Here's the lowdown on staying with Kenneth and Vivian:
Positives: Clean apartment. Basic bedroom with table and TV. I felt safe. Host is cordial (though not really friendly).
Negatives: Check in was a total fiasco. I told the hosts I was arriving at 18:00 and the day before she told me she'd be out of town so I would need to coordinate check in with her husband and I could only arrive after 19:30. When I wrote her that this would not work for me because I had a dinner at 19:00 and an event afterwards and didn't feel safe to drag my suitcase, laptop and valuables all around Amsterdam for the whole evening, and asked her what she suggested to do, this is what she wrote back to me:
"Well one thing you should know is that, we do have our own stuffs to do as well. Check in starts at 2pm so if you arrive at 2 pm you will met my husband and after that he leaves for his work. He is suppose to be back at 11 pm but decided to cut his day. There is no other way since i’m traveling as well. The other option is for you to cancel your booking. Cheers"
Not the most pleasant thing to receive the day before traveling. And there is NO luggage storage at Amsterdam Zuid - the station you need to exit to walk 15 minutes to their apartment. To me the situation, compounded by her attitude, was totally unacceptable.
Secondly, the breakfast. It's nice that they offer it but they make it extremely spartan and you feel lucky to get anything. First day I received 3 pieces of toast bread with peanut butter and jam plus 2 slices of cheese. Next day it was the same but down to 2 1/2 pieces of bread. 3rd day it was just 2 slices of bread. They could offer so yogurt, granola or fruit (all of which are sitting on the counter). Total cost to them would be an additional EUR 2/day and the result would be that you feel totally welcome in their apartment.
All in all it's a total budget operation. But the price I paid (about EUR 100/night) is not budget at all. Friends were staying in cool hotels in the city (with very small rooms) for the same amount.
Location is completely out of the center and good luck finding anything to eat after 9pm within at least a 1.5km radius of their place. As a man I felt fine walking in the dark back to their apartment at night but I wouldn't really recommend it to females traveling alone.
There was a second traveler staying at this apartment so it was the 3 of us sharing 1 toilet and 1 shower. It wasn't a problem and there was never a queue - but future guests should be aware that they will be in this setup.
I love having good airbnb experiences but unfortunately that was not the case this time.