraps the corner of the building, and the two halves are genuinely different. Out front, off the living and dining rooms, it is the Gulf: water, dune and the walkover. Follow the rail around the corner and the north section looks inland over the parking deck and the tree line. It is a real second outdoor space, but it is not a water view. Worth knowing before you pick rooms: the primary bedroom opens onto that north section, not the Gulf side. Four seats and a table, with shade at one end when the sun gets serious.
Two house rules live out here, both the Association's: nothing hangs on the rail, and no grills. There is a BBQ area downstairs for that.
From five floors up there are sea oats, sand and Gulf in front of you, and you can watch the umbrellas go up in the morning.
We will be straight with you about the rest. This is a corner unit, and the view from the north section is partially blocked at some angles. The primary bedroom does not look out over the ocean. The living room, the kitchen and the balcony are where the water is, and that is where you will spend your time.
The building sits directly on the dune. There is no road to cross and no parking to hunt for. Take the private boardwalk over the dune and you are on the sand in under a minute.
Check the flag color every day before anyone goes in the water. There is no lifeguard, and winter surf can look calm and still run a strong rip.
Come in off Perdido Beach Boulevard and you are already there: covered parking, elevators, and the sand out the back.
Your $55 registration at the desk covers one vehicle pass. A second car is another $55. Our deeded underground space, P99, is yours to use if you want it. Just ask at the desk when you register.
Ceiling fans, cool air and somewhere to land when the sun finally wins. There is a TV for the afternoon everyone needs off their feet.
One request that matters more than it sounds: at checkout, leave the A/C set at 78°F rather than switching it off.
Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, eight guests. A king in the primary with its own bath, two queens in the second bedroom, a queen in the third, and a sleeper sofa in the living room.
Every bedroom has a door and closet space, so nobody is living out of a suitcase and nobody is drawing straws for an air mattress.
Two pools downstairs, both the building's, plus a pirate splash pad the kids will find on their own. There is no lifeguard and swimming is at your own risk. No diving, no running, and children under 12 need an adult with them.
Shower the beach off before you get in and keep glass away from the water. Children who are not toilet trained need swim diapers and babies need protective swimwear, and staff do check. Poolside furniture cannot be reserved, so a towel thrown over a lounger at 7 a.m. does not hold it, and anything left poolside overnight gets cleared away. Open 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM.
During winter months the ground-level pool and splash pad are partially closed for the building project. The indoor pool, hot tubs, sauna and fitness center stay open.
The Association requires anyone using the sauna or hot tubs to be 16 or older. There is no supervised exception and staff enforce it, so a younger child cannot go in with a parent. If you are traveling with younger kids, the two pools and the pirate splash pad are theirs.
For everyone else: four adults maximum per tub. Fifteen minutes is the recommended limit and twenty is the cap when others are waiting. No food, no glass. Shower the beach off and remove suntan oil first, and dry off rather than dripping across the deck.
Do not get in if the water reads above 104°F, and skip it if you are pregnant, on medication that causes drowsiness, or drinking. The Association will drain a tub if these rules are broken, which is the building's call rather than ours. Open 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM. The sauna key code comes from the Association desk.
Hard 16+, with no supervised exception. We would rather say it twice than have you turned away at the tub with a nine-year-old in a towel.
The building has a fitness center, a racquetball court and a game room, and all of them stay open through the winter.
The fitness room, racquetball court and sauna are on Association key codes handed out at the desk, so ask for them when you register rather than finding a locked door later. Wristbands are required anywhere in the common areas.
There is a BBQ area and a picnic pavilion on the property, and that is where grilling happens.
No grills on the balcony. The Association prohibits it outright, and it is one of the rules building staff act on immediately.
Where we go when we are down here
Open each of the drop-down boxes below for our local recommendations and best things to do around town. Winter hours on this coast are genuinely different from summer hours, so where a place shortens its season we have said so in the card rather than letting you find a locked door.
The Gulf
$$Built from stacked shipping containers on the sand at Perdido Pass, with picnic-table seating, fire pits and one of the best water views on the coast. The menu is short, fresh and changes daily. Open year-round, but understand what you are booking: the dining is essentially open-air under cover, warmed by heaters rather than walls, so a December evening here is a coats-and-blankets affair. On a mild winter day at lunch it is superb.
Doc's Seafood Shack & Oyster Bar
$$A genuine local fixture on Canal Road since 1984: fried shrimp, oysters, gumbo and po'boys in a screened, wood-paneled room with paper towels on the table. Open daily 11am to 9pm and famously hard to keep closed. The family line is that they are last to close for a hurricane and first to reopen. No seasonal winter closure is published, which makes it one of the safer bets on a quiet December night.
