Overall, our stay was a bit mixed. This apartment caught our eye because of the location and pool. Fundamentally, there are a lot of positives about the place. The downsides (some which might be specific to the timing of our stay) could all be fixed giving this 5-star potential.
The innate positives.
-	The location is fantastic. Barcelona is quite large but we were central to places we wanted to visit and often walked off in every direction (and close to two subway stations).
-	The pool is heavenly after a day of sightseeing in Barcelona
-	The apartment is pretty large for European standards and the kitchen is stocked with most things you’d need
-	Emanuele seems a nice guy, well-traveled, and good communication (even when he’s away)
Downsides:
•	Emanuele and Marta were away on vacation when we arrived. This isn’t a con as everyone gets a vacation :) But it seems things were missed in the transition between stays that maybe they would have caught.
•	The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned properly - hair was still on the shower walls and floor, the rim under the toilet seat had built-up grime, and the bathroom had a urine smell. We messaged Emanuele right away, and his cleaner did come quickly and spent a good amount of time re-cleaning the bathroom.
•	The urine smell came back once the smell of the cleaning supplies evaporated. We mentioned it to Emanuele when he came to see about the stuck dryer door (he returned from vacation midway through our stay), and he said he could smell it but thought it was pipes in Barcelona in the summer. It’s more likely that some lax cleaning in that area has led to the smell becoming embedded in the toilet and floor. A solid deep clean and soak with bleach or Urine-away, and a grout scrub might be needed.
•	Traveling through many BnB’s, it’s often the little things that separate the best. Usually they’ll leave enough amenities, but for our 6-night stay, we were given: 1 kitchen garbage bag neatly folded up with 1 dishwasher tab on top, 1 roll of toilet paper, no paper towel, no laundry detergent, and a tiny bit of dish soap remaining in the container.
•	The fridge was slowly leaking water onto the kitchen floor, when we contacted Emanuele’s helper before he returned to ask for a towel, she asked if we could just wipe it up with paper towel (which wasn’t left in the apartment) and so we had to use a bath towel.
•	We also only received one set of keys, which was difficult when we'd split up to do different things, and no key for the bathroom by the pool.
To their credit, Emanuele and his staff were generally responsive to the requests above. Cleaners were sent for the bathroom right away even when Emanuele was away. Extra supplies came the day after we requested them (so we could throw out garbage and keep the place clean). Some we put up with like the sheets being too small for the bed and popping off continuously. We just didn’t want to keep having to follow up on the things and instead enjoy our time walking around Barcelona.
Fundamentally, this place can be a 5-star stay…great host, great location. It just needs to focus on the little things (and a deep bathroom clean) that left it a bit lacking in those areas compared to some other places we’ve stayed at.