The location is good, and the price was nice for high season, but that's all there really was to it. It did not match the listing in many aspects, such as in the liberal use of silver tape as maintenance, the abscence of a sofa, kitchen cupboard panels falling apart and a decidedly *not* high speed WiFi.
The check-in experience was miserable; I had a late check-in with *lots* of luggage and never got the host to show up and assist. The building is *very* old, with little in the way of accessibility: you need to climb a couple flights of stairs before getting to the elevators, no ramps along the way. The building's doors are also very heavy and self-closing, which further makes it difficult to move luggage around by yourself, especially if boxes are involved.
After I brought all bags inside the building, I was at the door of the apartment for over 40min waiting for the keys to go inside. In fact, I never actually met Samuel, though he has employee's working on his behalf; eventually one showed up with the keys... but when he did, he asked me "Didn't Samuel tell you? It's not ready".
And indeed, it was not. The place was generally dirty (especially the floor), with a couple dishes inside the kitchen sink, dustbins filled with trash from the previous tenant (including the one in the bathroom) and wet floormats in the bathroom. Dry, clean towels were not present on arrival. The employee quickly came back with a fresh set of towels and three large trash bags, but still left the trash in there. The bathroom sink was also clogging.
With my insistence, after 3 days they did come around and clean up the place. The bathroom sink issue was solved in a couple days more.
The place has very limited kitchen cuntertop space, which is exacerbated by something I didn't actually know existed: stovetops with pilot flames. Each of the four burners has a pilot flame (that is, a flame that burns continuously, and which is responsible for actually lighting the burner), so even while it's turned off you must be careful with what you can place on top.
Now, perhaps the most persistent problem was the internet... The unit has no modem or router, and Samuel will ask you for "the WiFi list" when prompted for internet. That is, he will request a picture of your device's screen showing what WiFi networks are available (and their signal strengths). He will then choose one (presumably the best for the situation) and give you its password. This will be a repeated process if you ever have trouble with the WiFi (which is... always) and request help.
The WiFi was generally very poor, and while I had signal when near door, throughout my stay I did not get signal when in bed. Making video calls was painful and after one of those I noticed that, even though my phone indicated I had been connected to the WiFi, the almost hour-long call consumed 800 MB of my cell phone's data plan. The WiFi was simply not stable and fast enough, and no matter how many "WiFi lists" we'd go over, this issue was a constant over my stay in the apartment.
Maybe the check-in problems were an oversight, and not representative of how Samuel usually handles things. However, that still leaves:
- the very old building in a state of disrepair (I still remember the nightmarish passageway to recycled trash diposal)
- the apartment in desperate need of renovation and not matching the listing
- the persistent WiFi problems
- the terrible communication, requiring a lot of insistence and patience (yes, Samuel will direct you to call his employee who will then tell you to take it back with Samuel)
If quality internet is a requirement for you, this is definitely not the place you're looking for.