I hate writing negative reviews, but our experience here was disappointing enough that I feel fellow travelers deserve to be warned.
Communication was poor from the start. Then there was the check in, which is the worst I’ve had at any Airbnb across the 8 countries I’ve stayed in them. Host did not specify that there was a call box we were supposed to use because his friend would be inside the apartment waiting for us. The wording was confusing and we ended up standing outside for an extra half hour due to his poor communication, which his response basically blamed me for not seeing or using the call box he never told me about.
Then his friend ran up the stairs ahead of us and let me and my 62 year old mother struggle up all the stairs with our heavy suitcases. My mom wasn’t strong enough to carry hers up the stairs, so I had to take mine and hers up one at a time while the friend stood around in the apartment. This was an able bodied male probably in his mid 30s, so about as unwelcoming and unchivalrous as it gets to leave us (especially my mom) to struggle. After he ran ahead, the lights in the stairwell went out and we didn’t know where the switch was, so we were dragging stuff up in the dark. This was also not even knowing where we were going since he dashed up the stairs so fast we never saw where he went.
After the horrible check in, we tried to let it go and enjoy the apartment. Unfortunately we didn’t enjoy anything other than the location. We found that the apartment lacked many basic amenities and seemed like the host cut corners at the expense of guest comfort. For the location and price point, we were surprised and disappointed to find that there were no paper towels in the kitchen, no hand soap in the bathroom, nowhere to hang wet towels in the bathroom, not even a starter bottle of water in the fridge to get us through the first night after our evening flight, only one blanket with no sheet on the bed and no extra blankets anywhere, etc. Even the cheapest no frills Airbnb’s I’ve stayed at have had had better amenities and paid more attention to what will make guests more comfortable.
Despite the location, this place is not worth it at all. I stayed at a different apartment also on the Plaza Mayor in February and I have to say it was a hands down better experience, so I know for sure that it is possible to get an Airbnb in this neighborhood and have a much better stay. If that place wasn’t already booked we would’ve stayed there again. We thought this place would be a nice alternative, but I’d rather stay in a different neighborhood than stay here again.