This is my first bad review. I’ve always enjoyed my experiences on airbnb and always received reciprocative great reviews from hosts. But i'm leaving this review in the hope that Kevin & management improves the stay for others.
First off, they shouldn't offer a home in winter that doesn't offer ample heating. When we arrived, the check-in instructions stated that the fireplace wasn't working. That was fine as long as other heating options were available. However, the basement built-in heaters weren't working as well. This was verified with Alan, their facilities manager via phone call. We were asked to use the portable heaters instead. As a result, we couldn’t use the entire basement living area and bedroom, as there simply weren’t enough portable heaters to heat the whole house. Throughout our stay, the portable heaters were problematic, often tripping the power. If we are expected to use these as the main source of heating for a house that’s this big, this shouldn’t be a problem.
This leads me to the next point. Our water supply was abruptly cut off at 8am, the timing we needed it most to wash up, visit toilet, cook, clean utensils etc.. we couldn’t get anyone via phone or messages for more than an hour. All in, we lost water supply for almost two hours before we were finally sent instructions which required us to track down an outdoors switch that’s hidden in overgrown bushes to reset the power. Later, Kevin says this was because we were running the heaters and heat blankets at the same time.
Well, we had no choice since the house was still freezing cold without the original heating options (like the fireplace which required no electricity). Subsequently, Kevin insisted that all the heaters were working, which makes sense if they tested it in the day for only a short period & in much warmer conditions. Here's a simple suggestion - Fix the fireplace and built-in heaters.
Next, this was a very remote location, so we were expected to cook or bbq. In fact, it was stated in the instructions, so we packed things to cook. The listing also said the kitchen had basic essentials like pepper, salt, oil, which were also available in other Airbnbs. We arrived to find none of the above. We couldn’t cook without these basics, When contacted, we were asked to drive one hour round trip to the nearest gas station. Kevin said this was because of covid restrictions. I find that strange since all our other airbnbs on this trip provided that. Also, if that’s the case, just remove such items from the listing. Don’t let guests arrive only to realise there’s nothing. Our kids and elderly parents had to eat biscuits and bread for dinner, which was quite sad.
Speaking of sad, one of the highlights of this stay was the hot spa, our daughter was really looking forward to it. We arrived and followed the provided instructions to turn on the heated jacuzzi for two hours. It didn’t heat up as stated. Alan gave me instructions through the phone to go outdoors to hunt down the jacuzzi heater. Turns out there was an error, I had to restart that. It was too late by then to fire it up, so I tried again next morning at my daughter’s insistence. Two hours after switching it on, still no heat. I went outdoors, and saw the exact same error. Kevin says this was because I wasn’t able to “follow basic instructions” to turn on the spa. Well, if you do stay here, please expect trudging outdoors to reset the switch as part of “basic instructions”
Lastly, this place just doesn’t look at all like the glossy photos in the listing. It’s a lot more run down and tired looking. There were signs showing “Sea Eagle Retreats” which had pretty poor Google reviews. There might have been a change in management and they just slapped on a new name without changing much.