My friend and I booked Verne dreams Oxford room under the assumption that we would be having a private apartment, as is the case with most airbnbs. It states on the listing that you have the whole place to yourself, but this isn’t accurate - it is a group house with separate rooms that people stay in, with a singular kitchen in the shared area. Laundry is not in the private room either. I just want to make this clear to anyone who is looking to stay here because that wasn’t properly explained on the listing and my friend and I found this misleading.
I had messaged Vincent about a week prior to our arrival asking if we could check in early, at around 10:30am. He said most likely yes, but that it could change if someone booked the room until the day we would be arriving and that it would be a 25 euro fee. That was fine with us, because we were only spending one day in Gent (we would be taking a day trip to Bruges the next day) and we were happy to pay that in order to get into the room early and maximize our trip. Vincent said he would let us know if someone booked the room and it would affect our check in time. We never heard from him. I messaged him the day before our arrival confirming that we could check in at 10:30, and he responded that someone had actually booked the room and that we could come leave our bags at 10:30, but that the room wouldn’t be ready until later because they needed to clean it. Not ideal but my friend and I were okay with that.
The next day we arrive to the Airbnb at 10:30am. I called Vincent multiple times and he didn’t answer. We’re standing outside the Airbnb and getting worried. After about the fifth or sixth call he picks up and says that the person cleaning the room will let us in so we can drop off our bags. She opens the door and leads us into an unlocked room where a wooden plank fell on me (not ideal but whatever). Vincent says on the phone that we should come at 12:30 back to the room to check in, that it will be ready at that time.
We now have to plan our sole day in gent around returning to the room - we were running late after grabbing lunch and ran in the rain back to the Airbnb to meet Vincent on time. When we get there, he says the room still isn’t ready. We’re soaked wet from the rain and sitting in this group kitchen on stools and we had no idea when the room would be ready. We sat there for another hour. We wasted so much time of our travel day dealing with all of this, and once he said the room was finally ready, he offered to charge us 10 euro as a discount for the early check in instead of 25. I’m sorry, but that felt pretty ridiculous given all of the issues that we had already encountered and rubbed us the wrong way.
We got into the room and Vincent showed us how to close the windows properly because he was mad at negative reviews he had gotten for street noise, and said they were only because the people who had left the review were old. My friend and I are in our early twenties and I have to say it was pretty loud both nights we stayed there. It’s on the street where people go out at night and yell. Our second night someone was banging on the door for a really long time at 3 am, and we later found out it was another guest who was drunk. Again, we didn’t know we would be staying in a group shared house so all of this bothered us. We also kept smelling incense that Vincent was burning in another room near us, and it was really potent and bothersome.
Lastly, because our room was at the top of an extremely small spiral staircase, we asked Vincent if he could help us with our bags when we would be checking out in the morning. He said he couldn’t because he would be cooking other guests breakfast. I pushed him a little bit to say that we really needed help and he ultimately did it for us.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend staying here given the above. Vincent seemed bitter at the other negative reviews he has gotten which has made me nervous to give him one, but ultimately we really didn’t have a good experience and I feel obligated to share that with other people who are considering staying here.