Overall we had an enjoyable experience thanks to Toma and Chris’ wonderful apartment, the phenomenal location, and their hospitality. A lot of thought went into a 4-star review because we stayed for 10 days and there were certain inconveniences that shouldn’t happen in a five star experience. Below is a pros and cons list to help anyone else with their expectations of the experience at this AirBnB. The cons may seem like a long list but the pros truly do outweigh the inconveniences heavily, so the AirBnB stay deserves 4 stars.
Pros:
- Toma and Chris are both very nice and helpful, responsive hosts.
- The unit itself is practically brand new. Beautifully taken care of and clean, very comfortable. We could very comfortably live in a unit like this.
- The location is EXCELLENT. Harbour-front down the street, one of the best sushi restaurants we’ve tried downstairs (Domo Sushi, they deserve your business), and one of the hands-down best overall restaurants we’ve ever been to just across the street, Tableau French Bistro.
Cons
- The building itself is poorly managed and poorly built. The entire ground floor and elevators smell like garbage due to the location of the garbage chute. The building closed access to the gym due to Covid but wasn’t enforcing any mask-wearing or “no guest rules”; people were actually having parties in the building and walking around the lobby and in the elevators without masks, making the experience, depending on how seriously you take Covid, potentially dangerous.
- The check-in was a big hassle because the front door FOB doesn’t work half the time so we were stuck in the street with our bags, and the elevators are on a very short timer for guests being buzzed in, so my wife and I were separated on checkin and our bags nearly got crushed in the closing elevator door. My wife had to go upstairs and get the keyfob, then come back downstairs for me. Not convenient, but would be fine without much luggage.
- The amenities of this building are particularly complicated; the recycling room is through two buzzer doors and on the other side of a parkade. The gym is on the third floor behind maintenance-looking door, and it was, as mentioned, unavailable. Hosts should either give a guided tour through the building or communicate the location of the building services, because it was a hassle hunting for them.
- The drains in the bathroom were clogged when we got there and I had to get a drain snake myself to clear them. Host brought draino but the bottle wasn’t enough, and they ignored my request for a drain snake twice. If they had accommodated effortlessly then I wouldn’t be saying anything here, but I doubt the apartment will have a problem like that again.