We are regular Airbnb travellers, and such an awful experience never occurred to us.
We did not end up staying at Catherine’s. Despite having booked almost a week in advance of our stay, we discovered our room had been double-booked only at 10pm on the same night we were supposed to sleep there.
After a quick confirmation reply on the day of the booking, we tried to contact Catherine on the day of arrival to confirm the check-in time. We sent the first message via Airbnb at 16:39, then we tried to contact her both via phone, text messages, WhatsApp and other messages via Airbnb but we had no reply whatsoever.
We were already driving to Meenaleck, so we showed up at the address, but nobody was there waiting for us. No signs or information were given, as Catherine told us that “she likes to be there when guests arrive”, so she hadn’t provided us with any information on how to reach the place or where to find the keys.
We passed the time eating in Leo’s Tavern, which we then discovered is right across Catherine’s place and we had to desperately ask the owner of the tavern for advice on how to track Catherine down. They suggested knocking on the door of Teach Tessie, but the bar was closed and dark. At a certain point around 10pm, a man walking a dog showed up asking why we were knocking on that door and claiming he was Paul, Catherine’s husband. With a confused face, he told us he did know nothing about our booking and that the room which was supposed to be ours had been rented some hours earlier, leaving us with no room for the night. He spoke with his wife via phone, realising they made a huge mistake. They tried to make up for this offering us their two-single-beds-lads’ room, which was kind of disappointing and a bit disgusting. Paul then tried to contact a couple of accommodations in the area which were either fully booked or crazily expensive (they should have paid the difference tbh).
At the end, we did not find any place to stay at that night, as it was almost 11pm when we finished speaking with Paul, so we drove until we found a seemingly calm spot and had to spend the night in our hired car. Luckily there were 15°C outside, so we didn’t freeze, and luckily we weren’t hitchhiking or relying on public transport, otherwise we would have ended up sleeping on the road.
Worst experience ever, Catherine and Paul should not be trusted as hosts. They managed to ruin our last night and subsequent day in beautiful Co. Donegal.