Cosmo's Restaurant & Bar
$$$Cosmo's sits off the beachfront on Canal Road, in a burnt-orange room hung floor to ceiling with bright folk-art dog paintings. The kitchen is far more ambitious than the setting suggests: hand-cut steaks, a working sushi bar, banana-leaf-wrapped sea bass and pecan-crusted redfish, alongside a plain burger that keeps kids happy. Roughly 200 seats spread across several small interior rooms and a large open-air deck. No reservations are taken, but live music plays nightly from March through October while you wait.
Louisiana Lagniappe
$$$White-tablecloth Louisiana cooking on the water at SanRoc Cay, with soft-shell crab, crab-crusted snapper and oysters Bienville. It is the closest thing here to a real special-occasion dinner. It is open year-round and dinner only, from 5pm, with the last seating between roughly 9:15pm and 9:45pm depending on the night. The dining room looks over the marina, which is worth asking for when you book.
Flora-Bama
$$The Gulf Coast's most famous roadhouse, straddling the Alabama/Florida line, and the single most reliable place on this list: open 365 days a year with live music every day, typically from 11am until late into the night. Multiple rooms and stages, oysters and bushwackers, sand underfoot in places. It is loud and it is a bar first, but it is also open on Christmas Day when almost nothing else is.
The Southern Grind Coffee House at The Wharf
$$A genuine independent coffee house on The Wharf's Main Street, opening at 7:00am. Espresso, cold brew, pastries and a decent breakfast, with indoor seating and a patio onto the promenade. Open year-round, seven days: roughly 7:00am to 7pm Monday through Thursday and Sunday, later on Friday and Saturday. In winter the inside room is what you actually want.
BuzzCatz Coffee & Sweets
$A local favorite on Canal Road doing coffee and, more to the point, enormous cinnamon rolls, cookies and cakes baked on site. Open year-round from 7am and running late into the evening, roughly to 9:30pm Sunday through Thursday and 10pm on Friday and Saturday, which makes it one of the few places here that works as a dessert stop as well as a morning one. Small room, so it fills up on weekends.
Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii
$$The Hawaiian-bean chain's Orange Beach outpost on Canal Road, open daily year-round from 6am to 5pm. Kona and Hawaiian blends, flavored lattes and blended drinks. The 6am opening is the real argument for it: you can collect coffee for eight people before anyone else in the building is awake. Standard pastries rather than a kitchen.
Foam Coffee
$$A small Gulf Shores coffee shop that takes its coffee seriously, with a loyal local following. It is the sort of place that cares about the pour rather than the syrup list. Open daily but only from 7am to 2pm, so it is strictly a morning errand and easy to miss if you plan a lazy start. Seating is limited. Worth the drive west if good espresso matters to you.
Southern Shores Coffee
$$A small-batch roaster and cafe in Gulf Shores, roasting its own beans on site. It is the place to buy whole beans to take home as well as to drink a flat white. Open year-round, but the hours are short: roughly 7am to 2pm on weekdays, 7am to noon on Saturday, and closed all day Sunday, so treat it as a weekday morning stop. A quiet, low-key room compared with the beach-front cafes.
Rouses Market #76
$$The best full-size supermarket on the island and the one to use for the big arrival trip: a Louisiana chain with a genuinely good seafood counter, hot deli, boiled shrimp and a solid wine aisle. Open year-round, 7am to 10pm daily, about five minutes from the condo. Holiday hours are shortened and Christmas Day is not guaranteed, so do the big shopping run on arrival rather than relying on it mid-week.
Walmart Neighborhood Market
$A smaller-format Walmart focused on groceries, open year-round and the longest hours on the island at 7am to 11pm daily. No general merchandise to speak of, but it covers diapers, basics, cheap beach gear and a pharmacy. This is the late-night backstop when you realize at 9pm that you have no coffee filters. Expect reduced hours around Christmas.
Publix Super Market at The Shoppes at Palm Pointe
$$A clean, well-run Publix at The Shoppes at Palm Pointe with strong produce, a good bakery and the chain's made-to-order deli subs, which are the easy answer to feeding eight people on a beach day. Open year-round. Publix closes on Christmas Day and cuts hours on Christmas Eve, so plan the holiday-week shopping around that rather than assuming normal opening.
Lartigue's Original Fresh Seafood Market
$$A family seafood market on Perdido Beach Blvd since 1979, selling Gulf shrimp, oysters, snapper and grouper off the boats and, the part people miss, steaming it for you while you wait. Open daily, roughly 9am to 7pm. Winter is fine for shrimp and oysters; what is landing changes with the season, so ask what came in rather than arriving with a fixed list.
Coastal Alabama Farmers & Fishermens Market
$A large covered farmers and fishermens market in Foley that runs every Saturday morning year-round, 9am to 2pm, and it is not a summer-only market. Local produce, Gulf seafood, honey, baked goods and craft booths under a permanent pavilion, so weather is not a problem. The winter table looks different from the summer one: greens, satsumas and citrus rather than tomatoes and melons.
