My friend and I were looking forward to our four-night stay at the penthouse but the stay was littered with a number of problems.
Before we'd even arrived to Gozo, I had received a number of requests from the host to provide my e-mail address. This goes against Airbnb's explicit guidance to communicate outside Airbnb so I politely rebuffed this request each time, and eventually reached out to Airbnb for advice because of the host's insistence on providing information on check-in only by e-mail. Airbnb gave permission for me to provide my e-mail address on this occasion but with the caveat that no additional payments were made outside the Airbnb platform. What I received by e-mail could have been sent in an Airbnb message, and we still struggled to find the property despite these instructions because the exact location wasn't marked out on the map.
Check-in was simple and, on first appearance, the property was very welcoming. There are two balconies that provided expansive views of Gozo and clean linen was provided. However, there was heavy rain after our arrival and water ingress in our bedroom and in the living room. The cables of our electrical appliances were wet, as were my friend's bag and some personal belongings, despite all of these items being some distance from the balconies and other windows within the property. We both slipped on the rain water once or twice, and mats were still wet at the time of our departure.
The listing said that Wi-Fi was available at the property, however we were asked prior to check-in if we wanted this to be available and the router and cable box had to be re-installed prior to our arrival. The subscription was not active for the first two nights of our stay and we had to rely on our international data packages on our phones during this time. The host did make efforts to resolve this once we informed him of the issue, but I was reliant on having this provision available as my mother has recently passed away and I needed to be able to sort out issues relating to this while in Malta.
I had a five-minute shower on our first morning - shorter than usual for me - and my friend was unable to have a shower in the morning because the water ran cold before long. We informed the host of this as we initially thought the hot water was faulty, but we later learned that the water tank does not seem to have a large capacity. We adapted our routines to this, but would have preferred not to during our vacation.
On our penultimate day, we arrived back to the property after midday to a note saying that the housekeeper had visited a number of times, and she later knocked on the door again when we had arrived back in the evening. She wanted to remind us of the €10 eco tax, which we said we would leave inside the property with the keys on departure. However, we noticed online that this tourism tax in Malta seems to be €0.50 per person per night, which would have totalled €4 for the two of us, and our previous host in Malta did not request this additional cost but likely took it from what we paid her through Airbnb at the time of booking. I contacted Airbnb about this but have yet to receive a response.
Our experience was soured by a number of inconveniences that left us regretting our choice of stay. I paid $532 to stay at this property, twice what I paid for my stay in Malta, and did not appreciate being asked to pay a further €10 on top of this in cash to cover additional expenses. The property was very welcoming at first glance and there were a number of positives, including air conditioning, a washing machine, and great balcony views. However, the numerous attempts to call and meet us during our stay, as well as the multiple requests for contact details prior to the stay, felt very intrusive and I did not want this additional stress during what was meant to be a break from dealing with my late mother's affairs. In addition, the issues listed above that we didn't want to have to troubleshoot during our four-night stay were further inconveniences that we did not want. I can see from the host's previous feedback that previous Airbnb users have been very happy with their experiences but I regrettably am not among them on this occasion.