Wonderful location with beautiful views of the sea as well as the forest behind. The home was well furnished and the bed was comfy with heating.
This was a location that was publicised as part of the GOR tourism places to stay, and with that price, we were expecting the same or if not even better service than other bnbs. This was perhaps an unrealistic expectation on our part as communication was an issue for us- it must be noted that any issues faced after 8pm raised to the hosts will not be addressed or acknowledged until the next day. Only issues that are deemed urgent (eg cut off of the electricity or water supply) will be acknowledged. While they do give a number to call for any emergencies/ help, we didn’t have any phone service there (we used Optus) and only had Wi-Fi. Messages on the Airbnb app went unanswered (even from the first night when the dishwasher was found to be faulty) and we could only communicate with the manager Lauren via email.
We faced a faulty dishwasher and washing machine- the dishwasher couldn’t be turned on, and the washing machine persistently showed a dE error.
For the dishwasher error, we emailed Lauren (before 8) who responded promptly and said that’s they will send a plumber down the next morning. Unfortunately the plumber was unavailable on short notice and Lauren told us that we could leave the dirty dishes in the dishwasher for the cleaner to wash. This was acceptable to us.
However we were left hanging when it came to the washing machine issue in the second night. Googling the washing machine error suggested an issue with the locking mechanism, and we did try our very best to troubleshoot the best we could. As it was our second night there we had wanted to do our laundry after getting home but was unable to do so due to the error. We emailed them at 9.30pm. Whilst admittedly late, we were unaware that the email will not even be acknowledged or replied to, hence we stayed up waiting for a reply. It was also not intuitive for us to check that all the appliances were working in the daytime, especially since we wanted to make good of the short daylight hours exploring the attractions. Laundry was something that we left to the last agenda after a long, wet day.
We gave feedback to them regarding the lack of communication but were told that messages of a non urgent nature will not be replied to after 8. We felt that for our other airbnbs around Melbourne, the hosts were contactable (even after 8) and would provide simple solutions or even a simple acknowledgement of the issues that we are facing. Honestly, Even an automated message stating that they will only respond the next morning would’ve been appreciated.
The location is unbeatable but out of the five bnbs that we’ve stayed in across Melbourne, the hosts for bimbadeen were the least reachable. They did say that they never had any issues with the washing machine and the dishwasher and would send someone to check it out after we had checked out. However, it had already dampened our experience somewhat. And if it were truly an issue that was due to our not knowing how to use the devices, some attempt at troubleshooting would’ve been appreciated.
Otherwise everything else was immaculate and the location unbeatable. Still worth staying and we did enjoy the views and the stay.