I lived in the apartment room for two months and it was overall a bleh experience.
It’s walkable to the NOVA university campus so that’s good if you are a student there, or looking to be close to the Carcavelos beach. The neighborhood is residential and peaceful, but I was waken up 3am as people talked loudly in the street for hours the first night I moved in. The apartment is also right up from a cafe so during the day you will hear diners talking. It’s 17 min walk from the Carcavelos train station, so not too bad. I’d say most of the unpleasantness came from how Maria runs it.
1. Maria assigned me a different room without prior notice or discussion. I only realized the room is different from the one I booked after I checked in, but because I have too many stuff to move by myself so I didn’t say anything.
2. some of the information given by Maria wasn’t correct - I asked Maria who I would be living with for the two months and how stable they would be. She told me the rest would all be students and staying for at least weeks. Turned out that the flatmates were a mix and they kept changing, until the later part of my stay.
3. The room is not quite furnished for short term stay. The mattress is virtually on the floor. No blanket, or duvet or pillow covers upon checkin so let alone made bed. I had to buy duvet, pillow, textile and linens myself. There are two electric sockets in the room and one of them is broken so I had to buy my own extension to make it work
4. Maria isn’t very responsive to broken things. She seems to expect that you either make do, or fix things yourself if you want it fast. The only light bulb in my room went broken and I had to I live in the dark for 3 nights despite multiple requests. And after it was replaced, the light bulb was still very dim so I had to buy a desk lamp myself.
5. The room is quite dusty upon checkin, despite how few furnitures there are.
6. This one is quite comic. With the limited linen that I was given, Maria still wanted them back once she saw that I had purchased my own. We had a lengthy discussion about it. Despite my clear unwillingness because I wanted a spare, she entered the room to take the sheet while I was not there.
7. Maria just sounds rude and harsh in general. I don’t think I have heard any greeting from her throughout my two months stay, which I guess shows how much respect she has for tenant/guest. Also, multiple times when she came to the apartment, after I told her that I was in the middle of important zoom meetings so please either keep it short or wait a bit, she would still knock on my door repeatedly and interrupted me.
8. Very old appliances - microwave, fridge, water heater, etc must be from the 90s.
Anyways, the gist is, this is not a typical Airbnb, but more like a shared student apartment/hostel. You will have to buy your own things including beddings and lamps and mops and vacuums, and just make do with the broken/old things given.
Just keep your expectation low, and know ahead of time that Maria is not running the apartment with the usual hospitality you’d expect on Airbnb.