We spent 9 nights in this airbnb in July 2022 as the final part of our 3-week vacation/trip where we visited some places in west US. After multiple great airbnbs during our trip (and many in the past), this one was a real disappointment. I describe the issues of this room in detail bit later, let me start with positives.
The condo is in a good location. Google says 13 mins to Waikiki beach (0.7 miles).
It is walking distance to main shopping/restaurants street in waikiki.
The very close neighbourhood seemed to us safe even arround midnight. Directly in the condo building there are 2 car rental companies, small convenience/snacks store, bakery/coffe shop, and breakfast/brunch restaurant. There are multiple convenience stores (ABC, 7/11...) very close to the building. Free Parking of the car, even overnight, can be found close by on the street running along the water canal.
Communication with the owner was good. There was small issue with check-in process, but with the owner on the phone we sorted it out quickly. Placido seems to be nice and polite. He offered help if we need something.
Now the negatives. At first I would like to emphasise that we knew this airbnb is going to be simple (based on the photos, description, reviews, even though now we are bit surprised no one described the problems we experienced and they are, for sure, long term). We already were in multiple simple ones and we were ok with them. We don't expect 5-star hotel experience. Also, we do understand some owners can have limited economic possibilities, hence different level/quality of maintenance. However, I hope everybody would agree that even the simple airbnbs can be maintained in a good and clean condition, bringing cosy feeling. That requires more of the effort than the money.
We do not want to hurt anybody, we just always want to write honest reviews that can help other customers.
The biggest issue of this airbnb is significant humid mold smell coming from the bathroom, even through the closed bathroom door (there is few inches distance between bathroom door and floor).
Little bit smaller issue (depends on each customer's opinion) is the cleanliness level which was quite low (old and not-clean looking bath curtain, same feeling goes from the anti-slipping rubber mat in the bathtub, there was also fist-size amount of hair and dirt in the bathtub sink which I have removed in order to make the water flows away, old bathroom carpet should be changed as well, it seemed it was not vacum cleaned before our arrival. Change of these small amenities in the bathroom would improve the whole feeling a lot. Then, in the sleeping/dining room, there was visible dust and dirt on the floor next to the walls and furniture like bed, sofa bed, below small bedside table, etc., dust on surfaces of the furniture, fridge, microwave... the mugs had coffe stains, the cutlery did not seem very clean too,
Also the sheets covering the side of the bed and the bottom of the bed had stains too).
The supply of the dishes and cutlery is very limited even for the case of simple small condo (just one glass for soft drinks/beer, 2 mugs, enough of margarita glasses though, strange combination of different sets of forks, knives, spoons. As they did not seem clean, and there were old breadcrumbs or something like that in the cutlery organizer, we decided to buy own cutlery and we used that).
There are cooking pans, electric cooker and small owen, so even though it might be tricky to prepare proper meals here (as there is no real kitchen corner with the water tap and sink, mainly the dish washing requires more effort - it can be done only in the bathroom and there is very small space around the basin) it is still technically possible though.
It is also impossible to keep complete privacy from outside as the window lamela shades are not in a best condition anymore. Simple curtain installation would easilly solve this problem and improve the condo a lot.
When we observed the room conditions, mainly due to the mold smell (the cleanlines and dishes/cutlery shortage is survivable, but still, it is not something you would like to deal with on your vacation on Hawaii), we really were decided to cancel the reservation and go somewhere else. However, it was impossible to find other accommodation for simillar price (which was not low) available for our 9-night period on such short notice. So basically we had no other option than to stay. In our opinion the described issues could not be solved by the owner easilly and quickly (the mold smell issue would require drastic refurbishment of the bathroom as even after we bought and used mold removing bleach cleaner regularly every day, the smell remained. We even tried cleaning gel for stuck sinks. No improvement. We figured it goes from small cabin under the basin as there the basin syphon is, it seems that even the cabin wood has absorbed the humidity and smell already).
That is why we decided to contact AirBnB directly, explained the situation, provided pictures to prove it, and they reimbursed us with complete cleaning fee and added some discount of the first night.
I would say, this place should be refurbished before it is rented to someone else.