Although the house has an awesome location, our experience was really marred by interactions with Lisa. It would be in the best interest to be more accommodating to your guests when events lead to expected amenities become not available.
On June 13, two days prior to our stay on June 15, Lisa reached out to me to speak about an issue with a major amenity. She told us that the shower in the master bedroom doesn't work and that since there were only four of us, we can just use the shower downstairs instead of the one in the master bedroom. When booking reservations, people obviously plan out the number of bedrooms and bathrooms available. So when we found out about this missing amenity two days before our trip, we asked Lisa if she can make a price adjustment. Considering that we booked the house for $1,600 a night with all of the fees, we thought that she can be a bit more accommodating. Instead, she TOLD us that we just wouldn't cancel the reservation. This is very difficult as obviously accommodations get booked in advance in Maui and we left that she backed us up in a corner without any options.
When I requested if there was any way to reflect the amenities available to us at the time of our stay, Lisa stated:
"We are not offering any discount as we do have two other full bathrooms and having you use them instead of us canceling your reservation." - just be aware that the number of bathrooms listed may change at the last minute. We were informed that her crew have tried fixing this before and that they unfortunately were not able to fully fix the problem. I am unsure if this is an ongoing problem with this listing.
Instead of showing any kind of flexibility or empathy, Lisa thought she doing us a favor by not canceling our reservation. The only other upstairs bathroom with a shower has an awkward window that opens up to the second bedroom, which proved to be a non-starter for those of us who were staying in the master bedroom as to preserve our privacy from the other couple staying in the second bedroom. As a result, my partner and I had to use the downstairs bathroom which also had a glaring flaw - there was no secure lock to that bathroom as it had a sliding door with an unsecured hinge.
Furthermore, the AC units did not fully work, barely giving off any cool air in the downstairs area. Be wary of this if you plan to stay during the hot season. On this note, there was an extra rule written in the binder that AC left on excessively would result in an extra charge for us. For those planning to stay in more than leaving the place, you might be charged excess for enjoying the place you booked.
Lastly, there is this unwritten rule on the airbnb listing but found within the household where they would charge the guests extra for any tracked sand. There is a hose in the front to remove as much sand as possible, but given how unpleasant the host was, I didn't have high confidence that we would not have been charged regardless. This caused unnecessary stress on what should have been a pleasant birthday getaway.