The listing showed an apartment my family was looking forward to staying in. Communication was good prior to check -in and that went smoothly. Location was great and there was ample, if a little tight, in terms of parking. That was probably as good as it got.
Taking each element as it transpired:
The flat is certainly not recently renovated and the pictures are certainly from years ago. I could imagine it being a beautiful flat when it was newly done, but it is certainly jaded now.
The cleanliness really let the flat down, considering both prior, and checking out, it was impressed upon the family how it is cleaned and everything is fresh. THAT IS CERTAINLY NOT THE CASE. The place did have the beds made but the actual place was dirty, with significantly marked furniture, and layers of dirt, grime and dust across the flat. The table leg appeared to have dried blood on it, whilst the sofa, which folded out as the extra bed, was badly stained with who knows what, and certainly not somewhere I would have the children sleep. This led to the double bed being shared between my brother and his youngest son, where it was never meant to be. The windows were grimy, there was staining on the floor and the en-suite toilet was filthy, whereas the shared bathroom was not.
The well-equipped kitchen was not as equipped and thankfully the supermarket across the road allowed us the opportunity to purchase salt, pepper and oil just to start thinking about cooking. The eating sets were a mishmash with 4 bowls, 5 plates, etc, but there was enough for our needs, though perhaps not a larger group. The frying pan was tiny, and two small milk pans which would have held little. There was no pot. The glasses were a mix-up of different sets, and there were 4 mugs. The flat is advertised for 6, however the dining table was able to only seat 4, and most items only amounted to four. There was LOTS of cleaning items, though it was a pity someone had not used them and for what I paid, I was not going to start cleaning the apartment.
Likewise, there was no hairdryer to be found.
The double bed led my brother to continually moan about how it was the worst bed he had ever slept in. No one else complained and it was put down to him being grumpy. It was only on the morning of check-out was it discovered that there was no mattress on the bed! It was the frame, a mattress topper and then a sheet! The towels and bed linen could not be faulted however as they were clean and well presented.
It took ages to connect to the WIFI, and we were never able to get onto Netflix which became its own trial with the number of messages that were going back and forward between ourselves and the concierge staff. Hundreds of attempts to pacify them that we were trying, with upper case, lower case, turn on, turn off, please send pics, eventually being resolved by the fact we were going home the next morning and we had lost interest in it. Mind you we were asked if we could not just use our own login and password, which may have worked had we Netflix at home. It was a disappointment to the children as they had looked forward to having it for a few nights.
We were in constant dialogue through messaging with the concierge service. They were not on site and I feel they had no real understanding of the property. I cannot fault them for their attempts and enthusiasm but when contacting them to update them on what they had asked of us, they were unaware of their own colleague’s names and I feel they were more an agency for a significant number of properties rather than a concierge service which would have known the property. Likewise, when the 'HOSTS ' referenced the property, they did not describe the property correctly, saying it was ground floor when in fact it was on the third and little things came to light that makes me think it is a company owned property rather than what the listing purports it to be.
Certainly not recommended