Cotton Bayou Public Beach Access
$A Gulf State Park access inside Orange Beach city limits and the closest full-service public beach to the condo, open year-round with restrooms, outdoor showers, a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk and a roll-out beach mat at the east ramp. Outside the summer season you will often have several hundred yards of sand to yourselves; the water is too cold for most swimmers, but shelling is at its best after a winter front. Parking is paid at a kiosk or online.
Alabama Point East & the Perdido Pass Jetties
$Six thousand feet of wide beach on the east side of the Perdido Pass bridge, with dunes, boardwalks, picnic areas and outdoor showers, open year-round. The draw is the granite jetty: stand at the end and the whole charter fleet runs past you close enough to read the boat names, and dolphins work the pass on the incoming tide in every month of the year. It is the best free thing to do here on a cool bright December morning.
The Orange Beach Canoe Trail: Twelve Launches on the Back Bays
$$The city maintains twelve marked canoe trail launches on the sheltered water behind the island, along Wolf Bay, Bay La Launch, Arnica Bay, Bayou St. John and Cotton Bayou, all part of the Coastal Alabama Back Bay Blueway. Launching is free. The closest is Cotton Bayou at 25808 Perdido Beach Boulevard, the same access you would use for the beach, so you can be on flat water about three minutes from the condo; Waterfront Park on Canal Road is another. This is the water to paddle when the Gulf is too rough for it, and the herons, egrets and wintering ducks back there are the reason to go rather than a consolation prize. No motorized craft on the trail.
OB Watersports: Pontoon and Tritoon Rentals
$$$$A day on your own pontoon is the classic Orange Beach outing: run the Intracoastal to Robinson Island, beach the boat on a sandbar and swim off the back. Their 23-foot tritoons and 30-foot pontoons seat twelve, and every rental includes a cooler with ice and the temporary Alabama boating certificate you must carry. This is a warm-weather outing, and they publish no winter schedule anywhere. Call 251-981-2527 to confirm they are running in December before you plan a day around it.
Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge: the Pine Beach Trail
$Seven thousand acres of federally protected dune, pine flatwood and lagoon, with trails open year-round from sunrise to sunset and no entrance fee. The Pine Beach Trail runs about two miles each way between Little Lagoon and Gator Lake and ends on an undeveloped Gulf beach with no condos on it at all. December and January are the best months to walk it: the heat and the biting insects are gone, and wintering ducks, bald eagles and peregrine falcons are on the water.
Tropic Falls at OWA
$$$This is your cold-day and rain-day insurance: a genuinely large INDOOR water park under a retractable glass roof, kept warm year-round, attached to a theme park in Foley. The indoor side has body and tube slides, a lazy river, a wave pool and a zero-entry toddler area. The outdoor rides and the outdoor wave pool are a different matter in winter. Park hours vary by season and OWA does not publish December hours far ahead, so check the operating calendar before you commit a day.
Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo
$$A compact, walkable zoo on 25 acres with giraffes, lemurs, big cats, kangaroos and a reptile house, open daily year-round from 9am to 4pm. It closes only on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Winter is the better visit: the animals are active in cool weather instead of asleep in the shade, and the whole place is quiet. Two to three hours covers it comfortably, which suits a group with small children and grandparents.
Gulf Bowl Family Entertainment Center
$$A 35,000-square-foot INDOOR entertainment center, family-run in Foley since 1959: 16 bowling lanes plus seven VIP lanes, a two-level high ropes course strung above the arcade floor, laser tag, pool tables and a lane-side grill. Bowling is the rare thing a grandparent and a six-year-old can genuinely do side by side, with bumpers and ball ramps available. The ropes course requires 48 inches of height; nothing else does. Open late every day, weekends included.
Gulf State Park
$Over 6,000 acres of coastal pine forest, lakes and dune habitat, threaded by the Hugh S. Branyon Backcountry Trail, 28 paved miles repeatedly ranked among the best recreational trails in the country. This entry is about the inland park: trails, lakes and the Nature Center, which is open Monday to Saturday, not the fishing pier several miles east. Paved and flat means strollers, wheelchairs and a grandparent on a rented cruiser all work on the same path. Open year-round; expect a modest day-use fee.
Adventure Island
$$A five-acre family park built around a five-story volcano that erupts with fire and sound, plus two 18-hole mini golf courses, go-karts, bumper boats, laser tag and one of the largest arcades on the coast. It is close enough to the condo to walk to. Almost all of it is outdoors, and the operator publishes no hours at all. The website says only 'Open 7 Days A Week, Please Call For Hours'. We could not verify its December schedule, so call 251-974-1500 before you walk over.
