I struggled to write this review, as I'm a host myself and in all my years of using Airbnb as a guest around the world, this is my first review that isn't five stars.
Pros:
* Sharon's communication was great. She was very detailed and gave excellent suggestions.
* The studio is a granny-flat behind her home, but it felt very private and was ever so quiet.
* Sharon provided so many amenities! Even though we stopped at the shop before checking in, we wouldn't have needed to. She keeps her place stocked well with milk, coffee, tea and all the essentials as well as toiletries and more. She's really thought of so much to make your stay comfortable.
* The location near the beaches is just…amazing. And the little town of Blackrock has a lovely buzz about it even in November. The pubs and restaurants were excellent.
Cons:
* The studio is looking a little tired. While clean, the rug is a bit stained, the window in the bathroom is a bit wonky and the mattress is feeling a bit done in with the springs being pretty evident. But the value for money is still excellent, and you can tell Sharon looks after it with care.
* The TV is quite old, is definitely nowhere near hi-def and the picture is very poor and fuzzy. But I doubt anyone really ever has used the TV (why would you in such a beautiful location?) but since we weren't really on holiday but just needed to be out of our own home for some repairs, we thought we'd relax with a movie or two. But it really was unwatchable.
The elephant in the room is, of course, the wifi. We were well warned it could be spotty and we'd have to rely on our own data but even our Irish mobiles said "no connection" most of the time. At best would occasionally get one bar of 3G pop up. We hoped phone calls could get through, as we could not use data at all.
The network details in the guidebook didn't work - the SSID for the network listed wasn't even broadcasting through her mesh network. Although we were concerned about not being able to check in on our home security system while away, we tried not to worry about it for Friday or Saturday, and enjoy the tech break so to speak.
However, Saturday evening we realised we were going to need to get a taxi back to the station for our trip home to Dublin. We went into Backrock and called the company the Host recommended in her guide - but they didn't start service until 2pm on Sunday. We could see taxis available in our taxi app, but knew we wouldn't be able to track or communicate with them back at the studio as we'd have no network.
We reluctantly decided to message the host on a Saturday evening and, to her credit, she got back to us right away. We asked for the password of the wifi network that was broadcasting in the studio so we could get a taxi. She said that her wifi was down - that there was a fault in Eir's line. Interesting…Down Detector reported no faults in the area, and a friend who works for Eir confirmed for me later there were no issues. But I didn't argue with Sharon at the time, but just gave her the details of the wifi (it was her 2.4GHz network broadcasting from the mesh network, not the 5GHz network she had in the guidebook) and asked if we could have the password to use, as we just wanted to manage and track our taxi Sunday.
Sharon wrote back that the SSID I gave her wasn't her network, but it was her neighbour's network. This is a complete lie - not only is her Now TV (Smart TV, Netflix etc) running off this network but you can flip the switch on her TP Link Mesh network in the flat (I have a similar one at home) and watch that 2.4GHz network drop off (and the TV lose connection!) until you turn it back on.
What on earth? Why lie? Why not just tell us you forgot the password or something? We would have had a laugh together at that and understood especially when she was so gracious and did offer us a lift to the station. Why lie and say Eir is down and then lie again and say the one we can see is not your network? I am so confused. I have no idea why she is so protective over her network particularly in a location that has absolutely no possibility of using your own mobile data, nor an area we'd ever be in again!
We ended up making several calls and did finally find a taxi company running Sunday at noon who had a little trouble, but finally did find us, and get us to the station on time.
I know this host has had issues with reviews in the past regarding her Wifi and has even stressed she's had it fixed several times. I wish she would either just state there's no WiFi *and* no mobile data connection (we aren't tourists so know we've good networks and mobile plans!) or else just share the password. If she was having problems, we would have been more than happy to help a fellow host troubleshoot it, as we are both tech people. What a missed opportunity, and it left us feeling very uncomfortable she would just blatantly lie to guests.
That's what it boiled down to for this review. The host was honestly so responsive, and offered us alternatives to help so we would have had no issues at all leaving an amazing review even with the slight inconvenience.
But I can't in conscience recommend the stay knowing that this is a host that has no issue lying to you. That's a breach of