Fantastic views and nice quiet location, but a disappointing property overall. We stayed here for three nights, and didn't find it to be good value for money compared to comparable AirBnBs. The quality you'd expect for this price just wasn't there. I'm generally really relaxed with my reviews and not a picky guest, but I think it's important to ensure others know what to expect from this property given what you're paying for it per night.
Cons:
- As others have said, the place sorely needs a proper clean. We found visibly dirty dishes in the cupboard, and there were lightbulbs out around the place, too - among with some other things around the place that could have done with some attention.
- The kitchen space is fantastic (big fridge/freezer, large modern stovetop/oven, nice stone benchtop space, decent dishwasher), BUT the kitchen is poorly equipped compared to other places at this price/size we've stayed at. The limited utensils there have seen better days (chipped dishes, worn frying pans, blunt knives) and could do with being replaced. It also doesn't hurt to supply guests with things like cling-wrap and aluminium foil - this is literally the only place we've ever stayed that didn't have these two items (it didn't have containers to store things instead of using cling-wrap either).
- The place felt really tired overall - lots of mismatched furniture, and in need of a fresh coat of paint and updated furnishings given the price of the property. Even something as simple as new doormat to get the mud off our feet would have been nice (the existing one has essentially disintegrated into mud).
- The master bedroom bed is on wheels on a wooden floorboard, and we couldn't figure out how to lock it to stop the wheels from moving. Meaning that every time my husband or I shifted slightly on the bed, it would move - waking the other up. We contemplated moving to the other bedroom which had a bed that wasn't on wheels, but it felt wasteful to mess up linens on two beds in the house when it was just the two of us there, and the other bed was much smaller so wasn't as appealing. We laughed about how silly it was - but it did affect our sleep a lot.
- The split-level, open plan design of the house means that it's difficult to heat properly - all of the heat rises up! Fabulous and toasty if you are upstairs in winter, but the kitchen and games room downstairs remained super chilly throughout our stay.
PROS:
- The views were really wonderful. This is probably the main redeeming point of the property, and worth it if you aren't bothered by my points above. Lovely ocean views from the kitchen/deck, living areas, and bedrooms. Despite how open the views were, the property still largely felt quite private, too.
- Nice hot rain showers in the bathroom, as well as the outside deck. Great water pressure and temperature which was welcomed after cold beach and bush walks!
- It was dog-friendly, with a nice large, secure and grassy yard for our boy to stretch his legs (we just had to keep telling our dog to stay away from the prickly blackberry bushes along the fenceline because the silly thing kept pricking himself!). The property even had water/food bowls for canine guests, which was nice, even though we'd bought our own.
- There is a nice big couch to stretch out on in front of the upstairs TV! It was a bit stained but otherwise felt clean and was comfortable.
- Large TV. There is a DVD/blueray player, and a selection of DVDs. This was welcome because the internet connection/TV reception was very unreliable (this was pointed out in the listing details, so we expected it). It was on-off rain all weekend we were there, so we the internet didn't work pretty much the entire time. Our personal devices worked fine on Optus 4G internet, though. The TV is a smart TV, so you could probably hotspot it onto your phone to stream, but we didn't bother.
- There was a nice big timber table on the outdoor deck - we didn't get to enjoy it because of the weather, but I can imagine having meals there in the warmer months with the view and ocean breeze would be lovely.
- Only 10 mins drive from Apollo Bay, and the property is a few houses up a side street from the Great Ocean Road itself - meaning you have a quiet location with great views that's not too far from town if you need to duck in and get something from the shops!