AMAZING host, but I personally was displeased with my experience, which may be unique to my own standards and preferences.
This was the first time I opted for a private room through Airbnb because the hotels in Chicago were a little too pricey at the time and I wanted a spot with free street parking. After my experience this weekend, I don't think I would ever choose a private room for vacation purposes. There is just no sense of privacy. I knew I was sharing the location with somebody, but I thought it would just be the host and not 4-5 other parties. Long story short, we were originally booked for 3 nights but after the first night we decided to spend the rest of our time at a hotel and just accept the Airbnb as a sunk cost.
My complaints:
-Room is NOT a bedroom. A bedroom needs two means of egress and there was only one door. Because there are no windows, the room gets pitch black when the lights go off and this is really bothersome when you try to wake up and it's completely dark inside the room.
-Bathroom is NOT a private bathroom but a shared bathroom. I was on a vacation with my girlfriend and wasn't expecting a 6"BR" 2Bath living environment. Not knowing it was a shared bathroom, I didn't bring shower flip flops, so I felt pretty unclean during my time here.
-Cleanliness overall could be improved. Lingering odor + dusty vibe going on.
-No privacy and sense of relaxation. We ultimately decided to book a hotel, through PriceLine's name your price, for our last 2 nights because we were dreading the thought of returning to the Airbnb. On our first night, we were awakened at 2 am by a party that was just arriving to the room right next to us. I was appalled at how little noise insulation there was in our closed room to the room next to us. If you have a private conversation, the other room will be able to hear you. On top of that, because this particular room was in the basement you could hear everything going on above.
So overall, I was displeased with my time here, but I found this hard to write because Tracy was an amazing host. I felt I needed voice my true thoughts because others like me might find this extremely insightful in determining whether to stay here or not. I want to emphasize that my experience may be unique because my vacationing preferences may differ from somebody else.