By far the worst AirBNB experience I ever had (and I had many)! Horrible check-in experience that left us feeling unsafe!
We were planning to arrive after 5pm the day of check-in, but (and this was my mistake) I wasn’t quite clear when exactly we would arrive in my first message to Gianluca. He made it sound like this wasn’t a big deal and said I should just message an hour before we arrive (official check-in is from 2pm to 8pm).
At 6.30 we’re still on our way to Venice and I get a message saying if you’re later than 8pm there’s a 20€ fee. We arrive 10 mins before 8pm, but get no instruction from Gianluca until 8 on how to enter the building. When finally someone (the cleaning lady/co-host) opens the door, she tries to charge us the late fee, arguing that she waited for hours.
She gets really aggressive, very offensive, raises her voice and shouts at us, and is not open for any rational argument. Even though we had a picture proving we arrived by 8. It turns out she wasn’t paid for waiting because Gianluca just told her we will arrive at 5 (not what I said in the first place) and when she got angry with him he got her hopes up that she would receive 20€ since we’re likely late.
I don’t know if Gianluca made us wait in front of the house until it was 8 so they would have a reason to charge us. But I’m pretty sure. He texted her “if they’re even one minute late, charge them” (she showed me his messages).
And while me arriving later than planned was certainly not great, this would not have happened if Gianluca had added her as a Co-Host so I could have communicated directly with her, if he’d have just paid her by the hour, if he didn’t make it sound like arrival is flexible, or if he had not made us wait out in the street until the check-in time was over.
No matter what, the experience when the door finally opened and the lady’s demeanor was completely unacceptable, first saying she won’t check us in, and then being incredibly aggressive and sticking around for far too long after she gave us the keys and instructions. If I would have been alone, or she was taller than me, I would’ve been quite scared.
So this made our arrival very unpleasant, I was just one step from calling AirBNB and getting a hotel. However, the location was good and the room ok (even though much less beautiful and spacious than it seems on the pictures). Also, the WiFi wasn’t working on any device. Overall a horrible experience, avoid this AirBNB.