My family stayed over 2 nights at Chrystal’s “Modern, spacious home in PB, with a Hot Tub.” I requested for an early check-in at 1pm prior to arrival day and was notified due to back to back guest the timing of 1pm is not certain. In addition, Chrystal wanted to assure of high standards of cleaning due to COVID as top priority, which I was very pleased to hear. I received a notification around 12:40pm on check-in day that we can be accommodated early check-in at 1pm as the cleaners were finishing up, we were still driving on route and got to the place about after 2:15pm.
We had two cars and only had one allotted space. Unfortunately street parking was not very easy to get. Parking fills fast due to other condo units in the area, it was a waiting game for a space open near our front door entrance.
My family and I have previously stayed at other AirBNB, VRBO rentals and we wanted to check out the place as we got our belongings brought in. The pictures on the website were pretty accurate. There were plenty of light beige, white colored furniture and it showed some wear from previous guests. The white colored dining room bench seats were covered with cloth/blanket covering up some staining on the seats. The living room couch was comfortable with many pillows for back support for unknown reason there were some feathers found on the couch/pillows.
As my family started to put our food/grocery away we were delighted to see a very modern Samsung refrigerator. Although upon opening the fridge we were surprised to see it filled with food, even the freezer was packed with meat products, etc. It was surprising to see the refrigerator with other goods instead of just condiments and that was unexpected because other places my family and I have stayed the fridge was cleaned out empty. There was a big container only containing one slice of left-over cake. Due to left-over food in the fridge there was odorous smell when opening the fridge. There was even a labeled Tupperware container in there.
My family then opened the dishwasher and was even more surprised to see the condition of the dishwasher as if it has not been used for a long time. There was grime of food-like or soap scum. We then tried to run a wash to assure ourselves the plates are clean. But we had difficulty operating the dishwasher, it was not functioning properly. Contacted Chrystal and she replied to my inquiries within 30-45 minutes, stating the food in the fridge should have been emptied by the cleaner and also learned the previous guests had stated the dishwasher was not functional for them during their stay. Chrystal could not get a repair man out due to the holiday.
The stainless steel trash bin was also broken we had to manually lift the bin lid instead of push open/close button, the state of this trash bin was also quite dirty, the top/bottom of lid needed to be wiped off clean.
I did not want to have these inconveniences affect the start of our family get-away. Therefore, we drove to the Ralphs and bought some paper plates and plastic utensils. It was not pleasant having to do dishes on our vacation as we are mostly cooking our meals.
Upon checking out the rest of the house, found there were old set spill stains on the stair well beige carpet that had not been cleaned up properly. The “coral charm room’s ”- small secluded patio” 2nd floor was flooded from the rain the previous night and water was not draining out therefore we could not step out onto this deck. Patio furniture was soaked. The 3rd floor deck which was bigger faced toward the main street, Ingraham St., had no visibility/view of the beach that afternoon. These were the first impressions of our rental unit.
These are other comments from my family members.
PRO: full pantry(but did not get to use these items), good shower water pressure, big TV, Netfix/Disney+, comfy couch, very comfortable third floor bed, walking proximity to beach/bay/shopping district, use of washer/dryer
CON: Dishwasher didn’t work and were not notified of this condition prior to check-in. Left-over food in the fridge and freezer, street parking fills up quickly, 2 flights of stairs is steep challenging on some family members
Amenities we missed out on during our stay, missed using the hot tub, missed using the 3rd floor deck since the seating was still damp from the rain, also did not have views of the beach on a clear sunny Sat afternoon.
It was a good stay at Chrystal’s beach house may be better suited for the warmer months. There were excellent reviews this year, but last reviewed on Sept 2021. I had certain expectations due to COVID protocols and my first impressions made me uneasy about the cleanliness of the rental unit due to refrigerator, the dishwasher and therefore had to buy our own paper plates and utensils and also had to do much more hand washing than wanted on vacation. Since dishwasher was broken, Chrystal said to leave the dirty dishes in the sink and cleaners will hand wash after check-out.
If a couple of hours would have made the difference in cleaning our rental unit appropriately, I would have opted not to request an early check-in. I was on vacation and did not want to bring this up to Chrystal as we only had a couple nights stay. Having a repair person come in on my vacation would not feel much like a vacation. Overall, my family had a good time bonding.