I agree with the last review - my worst Air Bnb stay so far. Previously I’ve dished out nothing but top star reviews. I’ve never stayed in an Airbnb managed by an agency before & never will again. It’ll be the first question I ask when sending Airbnb messages now. I’d stay in a hotel instead where any issue is resolved more easily & directly by staff or find air bnb’s managed directly by the owners.
I was 5 months pregnant at the time of our stay; which Hopewell agency knew about, so it makes some things they failed at far more important.
I asked about feather soft furnishing as I am allergic. At first the agency were hopeless & rather than ask the landlord just informed me they ‘don’t know & can’t guarantee’, so I had to ask them to do their job & ask them to find out, allergies should be taken more seriously. They got back to me & said ‘no there is no feather bedding.’
Upon arrival, the bed is covered in feather cushions, as is the sofa. Took the pillows off that the feathers had touched & slept on one that was clean underneath. Had a mild reaction but nothing serious, had it been a restaurant with a food allergy it would have been taken seriously. Still unacceptable & easily avoidable.
Re parking; in the ad’s answered questions it states £5 & that there is an honesty box if you want to arrange the daily permit upon arrival. I asked the agency about parking & they wanted to charge me £10pd instead. When I pointed out online it says £5, they backtracked & said yes it’s £5. About to arrive we requested the parking permits & Hopewell yet again tried to charge me £10. Watch out for this if you book - permits are £5pd 9am-9pm. Do not let them over charge you.
My partner had trouble sleeping so slept for a few hours on the sofa. He had two itchy bites the day after. We then avoided the sofa for the rest of our stay. I informed the agency they would probably need to do a deep clean of the area (which might also help the slightly funky smell in there) & that if I or my partner got anymore new bites we would be leaving early & would request a refund for that night. They replied we could have gotten them from ‘outside’ & that linens are professionally cleaned. The bites are on his skin only exposed when he was sleeping, we hadn’t been in nature or around any animals.
Luckily, in avoiding the sofa & lounge there were no further bites but it did make me anxious at the time about taking any bugs home to our house about to be occupied by a new born!
We arrived at 2pm because traffic had been good, we parked the car. Asked if we may enter the property, Hopewell said “no, check in 3pm.” During this time we had a drink at the Lido opposite. We could see nobody left or entered the property. We could have entered at 2pm & it would have made no difference to anyone.
Itinerary info received on Airbnb didn’t include the right codes; agency sent an alternate code with a generic message non specific to the property along the lines of ‘this code could be for this or could be for that’ via air bnb message right before check in time, if this had been someone like one of my parents who doesn’t have any way to check emails outside of their computer, they’d not have been able to get in & fought the locks with the wrong & original code. (Not an issue for us but just thoughtless customer service on top of bad customer service)
Hopewell have little compassion when they reply & do not take responsibility, they blame the customers, which you can see on their replies to one star G**gle reviews & on their reply to the gentleman below. Negative feedback should be something they can take onboard to act upon. Very unprofessional agency.
Other niggles that became amusingly annoying because of & on top of our experience with the agency;
-Toilet seat lid doesn’t stay up, enjoy it falling on your back.
- Bathroom small: shower water does indeed get all over the floor like the previous occupant stated, because the shower curtain isn’t long enough & the shower is minuscule, not for the claustrophobic.
-A small table in the bedroom would be helpful. We left cupboards open to put a glass of water in them. I moved the stack of Bristol maps so they didn’t ever get accidentally wet.
-This ones somewhat petty but was my icing on the cake after all of the above. I struggled to open the fridge because of the handle design haha.
-It definitely doesn’t ‘overlook the Lido’, again like the last chap said: you can see the entrance.
Positives; great location.
(Judging by how Hopewell reply to negative feedback > For any reply the agency are going to make about my review -
Re the feathers; Hopewell tried to call me twice at lunch time the day after I’d sent the messages & I was in the cathedral at the organ recital so couldn’t answer.
My communication has been polite & to the point whereas I’ve found their communication arrogant & unsympathetic. The generic impersonal messages show how little they care about their service)