I was really excited to find Darren's house and booked it almost two months ago for five of us to stay. We were heading up to a conference in Sidney and this was perfect.

I emailed Darren three days before the trip (mid June) to confirm a few things. He emailed back and said he had screwed up and rented the place out for the week and we couldn't stay there. He made a mistake and thought we had canceled. I am not sure how this could happen since we had received several confirmation emails about my upcoming trip.

Darren attempted to make it right but could only find one room in a waterfront hotel in Sidney. Except we were five people who worked together (we were not couples and not going to share the beds). In addition, one of our people has a chronic illness and needed her own room due to her situation. Darren heard this, and kept searching and found another room at a different hotel. He apologized profusely. We agreed that this was the best we could get. He said it was too late to cancel the reservation with airbnb. He agreed to pay for the difference.

The day before our trip he emailed and said he had canceled the waterfront hotel room because he found two rooms at the Best Western (they were much cheaper) and it was too expensive to stay at the nicer hotel. He did agree to buy us breakfast at the Denny's like motel restaurant after I suggested that would be the right thing to do.

We had no choice, since there were no rooms available anywhere in Victoria or Sidney. By Friday, Darren had shifted from apologetic to being annoyed at me for being upset and frustrated. and telling me that he was a small business owner, and it was too expensive to do any more than he was.

We went from a beautiful two bedroom house with all of the amenities to two hotel rooms in hotel that smelled like stale smoke on a busy street and a breakfast at Denny's. The bright yellow Subway sign glaring into the room was a nice touch. Our ideal and affordable evening turned into an expensive dinner out followed by drinking wine out of hotel cups sitting on a bed.

Look, people make mistakes. Darren did. And he attempted to fix it, but did so trying to save himself from spending a lot of extra money. The right thing to do would have been to treat us right, not keep changing the plans, and to not get annoyed at me for being frustrated that we were stuck in a mediocre hotel piled on top of each other.

Darren did say that next time I am up, I could stay at his place for free, but it was offhand and at the very end of our last conversation. I don't think it will happen, so I am willing to write an honest review.