First and foremost the apartment is in a great location. It is a short walking distance to Metro stations, and all the Marais. If you want an apartment in a good location in the Marais you can’t get much better. The apartment is recently furnished and looks good in classic Airbnb Ikea. Overall, we had a good time staying here.
There are some complications though… it’s an old building in the Marais so the staircase is very steep in parts (think spiral staircase in a medieval castle) and the apartment is on the third floor. I was fine with that even although we had large and heavy luggage but I know some would struggle or be unable to navigate it with large bags on their own. Similarly the apartment is old so ceilings are low and doors are old and wobbly too - partially to be expected in these kind of buildings though.
Our major issue was that the apartment is managed by GuestReady and their turnaround and cleaning team are either overworked or not very good. I suspect overworked since we saw someone on a branded scooter driving around during our stay vastly overloaded with laundry bags. When we turned up the apartment in the evening (it wasn’t a late check in), it was clean but the beds were not made, there were no sheets, no towels, no pillowcases, no duvet covers, no hand soap. We couldn’t shower or wash our hands properly and didn’t hear back until the next morning. We had to sleep on unmade beds in our clothes and had no way to dry ourselves if we took a shower. We got towels and sheets the next day, sometime after lunchtime. So we had to walk out not having washed after a long day of travel and an uncomfortable nights sleep. However, even the next day they didn’t give us the hand towels - only 3 bath towels. This was frustrating for us since we were travelling with an infant and ultimately we used a lot of paper towels purchased from a supermarket.
In response, the contact at GuestReady Philippe was friendly and helpful. But as a former Airbnb host myself, dealing with management companies has mixed blessings. We were compensated with a partial refund after a little discussion, but really, you don’t want the refund you want things to be fixed quickly. At the time since our contact was not the actual host I didn’t get the feeling he had the power to run round with the missing items or force someone else form the company to do it immediately (as we did for a guest when our management company messed up). On the other hand GuestReady were friendly and helpful in accepting mail for us - a toy had been left behind and was sent to us - which we collected from their office.
If you know the possible complications when booking, I would recommend the apartment. It’s in a great location, it’s a comfortable size for a couple and it worked well for us.