I'm going to attempt to write a useful review of this listing including positives and negatives without sounding like I'm whining because we really did enjoy our time at this listing.
+ Firstly the positives: We enjoyed staying at this listing overall. The rooftop pool was fantastic and let us cool off on the hot days in the city. There was also aircon in the apartment which wasn't listed in the ad so that was a major bonus for the first day to as we arrived in a bit of a heatwave and it was nice to cool down the apartment for 10 minutes or so! Sitting outside on the balcony was really nice in the mornings, the light hits the balcony but there's always some shaded spots so if you move around the balcony then there's always a comfortable temperature area for anyone. The shower was great, the parking underground was really useful and secure, and the view from the balcony is nice as there's lots of boats going past throughout the day. Koos and Friederike were very responsive on whatsapp and the airbnb app throughout the stay.
- Now some negatives: The kitchen utensils were really lacking to be brutally honest. A lot of the cutlery and crockery were missing and some standard utensils like a sieve or a potato peeler weren't there. For the price of the place.. it's just a little bit cheap to find that kind of thing lacking. One thing that is probably completely out of the hosts' control is that for the final week of our 4 week stay, the toilet ventilation system was letting through a very strong smell of cigarette smoke.. presumably from the other end of wherever the ventilation pipes go in the building. This was fairly well contained by closing the door to the toilet and then to the bathroom as well.. but a little annoying (the fact this only started happening in the last week makes me think that maybe it's a temporary issue though and wherever the smoke smell comes from will disappear, fingers crossed!). We did run out of toilet paper which was never replaced by the weekly cleaner (it's airbnb.. toilet paper isn't really a good cost cutting measure), and we ran out of electricity (pre-paid meter) in the last week. This is a difficult issue actually, because is stated clearly on the listing that there's a cap for the electricity for the stay so that's fine... but we went away for a conference for 11 days of the 4 weeks we were paying for the apartment so the amount added on by the hosts likely isn't going to be enough if you do long stay. Again.. it's airbnb.. paying for electricity to me is not what airbnb used to be about and looking at the hosts' profiles they have several locations so I would imagine toilet paper and sufficient electricity shouldn't be hard to come by? One of the reviews we saw for this listing said fast stable wifi... we found the wifi to just kind of stall and freeze at least once every 10 minutes. Probably worth baring in mind if you plan to do some serious work over the internet at this listing. Lastly, someone in a review said it was a safe and secure area. This is true inside the complex but walking anywhere from the building into town or away from the complex is not even close to recommended in my opinion. There's one way in or out and it leads under some major highway bridges which I would never advise anyone to walk under even in broad daylight. Worth mentioning.. Uber from the building is easy and cheap, driving is easy too if you have access to a rental or own a vehicle.. but walking.. seems like a terrible idea to me.
There's a lot of nasty sounding negatives in that last paragraph but I want to be clear that we enjoyed our stay at this listing very much.. the positives outweighed the negatives by a long way! It's just that if any of those negatives would really rub you up the wrong way, then they're worth knowing about! I would recommend this listing for short stays. For long stays.. too many little problems for the price paid I'm afraid.