Our stay at Chatby wasn’t quite what we had pictured… We received a welcome text on check-in day with check-in details. I noticed that the text mentioned ground floor apartment, however in the ad on Airbnb the images and description showed a balcony with a view of the ocean. I messaged back asking if our room had a balcony with a view and a hot tub as the ad described (and paid for) and the Chatby Team responded - “Your studio space is a room with a twin tub on the ground floor. Our system allocates the spa studios as they are booked, with the balcony apartments booked first. We only have 5 and they are often booked out a year in advance. Other than the balcony the studio spaces all gave the same amenities.” We were incredibly disappointed, which we made clear to the Chatby Team via message - but no further response. As it was the Easter weekend and we had travelled from Melbourne to visit Lorne, we didn’t have many options (ie. stay elsewhere, cancel) so we stayed anyway.
We thought the place was lovely - great decor, spacious, comfortable bed and loved the hot tub, but it was tainted by the poor communication and fraudulent advertisement. On top of that the ground floor apartment opens out to a seating area that is completely open to all other guests with most guests having to walk passed our room to get to theirs. So it is not private and we had to ensure that the curtains were closed most of the time.
Out suggestion would be, the Chatby Team advertise the ground floor separately to the top floor, or clearly explain the booking system in the ad description on Airbnb to avoid customer disappointment.
We won’t be staying here again on principle and we would advise anyone who is thinking of booking here to keep the above in mind.