Terrible Terrible - My sister and I arrived in Galway early and emailed Rory to let him know we would wait until checkin at 5.
We found the cottage easily at check-in time only to find out someone else had taken the cottage we reserved- Martina (not sure if wife of host) had let them in the wrong cottage. We told Martina we would go for dinner while she and Rory dealt with the issue when Rory returned from work.
When we returned Martina had put our luggage in a one bedroom cottage. Rory was also there and said that the other people had “refused to move”. Martina kept apologizing and talking about a refund. I asked Rory to call Airbnb and we could deal with it in the morning. (Since we had had an overnight flight and had not slept for 24 hours). We never saw Rory again. We received one email apologizing again and he hoped we were able to see the sights in Galway. We then received an email with $112 refund from Airbnb.
My sister and I were extremely distressed and disappointed that our well planned first trip to Ireland had been ruined. We had expected a beautiful cottage ( as in pictures) with a large bedroom for my sister and a loft for me as well as a patio door overlooking the ocean, plenty of room and Irish charm. We ended up sharing a bed in a very small place and being glared at through the windows by the other couple.
The little bit of refund received did in no way made up for our disappointment. We are not sure who is to blame but feel Rory should have insisted that the couple move into the cottage that they reserved and let us have the cottage we had planned on and reserved in January!!
Also whoever the other couple was should be ashamed because they had to have known right away that they were not in the cottage they reserved.
All in all, we were denied our long awaited beautiful Irish cottage on Galway Bay as posted on Airbnb!!!