My first bad airbnb experience. I heard about tourist traps when coming to Prague, I just never expected it to be the accommodation.
On arrival, I wasn’t given a tour of the apartment but instead forced to cough up an additional 48 Euros in cash for extra fees outside of airbnb for ‘city, admin and accounting’?
The hosts seem to only care about squeezing every penny possible they can out of you. It turns out there are lots of hidden fees buried in the description. If you want to checkin a little earlier or later - extra charge. Theres even a £150 euro fine if you move any furniture so I was scared to move too much in my seat!
Me and a couple of friends picked this airbnb based on the nice images, good reviews and the fact it had 3 separate bedrooms AND a spacious lounge to hang out.
It turns out this listing is very deceptive. There are actually only 2 bedrooms so 2 of us were forced to share and go without privacy (even after paying a large premium for an extra room vs other listings). After the fact they say the lounge could be made into an additional room for large groups on request, but this isn't clear on the listing, it isn't mentioned in the description or on the room plan which states 3 bedrooms AND a lounge, not OR a lounge.
The layout and furniture is not like the images. The setup is more like a cheap hostel to cram lots of people in a couple of rooms. Perhaps more suited to stag/hen parties
- The shower drain was clogged up and filled the shower with dirty water and debris from whoever stayed last.
- One of the bathroom handles was loose and caused a guest to get locked in - this meant we had to share 1 toilet between 3 men.
- There were no curtains in the main room which made it difficult to sleep.
- Rather than "3 queen sized beds", there were 2 and an uncomfortable sofa bed.
- No chess board like in the picture :’(
- Only 1 roll of toilet paper between 3 for 4 days so we had to buy more
On a more positive note, the location is great and close to the action in the old town. It was also nice and warm.
Out of the ~30 airbnb's i've stayed in, this is my only regrettable choice - and you will learn how little airbnb care when something goes wrong.
This experience has made me really appreciate when you have incredible hosts who genuinely care about hospitality and go out of their way to make you feel welcome and comfortable. I only wish everyone was in the business for this reason, rather than purely for financial gain.