The owner: Cris is a great and reasonable person, approachable, communicates timely, you can discuss things with her if needed. She did help us with a few things, and understood if we had any concerns.
The apartment: great in many ways, but you need to be ready to accept some drawbacks too.
Great things about the apartment:
- space: it's very big, two double bedrooms and huge living room with huge dining area, huge bathroom with great bathtub and two sinks, a lot of storage space
- location: absolutely fantastic location, easy to get (direct metro connection from airport + 7min walk from the station), 20m relaxed stroll to the beach, a lot of cafes and restaurants within walking distance, 20-30 min walk to the Turia park (depending which part of the park you pick), great supermarket for any shopping you may need just round the corner
- some areas of the apartment has been redone (bathroom, beds)
Acceptable:
- cleanliness: clean bedrooms, bedlinen, clean mattresses, clean bathroom
Not so great:
- the apartment overall is a bit rundown (kitchen cupboards are quite old, and not so clean, balconies are in a pretty bad shape, windows are jamming)
- some equipment we would expect is missing: we had to ask for the iron (which Cris provided very quickly), there is no ironing board, washing drying rack is only outside and quite small, we had to use a regular pot for boiling water as there was no kettle, no coffee equipment of any kind, kitchen utensils seem quite random and in great numbers...
We had one issue that was pretty nasty (but you may want to check with Cris, it may have been fixed or no longer an issue):
- Valencia has an overall issue with a sewage system. Sometimes, when you walk in the streets, you can smell the sewage/ feces horrible smell. Occasionally, we could smell that coming from somewhere in the bathroom, or kitchen. One day was pretty horrible, the entire flat smelled awfully. It may have had something to do with the works they were doing to sewage piping in the street, it may be that on a weekend day more people were using bathrooms than on a weekday. I have no idea. Anyway, this was so bad we contacted Cris and Airbnb about it. Eventually, after Sunday, over weekdays, the situation was improving. Maybe there was a particular bad day when the building or the flat had an issue. You may want to check with Cris if this is handled.
For us, the most important factors were: space, location, the ability to make washing and the flat was a really good choice for us in that respect.