I always book through Airbnb and usually have great experiences. Here is a glims of my experience for this apartment that is managed by Cape Town Holiday Apartments:
1. We only got to check in 3hrs after agreed time!! The sole reason I selected this apartment (over all other amazing apartments in Cape Town) was because before booking, they promised an early check-in. This promise was broken. We ended up checking in 3hrs later than originally agreed which was even 1hr later than the time written on the Airbnb site. Once we agreed on a new check in time (after first promise was broken) the “check-in host” showed up 45min late.
2. The apartment may be owned by Jaco but the apartment is managed by a separate company called Cape Town Holiday Apartments (CTHA) who is also the one we messaged with over airbnb, not knowing it wasn’t Jako. Whilst I know this occurs for many Airbnb apartments, this was not communicated on the listing which resulted in several communication issues and terrible service.
3. They asked me to communicate independently outside of airbnb site/app with the cleaner and someone who they referred to as “check-in host” to separately arrange my new check in time. I believe this is against Airbnb recommendations but we had no other choice as communication was terribly slow with the host and we had not received any check-in details from CTHA.
4. We communicated with the cleaner who was lovely but she was not permitted to check us in (even though she had the keys and we reassured her we didn’t need to have a walk through of the apartment). We had to wait for the check-in host who were just super late and not giving us a time as to when she would be free to check us in as she was busy with other guest at other apartments.
5. We tried to call the phone number listed under CTHA who we eventually learned hosted the apartment as we were struggling to check in. The first number was going to a voice machine and referred us to call a “duty phone” as it was the weekend. The duty phone went straight to voice mail and the voice mail was full so we couldn’t leave a message.
6. We received a separate email after booking from an email appearing as “Airbnb User” (maybe this is real but never received on from this sender from before). When I looked closer at the actual email address it was a very long email address full of letters and numbers with the domain @host.Airbnb.com. The email was signed by CTHA which is how we figured it was a different host than Jako. The email looked so dodgy that I thought it was spam or catfish email.
7. Once we finally got to go into the apartment and the “check-in host” came (3hrs late), we were forced to fill out another form online to CTHA who manages the apartment, and share copies of our IDs. If we weren’t filling the form in, we wouldn’t be allowed to stay.
8. Once asking for the WiFi, this was not going to be provided until after we filled in the form. We filled in the form and the check-in host asked us to download an app so we could get details about the apartment including the WiFi password. After I refused this (were so tired after just waiting around for 3 hrs) she was kind enough to let me take a screen shot and not download their app.
9. I asked the check in host for the duty managers number, which I received and tried calling. No answer. The duty manager called the check in host straight after declining my call. At this stage she was making excuses and blamed the fact that the booking was done last minute.
Overall the apartment was of good quality and great location. The cleaner was kind enough to have let us leave our bags in the apartment whilst waiting for the check-in-host. But unfortunately due to extremely poor communication and check in process I wouldn’t recommend this apartment whilst managed by an outside provider.