I had a very stressful stay in this unit. I would recommend staying at this resort (Aston Islander on the Beach) in a different condo if you can live with a few problems.
As to the resort, there are 3 things I had to overcome. First, is the roosters. They crow loudly and you can hear it well even on the second floor). I know lots of people are bothered by that because I googled Aston Islander on the Beach TripAdvisor. Lots of people mentioned it. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper so I just downloaded a sleep app that plays ocean waves. That was good enough to drown out the sounds for me. Second, there is currently construction on the road coming out of the resort complex that is an issue. During the day the traffic backs up really bad and some people might have a problem turning left (lots of things are to your left). At night, after a luau that was 7 minutes away, it took 40 minutes to get back home. The third thing was construction on the sidewalk in front of the pool/spa/bar area. The construction noise was so loud some people might not enjoy that area. They just started that construction the day before my last day.
Having said that, I really loved the location. The grounds are BEAUTIFUL. There are restaurant options within an easy walk. I especially loved the Lava Lava Club next door. There is also a small grocery store that is within an easy walking distance. There is also some shopping within an easy walking distance. It is only 10 minutes from the airport and right on the beach. It’s so nice to be centrally located on the island as well.
I loved the unit itself as well. There is quite a bit of essentials packed into an efficiency and most of the items are in good shape.
The tough part of my stay was with the owner. I’ve only had good things to say about other Airbnb and VRBO stays. He either entered the condo without telling me in violation of Airbnb policy or he didn’t and lied about doing it. I have sent screenshots of our conversations to Airbnb in the hopes they will let him know if he does it again he will be banned from the site.
The reason the owner did it was because of a problem with the lock. Jilian, his property manager, told me other people had problems with the lock as well. He kept blaming the problems on user error, but I sent videos proving otherwise. It’s either a defective lock or the batteries were bad. (I have a similar lock). After no one would commit to coming out and fixing it, I was messaged that the batteries were changed. The batteries can only be changed from the inside.
When I confronted David, the owner, about entering my unit, he then said he didn’t. He only tested the lock. I don’t know which time he was lying, but, either way, I would not stay in this unit again.
One other issue is the code on the lock. It’s super easy to remember and guess. Based on a message from Jilian telling me to enter a second code, I know there are two super easy codes to guess. I can’t prove it, but I believe that he’s not changing the codes between visits. That is like giving a guest a physical copy of the key and letting them keep it so a previous guest can re-enter the unit and sexually assault or rob you.
I hesitated in posting this, even though I was lied to at a minimum, but I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. By posting about it, I’m hoping the owner will be shamed into doing the right things going forward.