This apartment is for challenges, not for relaxing.
We came to Lisbon on vacation and stayed here for 14 days.
A conclusion in brief: I can’t recommend this apartment.
Here are the details.
PROS:
- Spacious apartment with plenty of daily light. There is a lot of space for comfortable staying.
- It matches with photos, except for minor details. Nevertheless, the apartment seemed to us not as well-groomed as it presented here.
- Nice and elaborate design with many eye-catching details.
- Well-equipped with domestic appliances, dishes, and cutlery.
- Close to the city center. You can get all the most popular spots in 15 minutes of walking.
CONS:
1. Issues in apartment
The shower cabin is too small, impossible even to turn around or bend over. In addition to the absence of a shower head holder and the limited amount of water because of the tiny water heater, showering was quite challenging. We conserved water but were often faced with the necessity of taking a shower in cool water. And the shelf in the shower cabin is just a mockery - everything that you put on it all falls down.
Because of the lack of soundproofing and incredibly thin walls, we heard EVERY SINGLE SOUND our neighbors and passersby made (from talking to the banging of a toilet lid!). And when the neighbors were starting their washing machine, we felt the shaking of the walls and floor.
Besides, neighbors upstairs are unbearable. They were too loud, and they didn’t adhere to the limits of making noise. On workdays, we were waking up at 7 am from their noise and loud walking that shook the walls. And on the weekend they were making parties, had loud gay sex, and turning on music amid the night. We were asking them to be quieter and threatening them with calling the police. But they didn’t care. Every time we contacted them, they were stoned or drunk. We asked the host to help us with this issue, but unfortunately, all was in vain. All they bothered to do - visit the neighbors once and talk to them in Portuguese the same things we said to them before in English.
We spent most of our nights without sleeping, had permanent headaches and as a result, we haven’t felt rested at all. This issue can’t be fixed by the host, so I don’t understand how this apartment can be considered suitable for tourism. Perhaps it is possible to turn a blind eye to it when you travel for a couple of days, and fortunately, neighbors will be away from home. But if not, I’d advise you not to spoil your rest by staying in such toxic conditions.
By the way, the apartment is located in a district populated with suspicious inhabitants. Till the night they fill the streets and look dangerous. We didn’t face any issues, but a couple of times they offered us to buy drugs. In general, the atmosphere made us feel unsafe. I would not recommend you to live in this district if you're traveling just with girls or have a solo trip.
2. Indifferent service.
Check-in. We arrived directly at the New Year, so we realized we brought bother with our check-in. When filling the guest form (you’ll get it after booking on Airbnb), we specified the time of arriving and noticed a necessary €20 fee for the late check-in. No problem, we understood that and paid the fee via that website. But on the day of arrival, we got the message in which they said that we must go to another address to pick up keys in the lockbox ourselves. No one was waiting for us at the place. So besides the fee, we had to pay for an overpriced New Year taxi, search keys, and make a self-check-in.
Once we had problems with the heater. Since this apartment is located in an old city with mostly old buildings, there is no heating inside. So the only method to warm such apartments is using heaters. We had 1 heater for a pretty large apartment, and even though we haven’t got to spend much time at the apartment and used it, one day the heater got out of service. We asked the host to provide us with the new one. In response, they first were insisting on waiting for more and more “to cool it off”. And after making sure that it was definitely broken, they couldn’t have provided us with the new one for 2 days! We had to live in an unheated apartment in the midst of January.
And the second case was when the host asked us to make an additional €20 payment for an extra set of towels. We had to remind about our overpayment for the check-in and get towels for free as compensation. But you have to be prepared that this host will ask you to pay even for a basic piece of service.
When choosing apartments, I saw that Portuguese hosts always leave compliments for their guests (such as wine, pastel-de-nata, etc). But here we didn’t even have a bottle of water to drink after check-in! Of consumables, we had only 2 rolls of toilet paper (for 2 people on 2 weeks), a couple of dishwasher tablets, and leftovers of detergent, which wasn’t suitable for that washing machine. No salt and oil, no tea, no garbage bags. We had to buy all the necessary stuff ourselves, so if you visit this place in the nearest month, you probably won’t have such problems. We took care of you instead of this host, guys :))
In conclusion, I wouldn’t recommend you to choose this apartment. I feel pity for our ruined rest and I wish no one to repeat our bad experience.
By the way, the host knew about all our suffering and remained indifferent, even after our informing that we are going to complain to Airbnb. The communication was partly automatic, with standard answers, and