We spent one week working remotely and vacationing in Fabio’s apartment which is in a very central location of Bologna, within walking distance to cafes, bars, touristy spots. The apartment is nicely decorated in a traditional building with a functional kitchen.
However, I will NOT consider to stay here again and I will NOT RECOMMEND it to other guests unless they plan to 1) spend less than 3 days and 2) only need a place to stay for the night and will be out for the day.
Fabio owns the apartmemt but he outsources it to a third-party management company. The whole experience is very impersonal and the management is unprofessional. Fabio barely existed during our one-week stay and only responded to our messages when our questions were ignored by the management company. The management company was unprofessional and provided a poor service, which is consistent with reviews from other guests in Fabio's place.
Some experiences below might be helpful to share with future guests,
- Apartment is very dark. It does not look like what you see in the listing pictures. It is located on the first floor facing an enclosed courtyard. It receives little natural light and requires the light to be on all the time
- Check-in time was unclear until we arrived in Bologna and host, Advia, from management company was 20 minutes late. We planned to arrive on Monday. Over weekend, we were told that they would confirm check-in time. We contacted Advia over the weekend and keep following up on Monday morning with most messages ignored. Advia responded around noon on Monday and our train almost arrived in Bologna. When we arrived in the property on agreed time, Advia was not there and only showed up up after 20 minutes without an explanation or apology
- Air Con for the main living area was not working when Bologna was burning hot at 36 degree. The management company ignored our messages about the air-con issue. We had to turn to the Fabio for help. It took us one whole day to get a confirmative response. By the time the air con was fixed, we spent 4 days already sweating in this living area.
- Passive-aggresive and unfriendly communication style. The housing rules clearly state to keep kitchen and dishes tidy. But we were only provided with 4 dish washing capsules for our 1-week stay. We got a passive-aggresive message when asking Advia and Fabio if we can have 2 more dish washing capsules. We thought it was an easy request but the response was quite shocking, the messages we received
--- suggested us to wash by hands
--- blamed us for not fully loading the their dish washer (for your reference, their dish washer is much smaller than the standard 24-in dish washer)
--- criticized us for wasting natural resource by using dish washer every day without even trying to understand our cooking habits
Overall, the experience in Fabio's place is not quite satisfying. Last advice for Fabio, please replace your AirBnB management company with a professional one.