Wasn’t for us.. this is the first less-than-stellar Airbnb review I’ve written. As a rental property owner myself I try to hold back with negative reviews, but bleh. Checking in was so stressful that I would think twice about staying at an Airbnb vs. hotel going forward.
We arrived just before 6PM and unfortunately the key code provided was invalid. We could not get hold of the host, Amy, via phone/text/messenger, so we had to call Airbnb support. They also could not reach her. Airbnb advised that they would refund us, which was little help given the cost to book a last minute hotel on Maui. The front desk staff in the buildings have nothing to do with the individually owned units (it’s hard to even find a phone number online). We had a dinner reservation at 7:30PM, so after 45 min we decided to head out. We ended up changing clothes and trying to freshen up in our rental car in the parking lot. We were bummed because the dinner was at a higher-end restaurant, and a special occasion for us. As we were arriving at the restaurant, Amy responded to us. She confirmed the key code was an issue and advised that she would be awake until 8:30PM to let us in. We explained that we had dinner plans (reservations made months in advance) so she said she’d try to fix the key code, but to wake her up if it didn’t end up working. She also passed along a passive aggressive comment about how the situation was my fault due to not sharing our flight info (I didn’t know I was supposed to). Huge buzz kill. We hurriedly ate dinner and skipped drinks/dessert.
Later the next day (while we were out) she also messaged me to say she’d entered the room to open the door for fresh air. We’d already left a screened window open, so we just thought this was strange. We had nothing to hide other than dirty underwear, but I haven’t experienced this at other Airbnbs. She was also completing some renovations next door, which didn’t matter to us since we generally were out 8AM-10PM daily.
The location in Kihei is convenient and close to the beach and restaurants/grocery. The room is a bit cluttered and dated feeling, but for our heavily planned trip it served our needs just fine. The porch was also nice for drying our wet suits each night.
As a side note, one night when we were arriving home around 10PM a family of 4 was trying to check-in and the front desk had no record of them. The family looked ready to cry. I felt so bad for them! The way this grouping of buildings is set up (with many owners or companies renting out units) makes for a bit of a mess.
Lastly, this isn’t related to Airbnb but I forgot a pair of surf shorts in the parking garage and went back to retrieve them, but someone had taken them. My fault, but super lame of another guest to take them.
Overall wouldn’t recommend, especially at the cost of the stay.