The apartment itself gives a feeling of luxury and is actually bigger than anticipated from the photos. It is very well located to check out Florence on foot, with lots of nice bars and restaurants very close. The cleanliness was top notch, and they even had a nice welcome packet for us. A few things, however, that took away from the would-be great experience:
• The WiFi did not work from check in, so the host had to come over to provide us with a different network connection - this fixed it.
• The apartment across the hall from us is from the same host, and we noticed that the key code for the digital lock on their door was the same as on our door - possibly compromising security. We asked the host to change our code so he also did this when he was helping with the WiFi.
• There is not an elevator in the building, so we carried our heavy bags up the many stairs to the second floor (though I do believe this is noted in the listing)
• As we arrive to Florence by car, and as the apartment is in a no drive zone, we paid an extra $30 for overnight parking at a local garage located very near to the apartment. This service was offered to us by the host, and we were told to drive to the garage directly, so they could receive our car and drive us in the shuttle to our apartment. Unfortunately, the third party garage guys were very rude upon arrival, and told us we would have to wait to use the shuttle. They insinuated that we were lazy for not wanting to carry our bags down the cobblestone streets as the apartment was only 20 meters away, so we hesitantly agreed. Unfortunately, the apartment ended up being about 10 minutes walking (not bad, but with all of our luggage it was very difficult). We asked the host for a small discount on the price since we didn’t receive the shuttle service; he apologized and agreed to take $10 off. He said to contact the garage 40 minutes before we want to leave, and they will bring the car directly to our apartment so we could easily leave…round two. The next day around noon, we messaged the garage to tell them we would be getting lunch and needing the car in about an hour. They never responded. So after lunch we walked across town to the garage, where we were greeted with hostility and flat out anger from the worker for “telling on them” to the host. They tried telling us our car wouldn’t be ready and we would need to wait for an hour, but with continued argument they finally retrieved the car for us from below. These guys were very threatening and really ruined our one night vacation to Florence. I would highly recommend to the host to use a different company.
• The host allowed us to carry our bags down the street to their office and store them for a few hours in their office while we ate lunch which was nice (10am checkout).
Normally I would recommend this apartment because it really is super nice and comfortable with A/C, but all of these bad experiences within one day I wouldn’t try this place again.