Class Act Charters
$$$$The serious deep-sea option, and one of the few Orange Beach boats that can legally carry a whole party of eight. The 52-foot Class Act runs 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12-hour Gulf trips year-round, and the smaller 38-foot Daddy's Baby handles six. Rods, bait and fishing licenses are provided. What changes is the target: outside the summer season you are bottom fishing for vermilion snapper, triggerfish, grouper and amberjack, not the red snapper that dominates the summer season.
Zeke's Landing Marina and the Zeke's Lady Party Boat
$$The Zeke's Lady is a 65-foot head boat, meaning you buy individual seats instead of chartering the whole vessel, a large difference in cost if only half the family wants to fish. The standard walk-on run is six hours of bottom fishing offshore, and bait, tackle, rods, reels and licenses are included in the seat price. Deckhands bait hooks and untangle lines, which makes it forgiving for first-timers. Winter departures run on a reduced schedule and are weather-dependent.
Fins and Family Fishing
$$$A private inshore guide working the back bays, canals and tidal creeks behind the island, where the water stays flat and the shore is always in sight. That is the right call for young kids, grandparents, or anyone who gets queasy. This is the one to book in winter: December and January are prime months inshore for sheepshead around the bridge pilings, plus redfish, black drum and speckled trout. Trips run from a short matinee outing up to six hours, licenses included.
Orange Beach Waterfront Park Pier
$No boat, no captain, no reservation, and no admission either. Four hundred feet of lighted city pier out over Wolf Bay, free to fish, with covered pavilions, seating and restrooms at the entrance and free parking. Because it sits on the back bay rather than the open Gulf, it stays fishable on the windy days that shut the beach piers down, and it is lit after dark. White trout, flounder and redfish work the deepened water and the reefs here, and sheepshead show up around the pilings once the water cools. Open year round, closing only for the Orange Beach Festival of Art on the second weekend in March.
Orange Beach Marina
$$$$A full-service marina in a fully protected harbor near Perdido Pass and the home port for a large charter fleet, so it works as a one-stop shop: nearshore and offshore trolling, bottom fishing, and inshore guides running 4 and 6-hour trips all book out of the same place. The marina states that its charter operators supply bait, tackle and fishing licenses. There is also a dock store on the property.
Alvin's Island Tropical Department Store
$The archetypal Gulf Coast beach store: swimwear, towels, boogie boards, hermit crabs, shark teeth and shell everything, on Perdido Beach Blvd about two and a half miles west of the Perdido Pass bridge. It is open year-round, and it is where you go when someone forgot a swimsuit or the kids need a rainy-afternoon souvenir budget. The widely listed 8am-to-midnight hours are the summer pattern; off-season closing is earlier and not published, so call ahead for a late run.
The Wharf
$$The walkable waterfront Main Street of the area: two stories of boutiques, gift shops and galleries along a marina promenade, with restaurants, a cinema and the Ferris wheel at the end of it. Open year-round and free to walk. Portside on Main, the newest wing, opened in 2025 and added another row of shops at the end of the street. Through the holidays the whole street is lit for Christmas and the shops stay open in the evening, which is exactly when a cold, early-dark day needs somewhere to go. Parking is free.
Tanger Outlets Foley
$$A large open-air outlet center in Foley, 103 stores by Tanger's own count, open year-round and the biggest shopping draw within half an hour of the condo. It works for a rainy or cold day only in the sense that the walkways are covered. The layout is outdoors, so dress for the weather. The center extends its hours in the run-up to Christmas, closes early on Christmas Eve, and is closed on Christmas Day itself.
Coastal Arts Center of Orange Beach
$$A city-run arts campus on Wolf Bay with a gallery, gift shop, clay studio and a working glass Hot Shop where you can watch artists blow glass for free, or book a session and make your own piece. Open year-round, but the office, gallery and Hot Shop run Monday through Friday only and are closed both Saturday and Sunday, which catches a lot of weekend visitors by surprise. Glass and pottery sessions require an appointment.
SanRoc Cay Marina Shops
$$$A small Mediterranean-styled marina courtyard of independent shops, galleries and restaurants wrapped around a working harbor, open year-round, generally 10am to 6pm. It is a twenty-minute browse rather than an afternoon, and the appeal is the setting: boats on three sides, brick courtyard, a handful of genuinely local shops instead of chains. Easy to combine with lunch or with a walk out to the Perdido Pass jetties nearby.
24400 Perdido Beach Blvd
Phoenix V, Unit 501, 24400 Perdido Beach Blvd, Orange Beach, AL 36561. Open in Google Maps
Anything at all, message us
Something is not working, something is not where it should be, you cannot find the coffee filters. Message us and we will take care of it. Nobody is going to knock on your door unannounced; if you need maintenance or support, we will confirm a time with you first.
Have a great first night.
Gene & Jennifer