I'm not one to leave negative reviews. Life is too short. Plus, as a business owner myself, I know it's not easy to get everything right. But too much went wrong here for me to not say something about it. I feel I owe it to future guests who can perhaps be saved from the headaches we had. And perhaps it will inspire 'Marco' and his team to up their game.
Things that happened that made the stay difficult:
1. To begin with, you're not dealing with a nice man named Marco. You're dealing with a rotating team of people from what seems to be a huge and not well-organized company. Response times were slow, and they didn't seem to have good internal communication as we were told different things by different employees.
My experience with these large hosting companies is trending steeply downward. They just don't care the same way a person does if it's their own home. I wish Airbnb made them say they're a company instead of using personal names like Marco. It's misleading. After this experience, I'm personally steering clear from all the big management companies that sell through Airbnb.
2. After you book, to check in, they demand you download an app that's rated 1 star on the app store to upload your ID and facial biometric data to. This is found only at the very bottom of the page before you book under Things to Know > House Rules > Show More > Where it is then written in Spanish (instead of being translated like the rest of this site). When I told them I didn't feel comfortable with this and politely asked if we could stick to the Airbnb policy of keeping communication to this platform, they declined. I asked Airbnb for help. Airbnb declined, too. So please be forewarned about this - in English.
2. We were told we had to call to arrange a check-in appointment. I called, where I was told we had to call again, later in the day, 30 minutes before arrival to ensure someone was there to greet us. So I called again, 30 minutes before we arrived, as asked. My gf and I waited for about 40 minutes outside the apartment in uncomfortable weather until someone came.
3. When we got inside the cleaning crew was still there. They stayed until an hour after the check-in time. They were sweet, but clearly overworked and rushed. The bathroom was covered in long hairs we kept finding in new places throughout our stay.They also left piles of unwashed laundry in two of the rooms. We were told someone would come to pick up the piles of laundry, possibly while we were out of the apartment -- which made us feel we needed to hide valuables when we left. No one ever came and the piles stayed with us throughout the trip.
4. The wifi login information listed on the 1-star-rated app is not accurate. We found the router and entered the info manually. It didn't work at all 85% of the time and when it did, it was so slow it wasn't usable for anything other than text. This was very challenging as I had very important business meetings on Zoom scheduled. We called and asked for help and were told someone would come to check it out. No one ever did.
5. They have complex instructions for dealing with trash and other cleaning requirements that you must follow or face a 'PENALTY'. Many of the larger hosting companies are doing this and it's so crazy to me. If we're going to do the cleaning, don't charge us a fee. Better still? take care of it, like hotels do.
6. After all of this, we asked to check out a little later, so we wouldn't have to wait at the airport so long. Nope. They couldn't do that either. What they could do is send the cleaning lady to enter the apartment without permission an hour before we checked out. After we told her we weren't check out yet she waited on the stairs awkwardly until we left.
I've been using Airbnb for 10+ years, all around the world. This is one of the most dificult experiences I had, and made me seriously question using this service again. It's a shame. Because the apartment itself, while quite run-down and well-used, is lovely. And the location is great. If it weren't for the last two, this would be getting 1 star from us.