First you just want to say that I’m the type of person who who leaves a 5 star even when things aren’t great. I’ve never not left a 5 star for an Airbnb or Uber driver but I can’t do that in good conscience here, don’t want anyone going through what we did.
TLDR; worst Airbnb experience of my life. Hosts didn’t speak English, gave wrong address, insisted on coordinating everything last minute over WhatsApp, place was nasty with urine in toilets, bug infested (bites all over bodies), no ac or WiFi in 2/3 of structures, no basic amenities and finally hosts insulted and harassed us on check out causing us to lose a lot of money in flight cancellations as we had to change plans accordingly. Don’t book this if you value a smooth experience, cleanliness or expect a modicum of professionalism from your hosts.
We also made a few mistakes, I forgot to update our guest count from 4 to 6, didn’t think this was a big deal as the property claims to accommodate up to 8 guests, but in hindsight I should’ve updated. I also think a lot of our issues at check out were driven by language barrier, and confusion over them insisting to be physically present when we checked out, but beyond this it’s on the hosts.
In sequential order, here’s what happened:
1. Hosts insisted on communicating via WhatsApp, not a huge deal but I don’t have WhatsApp, and when I didn’t respond hosts got an attitude about it. Oh well not a Huge deal.
2. Check in was confusing, thought we’d check in later per the time in the app, but hosts gave us option of coming early, great I thought!
3. Address n app was wrong, so initially brought 30 minutes away, easy to enough to correct whatever.
4. Finally made it to the villa, no one there so waited in car for 30 minutes at the gate. Still whatever, mistakes happen.
5. Finally arrived, husband came as wife was indisposed. He didn’t speak any English, made no attempt to translate. Fair enough I thought, what to do!
6. Place was nasty, sheets had stains, urine in toilets, used TP in waste baskets, no hand soap in bathroom, grime in showers, TP rolls mostly used. Still I chalked this up to a cultural difference, what to do! Husband said wife was coming later and would explain so I assumed she spoke English and waited to ask about cleanliness. When she arrived, barely said a word and left before we could ask her any questions.
7. We made do, cleaned up as best we could. First realization was they left us no garbage cans or bags beyond the tiny waste paper baskets. This was a trip for a wedding so we drank a lot of beer and water. With no pace to throw the bottles best we could do was aggregate and stack.
8. Claims to have wifi and AC, I n reality has both in 1/3 structures. WiFi speed is terrible but who knows what they had for options out there. So hot a at night in Trulli we couldn’t sleep on the worst nights. But hey as glamping, it was ok. Wifi was biggest bummer as couldn’t work as planned.
9. 0 pdf/write up on instructions for check out, how to use things etc. every Bnb I’ve stayed in has this. All we have was some broken English on the very basics, and the the full Italian walk through at the beginning.
10. Bugs, and bites. I get it’s the countryside, bugs happen. But after 5 nights here my body was covered in bites. I found fleas in my room and have little flea bites all Over my feet and ankles. Welts from who knows what on my upper body. Still would’ve given a good review, but if you don’t like bugs this place isn’t for you.
11. Check out is when the true nightmare began. Just astounding and still shocked. I get a text the night previous asking when we wanted to check out, 11:30 was suggested and I thought great! Was best man in wedding party so couldn’t respond immediately. In the morning I told them we may be out a earlier and our Italian friend called them since they don’t speak any English. Told them we may be out at 8:30 but we’d call and confirm in 10 minutes. Called to tell them we’d need extra time and they said they were already booked n the way, hung up on us when we tried to clarify. Host showed up with a huge attitude, but finally left after our Italian friend explained 6 times. 3/4 of our remaining group left for airport leaving one of the wives to finish packing. Half way to the airport we get a call that the host was back, honking and buzzing the gate repeatedly. Wife didn’t feel safe so we canceled our flights, and came back to get her. Nice…
12. When we finally handed off the keys, husband demanded a great review while simultaneously insulting us. Was getting heated so we left, then the messages started coming in. First sarcastic messages with pictures of our beer bottles. We explained we were never told not given a place to put them. Host claims we should’ve know that there was a public dumpster 2 km away because we drove past it (what???), threatens to charge us. What the hell was our cleaning fee for? Then starts to insult Americans (odd because we had Italians with us as well), call us names and finally threatens to charge us for toilets being dirty (inside the bowl lmao). Hosts continued to harass us over messaging for an hour until we threaten to report them for harassment. Insane, never in my life experienced this from UK to China, to Hawaii to Korea. Worst Airbnb experience of my life, still shocked. Do yourself a favor and avoid this Airbnb