What a disappointment! We were originally planning to travel to Vegas for the ASU-UNLV football game. When that got cancelled, we decided to keep our flights but have a low-key weekend in Henderson near where our friends live. This also happened to be my birthday weekend. I communicated all of this to Nelson, the contact person for this rental (who I believe works for the property management company but definitely is not the owner), and told him we planned to spend Saturday out at the pool. The photos of this place are misleading and make everything (particularly the pool and the living room) much larger than they actually are. This lead us to believe there was more seating than for just 5 people in the living room – insufficient when you advertise it for a max of 10 people.
There were lots of other rental options in the area for much cheaper than this one, but we chose this house mainly for the pool and jacuzzi. We arrived Thursday evening and noticed that the pool was cloudy and kinda gross. The pool man was there early Friday morning dumping a ton of chlorine and other chemicals into the pool. The pool was still cloudy and gross looking Saturday, and the pool man came back to install or replace pool parts and dump a bunch more liquid chlorine in. He said the pool was cloudy due to a huge windstorm in Vegas the previous Wednesday. We're from Arizona and we have pools and we know that this issue was not from a storm, considering there was virtually no debris in the pool whatsoever. We still don't know what the issue was with the pool, but we DO KNOW that it should have been addressed prior to our arrival, not the morning after our arrival (and also the morning after that), especially considering I told Nelson that our specific plan for the day on Saturday was to hang out by the pool. The pool was unusable until at least noon on Saturday due to all the chemicals that were added, and even after that it was still cloudy and there was a weird film floating on top after the pool man left on Saturday morning. Despite my requesting instructions on how to make the jacuzzi hot, apparently the owner (or some other qualified pool expert) has to come out to turn on the jacuzzi and it was ONLY hot on Saturday night and completely unusable the rest of the time. Not acceptable to only have access to the pool and jacuzzi for about half a day of our 2.5 day stay.
The beds: OMG the beds were hard. Literally the hardest beds we’ve ever slept in. 5 out of the 6 of us got hardly any sleep and one of the guests remarked that he may as well have been sleeping on the floor. The towels: The towels were tiny and scratchy. Not sure what they are washing these towels in but we strongly suggest that someone immediately go out and buy some *decent* new towels for this place. I brought a pool towel from home (just in case) and I was so grateful I didn’t have to use these awful towels. Speaking of pool towels, there were none provided that we could find, so we had to borrow some from our friends. NOT OK when you advertise a pool and jacuzzi. The kitchen: We cooked two meals in this kitchen and it’s the most ill-equipped kitchen of any vacation house I’ve ever rented. A LOT of the utensils and other kitchen supplies were dirty and/or crusted with old food. There was not one single mixing bowl or baking dish, and no pasta strainer. All of the pots and pans were tiny – nothing was big enough to cook anything for 6 people, much less the 10 people advertised. (But…there was an entire drawer of tongs…go figure?!) Someone who actually cooks needs to go through this kitchen and take an inventory of stuff that is needed by people who actually cook so that the basics are covered, then head on over to IKEA and do some shopping. The top rack of the dishwasher was broken and barely on the track. If you pulled it out too far, it (and anything in it) would fall to the ground. One of the chairs at the kitchen peninsula was broken and we almost fell over several times. The oven temperature was set to Celsius which (of course, since we do not routinely use Celsius in this country) we didn’t know until it was heated to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. We Googled how to fix this and change it to Fahrenheit, because it seems dangerous. THE SIGNS: OMG, the signs are ridiculous. Apparently, the neighbors of this place are jerks and call the cops all the time. I get that the owner/property management company wants to minimize this but COME ON. Don’t buy a vacation home, stuff it full of enough beds to sleep 10-14 people, lure people in with a “sparkling pool” (NOT!) and a BBQ grill, and then say “No music, loud talks, any noise” is allowed or the “city people” will arrive. Seriously…no loud talks!! THEN……..if and when the “city people” come, they threaten to fine the guests in the amount of $1,000.00. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS! I wonder if I tripped on the corner of the rug walking from kitchen to the dining room (this became known as “the trip hazard” during our stay) and conked my head on the dining room table if THEY would then owe ME $1,000.00?! Seriously, though…they should really fix that rug before someone splits their head open. They also charge $150.00 for an early check in/late early check out AND $30 to heat the pool. (We didn’t take advantage of any of this because that’s just ridiculous.)
In the interest of full disclosure, they did refund us a small portion of what we paid due to the hassle