I am not a frequent Airbnb user but I have used Airbnb and VRBO previously. In addition I have owned vacation rental property in the past so have some familiarity with the challenges. I was disappointed in this unit and it was not just the single big issue, the parking, but more like death by a hundred small cuts.
The house is 4 bedrooms and about 1700 square feet. It is marketed as sleeping 10 and our family group was to be 9, 6 adults and 3 children. The cost (with everything) was close to $2100, just short of $700 per night for 3 nights. The bedrooms were nicely set up and met our needs. It was great to have more than one king bed available. Pictures, of course,make the rooms appear larger than they are but that was to be expected. In person the unit is somewhat worn.
Parking - parking in the neighborhood close to the beach is awful. We had expected to have 3 cars in our group but fortunately ended up with just 2. Material received from Airbnb said “There are 2 dedicated parking spaces, including 1 in the garage.” Having a unit with adequate parking was a major factor in our decision to rent this unit. In fact there is room for 1 car in the garage and NO second dedicated space. Houses in the neighborhood are set up with alley access to the garage and no driveway. A redline in the alley shows the area that must be left clear for fire trucks. For some houses that leaves sufficient space to park a second car across the garage on the alley. For this unit that would only be possible if the second car is partially in the garage. We were willing to treat the garage like a carport by leaving the garage door open but couldn’t because the lock on the door from the house to the garage was broken. It would not latch and definitely could not be locked. It was a security and safety issue. We called Vacasa upon our arrival Thursday afternoon and again Friday mid day about the parking and the security issue. While the phone was answered and action promised we never heard back from them. We ended up spending a fair amount of time locating parking for our second car. Overnight parking near the unit costs $10 and is available from 11 pm to 8 am.
The kitchen had some lacks. We had planned some meals in so had planned to do some cooking.
There was only one hot pad provided which made it awkward to move anything of size in or out of the oven.
There were no cloth kitchen towels and only one roll of paper towels. Wine glasses of course did not fit well in the dishwasher.
The icemaker in the fridge was broken, although we were provided with a bag of ice at the beginning of our stay.
We found no coasters in the house. We would gladly have used some to avoid leaving rings on the wooden furniture.
Bathrooms had some issues too. In the downstairs bathroom one of the can lights had no bulb in it and it was open to the bathroom steam. The shower door in the second floor bathroom had a door that would not latch. Using that shower would have resulted in water all over the floor.
The house was stuffy on our arrival as there is no AC. Windows had been opened but in order to get a breeze through we had to open doors, of which there are many. None of the doors had screens which concerned us both because of bugs and security.
We found a screw on the floor in the dining room and upon investigation found the closest chair’s cushion was no longer attached to the chair frame. A definite safety issue.
It is nice that a child safety gate is provided but it is light weight and not an effective barrier. The house is 3 stories with lots of stairs and doors opening onto balconies or decks. Renters should be aware of issues if they have young children.