I’d like to preface this by saying that I was really excited about this place so I remained optimistic long after I should have, but this was easily my worst Airbnb experience due to issues with check in (we were only able to check in by pure chance) and a completely unresponsive host.
We arrived to the apartment 30 minutes later than the estimate we gave Ricardo because of heavy thunderstorms and the resulting traffic on our way in. We buzzed the apartment mutilple times, messaged Ricardo on Airbnb, called, and texted, with no response. We waited so long that we were able to get both inside the gate and inside the building from people leaving and letting us in. We knocked on the door to the apartment and received no response. At this point we decided to go out to eat and give Ricardo some time to respond to us to see when a good time to return would be. We ate, walked around Central Park, returned to buzz the apartment again, then sat in our car for an hour. We tried buzzing, texting, and calling several more times before having to find a bar to use the restroom. At this point, we had a call in to Airbnb customer service and were actively looking for hotels, since we had been trying to get ahold of Ricardo for 5 hours with no response. A few minutes before 11 pm (end of check in time), we decided to try one last time before leaving to go to a hotel. We buzzed the apartment again, and as we were turning to leave, a girl outside (who turned out to be Ricardo’s daughter) asked if we were buzzing for [Ricardo’s apartment number]. She let us in and claimed an assistant was supposed to be in the apartment earlier to let us in. Whether that’s true or not, I have no idea, but there had clearly been no one there.
Furthermore, during our entire stay, we never received any form of communication or response from Ricardo, much less an explanation or apology.
Other than that, the apartment was as expected. Public transportation is close by and Central Park is within walking distance. The entire building smells like weed most of the time, which didn’t bother me but might bother people with sensitive noses.