Airbnb experience works as its best when hosts don’t just use it as a business tool but also as a way to meet people from around the world. To know about them and their cultures, and to share about their own place. It is great when these two attitudes match, maybe when the host’s dog comes to wag its tail when, after a day of exploring the area, you get back ‘home’. In other words, when you have the feeling of being ‘at home away from home’ (no matter how it might sound as a cliche). This was not the case for us at Kate’s place. We never felt at home but instead we felt every single minute at someone else’s. It was probably partially due to the struggle that the host had with her English communication was minimal, but also mainly because we felt like interfering in the course of the family activities at the house. And this was caused by the lack of privacy that the apartment has which is something I feel like sharing to others. From the photos it looks like you would have your own private patio in a secluded space righ in front of the apartment’s door. Well, that is not the case. The door opens to a place of passage where family members or maybe construction workers, not sure, could go through any time while you are seating outside or staying inside with the door open. From your assigned area, although the view in the background is as nice as it is anywhere in beautiful Sifnos, what you really see right in front of you is the parking lot of the family’s cars. Anyways, seating there is not really an option, first because of the house orientation and lack of shade (and this was June) but particularlly because the quality of the garden furniture is blatangly unacceptable. We even had to remove the coach cushions to be able to be seating outsidefor more than a minute! While having a couple of light dinners we had there we even needed to put bottles and dishes on the floor as the table size was minimal. Ikea garden furniture very often seen at many airbnbs would look luxurious in comparison. So, we wouldn’t have cared much about lack of water pressure in the shower, tired linen, small refrigerator or weak wifi signal but I guess that when you pay around 100€ a night (and not even in high season) you should expect to get a minimal comfortable furniture to be seating outside if you advertise the apartment with that service included.
On the positive side although the owner didn’t provide any kind of local information (just a map) she tried to be nice bringing home made treats every day.
So, all in all, we feel sorry for not being able to rate this airbnb as highly as we did in every single airbnb accommodation we have stayed over the last years.