A very traumatic and upsetting experience that happened on our son’s birthday.
To verify our experience below, feel free to email or call the manager, Howi Wang, at Huka Falls Resort in which this privately owned villa is situated. He can explain how this privately owned villa has no connection to the resort, and how guests of Eric and Jason have been unlawfully using the pool (unbeknownst to guests). Up until our stay when the manager had had enough and we had to bear the brunt of it.
The hosts listed the resort pool as being available to use when it actually wasn’t theirs to list. We didn’t find this out until using the pool, during which, the manager berated us and told us if we didn’t get out of the pool he would call the police on us. We asserted we had the right to be in the pool as it was on the AirBnB listing, however he wouldn’t listen to us and called the police. We were with our 4 children! The police turned up to our door at Villa 20 and explained that the hosts had no right listing the pool (as the Villa is privately owned and not part of the resort despite being situated right inside of it).
After we brought this to the hosts attention, they told us they never listed it, and that it was an issue to be resolved by ourselves and the manager!!!! (luckily I had taken screenshots and the AirBnB support team could see on our original booking that the pool use had indeed been listed by Eric and Jason).
We wanted to speak with the hosts on the phone after the police were called on us, but they would only message through Airbnb; we wanted the hosts to speak with the manager of the resort and to the police, but neither hosts accepted responsibility for what had happened. We only ever got to speak to a female on the given contact number who said neither hosts were available (despite police involvement) and said “pool is not available at this time” We reported the incident to Airbnb support and they did their best to get as much of a refund for us as possible. We came away with a 50% refund as the Airbnb support team could confirm the hosts had violated their terms and conditions and falsely advertised use of the pool.
Needless to say, we will never stay here again. We were advised by the AirBnB support team to be completely transparent with our review for future holiday-makers, so that’s what we have done.