Please understand a lot of my review is very specific to my stay including some unpredictable events that most will
Not experience. So I can certainly see how/why many people have rated this
Property as a 5. The house is very nice/clean/and great location.
That said, we also had the opportunity to witness how unplanned cost to owner(s) are prioritized against comfort of guests. This is speaking mainly on the Air Conditioner issues mentioned in #2 below.
1. Sneaky 20% add on- this was sneaky. No way around it. I understand it was in fine print and also in automated email during booking process, but it should be included in your upfront cost. Hiding 20% until after booking is a very deceptive tactic that I can only assume gives potential customers the impression that this rental is a better deal than other similar properties. If we would’ve seen the true upfront costs, very clearly, before we booked we would’ve gone with a different rental. The biggest issue I have with this is that even though it was in fine print(again deceptive at best), the enforcement/collection of the extra 20% is not pursued until only a couple weeks a before arrival. By this time it’s far too late to cancel / change plans. Just sort of had to grin and pay it.
2. Ac broken in MBR entire trip, by the time we figured out we had a problem it was Friday and we had only sat and sun left for our vacation
The ac unit worked just enough to make you think it was working (sometimes)…. Every night I would watch it shut off repeatedly and sometimes turn back on. If not I’d go through process of resetting timers and fan etc (had to find manual online) and I could eventually get it to kind of work again for 15-20 mins. We reported the issue and ac company was sent over quickly. The ac guys told us what was wrong. They needed a part and that part was in stock (at their office on Kauai or worse case in Honolulu). They said because it was weekend, owner had to decided whether to pay to expedite the repair (after hours rates) , or wait until Monday. I assume the owner chose to wait, because it did not work Saturday or Sunday and we sweated it out the last 2 nights with my wife and I and our 3 boys (7/5/1) sharing that room.
3. Sports activity package should’ve been included for guests that 8 nights. $200 for this is tacky and inappropriate for a group that just dropped 8k aka around 1k a night for rental. Also .. they need to tell people the surf boards are NOT correct volume for men. Most people do not know surf boards are sized partially by riders weight and is balanced by boards with more or less volume. They need to either add in a surf board a guy over 15 can use, or make it clear to ppl before they rent the “package” who can use (successfully) the 2 surf boards
4. Wi-Fi information was not provided with check in info packet. Someone I think eventually found it on a note in house but not until after we had to request it. We dug through all of pre check in and contract home info we had before finally messaging agency. They replied quickly with the info… but seems like something that should be on the check in info… maybe put it before the $200 “special-sports package-once In a lifetime_opportunity/offering” 😂.
5. Upstairs living room “main common area next to kitchen” had a smart tv (tcl-Roku) with no tcl remote. There was a Roku remote that someone purchased in attempts to program it to the built-in / embedded Roku/tcl…. But because it’s not a standalone Roku device, the original tv smart remote was Needed (or maybe a new universal remote). Either way… NO smart TV for us upstairs. Again this is trivial it’s HAWAII so
We shouldn’t be watching TV anyways… BUT… still… please replace the remote. We have 3 young ones and they were outside most of our trip but that would’ve been helpful while we were Making dinners etc.
All in all… nice home… but we unfortunately had some bad luck? Idk