Pros and cons
Pros
Unit is quiet and in a great location with the road in front, then beach. You can see ocean glimpses from unit but need to stand at edge of balcony and look to right to see the waves of Boomerang Beach. Unit is comfortable with off street under cover parking (but open underneath unit - unit two storeys above). Generally, surfaces (kitchen bench, bathroom) were clean however see cons. There is adequate reception for Telstra/Optus mobile networks phones.
Walked along Boomerang, Blueys Beaches, and visited other local beaches. Scenic drives to Sugarloaf Lighthouse (great views), Hallidays Point area, Smiths Lake, Coomba Park and Forster.
Cons
Whilst none of the following items were deal breakers it just all added to sloppiness/lack of attention to detail when paying AU$150 (inclusive of cleaning costs/fees) per night mid-week in winter. We were given two keys, luckily we didn’t come back to the unit separately as one key was completely different. They need to label the keys (*).
Dining room light could not be turned off and conversely a power point could not be turned on which I then used another power point for my laptop charging in the dining room (*). Noted in other reviews that there are electrical problems and I could see some new power point covers in the kitchen.
On arrival there was a partially smoked cigarette left on the floor and BBQ had a very dirty hot plate (*). There was a quite a layer of dust on the roman blinds.
I think it would be a good idea to have WIFI (*) though noted in listing that this is not available.
Dryer takes a bit to get started – need to turn to off a few times to make it click. (*) We didn’t use the washing machine so cannot comment on it.
The Air BnB listing had washing machine crossed out in the amenities list (*) though this has now been fixed. Furniture photos include cane furniture and one bunk bed and single bed which is not correct (*). The listing has one queen and one single. It should be one queen and two bunk beds (4 singles) which an adult would have trouble sleeping in due to hard high ends. The queen bed creaks and is quite hard – no pillow top and the doona cover is very faded but clean. Blankets are very old pilled brown numbers but they do the job.
As noted in another review (thank you!!) there is only salt and pepper and a few herb jars so bring everything you want as not traditional Air BnB where you at least get a couple of coffee sachets/tea bags and UHT milk for a cuppa after a long drive. No soap sachets in the bathroom though there was a liquid soap container (perhaps left from another?). There is a general store short drive away but for major supermarkets you need to go to Forster. I brought all my supplies with me. The kitchen crockery, utensils, pots, containers were enough for our needs but not complete sets (two or was it three coffee plungers? and I had a variety of coffees in preparation). There were dishwasher sachets, hand dishwashing liquid, tea towel, dish cloth etc.
There is no air conditioning for cooling if you went in summer though you would get sea breeze, and the floor heater was effective for the living area – just a long reach behind the TV to turn off.
Note that this is unit is coordinated by a real estate/holiday letting agency and whilst it has an Air BnB profile photo of a lady (no name given except 'Pacific Palms' which is a location), understand that you don’t have the traditional Air BnB service getting to meet/email/phone from your host owner or neighbour. Instead after you have paid in full on Air BnB you are sent an email where you have to sign into another system in order to know where to pick up the keys. You go to the back of the agency (due to COVID they do not want visitors in the actual office even though we are regional and not coming from metropolitan Sydney and nowhere near hotspots for community transmission) to pick up keys in an envelope from bucket like containers with lids that are not locked, hanging off the railing, right on the lane. I was not comfortable dropping the keys back in the unlocked buckets (could easily be stolen) and instead I put it in an open pocket on the door (a little more discreet) so they would see it when they opened up the agency/letting office. I rang at 8:07am when I dropped the keys off but the phone was not answered. I rang again at 9:09am and spoke to Rowan who was going to pass a message to the letting side of the business that the keys were on the door. At 9:59am I missed a call to the mobile (went to voicemail as was in the car) where they were chasing the keys (due at 10am but I had dropped at 8:07am) but then they left a message after 10am saying they had located the keys. I rang back at my next rest stop and spoke to Caroline for a couple of minutes and when I started explaining that I had made a list of * marked items above, she immediately said that the envelope had gone to the ‘Property Manager’. It is now eight days later and I have not had a ‘thank you for your feedback’ or any sort of acknowledgement from the ‘Property Manager’ – not through Air BnB, their system or my email or phone – whilst I didn’t ask for acknowledgement I did put an effort into listing the maintenance issues marked * above.
Thank you for reading as this is the longest feedback I have given on Air BnB but I thought it would be useful to know some details as