Overall the flat was really nice (except that the hair dryer didn’t work, which was disappointing as we’re two ladies with long hair and it was one of the reasons we had selected this Airbnb over others).
The neighborhood didn’t seem to be quite as “up-and-coming” as I had read somewhere that it was, but maybe we just didn’t know where to look….had a difficult time finding walking-distance food that wasn’t just coffee or Middle Eastern takeout.
The host was perfectly pleasant in her messages, though communication was tricky as she was out of the country and responses were often delayed by several hours….which was nerve-wracking, because:
The main reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is that the check-in procedure (and communication related to it) was very much lacking in our opinion. First, we were instructed to retrieve the keys using an app (rather than directly from the host as our reservation had initially indicated), but neither of us could get the app to work, and we had to call the app support line to beg them to open the box for us remotely (fortunately my friend’s phone worked fine for international calls; my phone wasn’t connecting properly and if it had been just me I would have been entirely locked out).
Second, the nameplate on the flat does NOT match the name of this Airbnb host, which was very confusing and disconcerting (we worried we were trying to break into the wrong apartment!). Presumably this was for privacy reasons, but seems like this is something I should have been told via the private messaging in advance.
Third, the keyring had 4 keys on it, all unlabeled, and it took us about 10 minutes to figure out how to unlock the front door as there is a tiny secondary lock hidden near the bottom that we didn’t see/understand for a while…again, we eventually figured it out but it would have been better to have had some prior instruction or at least labels on the keys.
If the flat hadn’t been nice we would have been legitimately disgruntled, but fortunately it was, so after the initial stressfulness the experience was fine. After several nights in hotels, we enjoyed being able to spread out a bit.