The great:
- spectacular views of sky and ocean. These delighted every day.
The good:
- Well stocked
- Comfortable beds
- Bottles of welcome bubbly
The not so good:
- communication breakdown with the host
- 66 steps to climb to get to apartment OR an old, temperamental elevator that the hosts themselves do not like to use
- not walking distance to beach.
The terrible:
Despite making an enhanced clean pledge (critical factor in our deciding to book during Covid), this house was not clean (grime and used toiletries in bathroom, empty plastic water bottle under the bed, dead flies in the window sills, used paper towels and dirty remotes in the family room, crumbs in the kitchen drawers etc). Nor was there any airing-out time left between bookings. The CDC recommends a 24 hour window, responsible hosts ensure this and this is what we expected, based on the “enhanced clean” commitment featured on the listing. We found upon arrival that there had been almost no time between the previous guests checking out, the cleaning crew and our check in (which the host urged us to do before sundown). This endangers everyone. We arrived after a long drive, too late to move out (although the host did offer us that option).
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a fine stay (we would have requested the apt be cleaned properly the next day). During a pandemic, this felt very risky. We spent most of the first night cleaning and airing out the apt, fearing risk of infection. We spent most of that first night out on the balcony with every window in the unit open to dissipate potential viral load.
I wish Airbnb ensured the safety of their guests by making the “enhanced clean” a real commitment instead of merely an advertising pledge. We would have moved out the next morning, had Airbnb informed us the host would allow that without penalty and if Airbnb could have guaranteed the next place would actually be “enhanced clean.” There was much back and forth but in the end, Airbnb could not find an alternate place for us to safely move to. Airbnb refunded the cleaning fee and 1/2 night’s stay. Frankly the money did not come close to addressing the ongoing stress of a potentially contagious situation to find ourselves in. We would not normally have travelled during Covid, but circumstances forced us to do so.