Our group (6 adults, 4 kids, and a baby) chose this house due to great reviews, high ratings, attractive photos, pool, and the slide. We thought we could easily spend a week in this paradise with kids but the reality is often disappointing - what we got was the opposite of paradise. Our stay was booked for 7 nights but left after 4 nights because we could not bear it anymore.
To start with, the description of the house is confusing and inaccurate. The listing advertises 3 bedrooms / 2.5 bathrooms. It is only after reading the full description you understand that the master bedroom is not included. Apparently, the master bathroom was not included either. We realized that we were stuck with a single shower for the entire party upon arrival and had to negotiate with Anthony (the host) that he’d open the master bathroom for us. Further, we discovered that none of the bedrooms are described accurately as to what beds they got and that the missing beds are in separate “sleeping areas”. This is a big challenge if you have 3 families with kids trying to situate comfortably.
One sleeping area is simply a curtained-off portion of the attached garage and the other one is a detached shed below the slide entrance. The latter had a strong musty smell inside; not surprising, given the amount of standing water on the roof and a lot of moisture around the outside walls. Another bedroom, though inside the house, is only accessible through the garage.
The biggest immediate disappointment though was the condition of the outside areas which did not look at all like presented in the pictures. The lot is overgrown, moss and weeds grow on some of the paved areas around the pool. Big bunches of weeds grow in the tile gaps around the hot tub such that you touch it when you use it. Portions of the paved paths (including the path and the staircase to the slide) and the area near the entrance are covered with dirt and grime and have rotten fruits with flies on them. Some outdoor furniture is covered with algae. The upstairs porch is similar, planters with dead plants and dirt around them, a broken umbrella, algae grown on a part of the outside staircase having an AC unit constantly dripping water on it. The main gate mechanism was broken, the gate derailed several times, and had ants crawling all over it.
It was simply unpleasant getting from the house to the pool and staying there, not to mention kids falling on the dirty slippery surfaces several times. To be fair, the pool itself was clean and kids had fun at the slide, although several adults scraped their knees and elbows on rough sidewalls.
Several of the members of our party were bitten by bugs in their bedrooms while sleeping. One person was awakened by something crawling inside their pillow. We found a dead gecko in the pillow after we washed it, so hopefully, it was not a cockroach.
The cockroaches were routinely seen in the kitchen and the main living area though. They were both big and regular-sized. One had to be scrapped off the roach trap near the sink and several were seen going into the dishwasher and turned up dead after washing was done. We had to re-wash all dishes by hand after this and this incident has triggered the early departure. We had rented numerous properties in Hawaii previously and never experienced so many issues with insects, both inside and outside.
Once we brought it up with Anthony, he offered to send someone to “fix things”, however, we tried to communicate to him that we did not believe the cockroach problem could be addressed safely enough (we wouldn’t want to expose our kids to any chemicals) in the short time remaining, nor could the outside be tidied up. Unfortunately, he went into full denial after that, saying he had done a “professional inspection” and not finding anything we said “substantiated”, even after we sent him pictures. Cockroaches? Haven’t found any, including in the traps (we have seen them when it got darker and in the early morning. Besides, why did you have the traps in the first place?) Bugs and rotten fruits? It’s just how it is in the tropics (maybe true, but it is a nasty part of our experience). The smell in the shed sleeping area? No smell, just stale air (we know what mold smells like and it’s most certainly it). Dirt outside, slippery? We can’t powerwash every week (the whole thing looked like it wasn’t maintained and cleaned for months). Etc, etc.
There were definitely some nice things about the house. The common area is spacious with plenty of space for everyone including kids. The pool is large and clean, we could all play and swim in it. Also, for the house that age, it was quite clean inside.
However, all these things were eclipsed by the negatives, including the condition of the outside areas, bugs and cockroaches, and the host’s demeanor when presented with complaints.