This was the 5th time I have stayed at an airbnb. This is my first review. It is actually a difficult review to write.
First, the positives. We all (myself, wife and daughter) loved the apartment. Pictures are very accurate. The place has a lot of character. Very charming. The beds were comfortable. My daughter slept in the loft area which was cozy and provided the adults downstairs with privacy. The bath in main bedroom was very modern and comfortable. We had all the kitchenware we needed. And the location was great as well. Lots of restaurants right out front door. It was a short walk to main square for sightseeing.
Now for the negatives. The second bath on first floor had mold growing in the shower area. My daughter is very squeamish about these things and would not use that shower. She used that sink and toilet but when it was time to shower she used the other bath which was very nice as I indicated before.
Next, after we finally got settled in (more on that story to come) my wife and I were in main bedroom. I closed the door to the hall way. Then my wife went to open the door and the door handle came off. We were effectively locked in the bedroom. Fortunately, I called to my daughter to let us out. Problem solved. I reported this to manager the next day. He offered to come fix right away. We declined as we "fixed" the problem by not closing the door all the way during the remainder of our stay. But if it had just been the two of us in the apartment with phones in the outer rooms we might have been locked in the bedroom until when I do not know.
But my main issue was with the check in. I was quite explicit to find a place with self check in as we would be arriving quite late. This apartment provided for self check in and instructions were provided in advance. Our day began with five hour drive to Chicago. Seven hour flight to London. Eight hour layover in a very busy Heathrow. Three hour flight to Lisbon. Half hour to clear customs and get baggage. Then an hour wait to get a cab (at midnight). So when we finally arrived we were quite tired. Check in directions were good. We found apartment, opened lockbox to get key and inserted key into front door. Key would not open front door to apartment building. I tried for five minutes. My wife tried for five more minutes. My daughter took a turn. Then we repeated the whole process again. We all felt like total idiots. But here we were standing on street in front of building at 1:30 in the morning. We contemplated ringing all the doorbells but figured that would not make us very popular. There was nothing left to do but call the Nomads management office but we were guessing no one would be there. We called. No answer. We figured we might be sitting on street until the sun came up. But fortunately the management office did return the call a few minutes later much to our surprise. I explained our predicament. The gentleman was quite perplexed vowing he had been to the apartment earlier in the afternoon and the key worked fine. All I could tell him was we had three different individuals trying the key for last half hour and none of us could get it to work. He then decided to give us the electronic code. We tried the code. The door opened. He then stayed on the phone with us until we were able to get to apartment. The apartment key worked fine. At last we had a place to sleep.
The next day Nomads provided us a second key. They left in lock box while we were out sightseeing. We were able to get the second key to work but only after much trial and error. I never was able to figure out the exact way to jiggle the key to make it work. During our stay I encountered three additional visitors and all were experiencing some degree of a problem getting their key to work. During the rest of our stay we relied primarily on the electronic code which always worked fine.
We were truly thankful that Nomads took the extra time and effort to notice that we had called at about 2 AM and took the time to call us back and make sure we were able to get into apartment, I think that something must be done about the lock or provide the electronic code as backup or primary method of entry.