One of the top reasons people book Airbnbs is for leisure. In this type of situation, DUMBO has a vibrant local culture that lured us here in the first place; however, it was a family event (adult children) and extended travel that compelled our stay (prepping daughter to move to UK post NYU Tisch graduation). In my selection of Julia’s DUMBO LOFT, it was based on location, ability to accommodate an adult daughter (21yrs), sister, and me comfortably in practical setting and previous positive reviews. Julia IS a superhostess. The listing, visual images, and communication from Julia were spot on. Consider reading Julia’s local recommendations, as we used a few.
—Prior to arrival, receive detailed information for your arrival that includes an easy to follow house rules. Be sure to have your guests, in my case two additional family members, read throughly and you will be just fine. This is an artist’s home, be respectful, and treat the loft as your own (only better);
—LOCATION: vibrant neighborhood, with something for everyone;
—NEIGHBORHOOD: loved it. Older daughter lived and went to grad school close by (NYU Tisch), found our cadence and visited local coffee houses daily, explored the area on foot with something to do daily for the six days in town, which included NYU events across NYC and Brooklyn, local parks, Brooklyn library, DUMBO DROP block party, and Brooklyn flea market on Sunday.
—TRANSPORTATION: Figured out navigation of subway easy enough using Google maps and ended up using subway and Lyft due to location, varying events, and time. Bring good walking shoes, as most of the areas my family traveled are walkable.
—VENUE: DUMBO LOFT: the loft itself is a terrific space with two bedrooms and one full bathroom (shower). It has several features I want to point out: 1) skylight windows and sun tube: natural light amplified, street and outdoor noise—it’s a vibrant city with great public transportation near by, yes, expect rail noise which our family treated as white noise. Julia is thoughtful enough to make available disposable earplugs at each bedside; however, we all used our noise cancelling AirPods. And, if you close the skylights and run the air conditioner, the street noise melted away—we only discovered this after a rainy night and the skylight closed automatically minimizing any outdoor noise; personally, I prefer to leave the skylight open for fresh air and breeze. Upon leaving daily, we closed the skylights. No flying insects at all. 2) kitchenette: NY H2O is super tasty, family used daily in available hot water carafe and Nespresso. Plenty of disposable cups (no lids), paper towels, coffee stirs, and sugar—I travel with my own tea, honey, and stevia, so if you have a personal preference consider bringing. Several tea bag choices are available along with Nespresso choices (which I didn’t use, but my sister did). Most all meals were eaten out and while we did have a few go to items we purchased at the local grocer (yogurt and fresh squeezed juice) for storage in a small refrigerator in kitchenette, we minimized our consumption of refrigerator goods. There isn’t a way to reheat items in kitchenette that we found, so bringing back leftovers didn’t make sense (correction: daughter ate cold pizza and loved it). 3) bedrooms: comfortable beds with fresh linens. Wooden valet is in loft photo to store luggage contents and plenty of wood hangers. 4) bathroom: ample shelves to place toiletries. Everything worked well and Julia’s recommendation to start the shower to get hot water to unit is accurate—tip: plan sequential shower use and continuous hot water wasn’t an issue (showering off the end of day dust was a refreshing proposition). Julia provided standard amenities of body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. I did appreciate having varying household cleaner, like Method and Windex, to use daily—kept surfaces clean and tidy in the bathroom and kitchenette, just like home. 5) ample surge protectors: no issue with powering up our many devices. 6) Laundry: while no laundry is available onsite, I did try to use Bridgestone. It didn’t work out, as I was wanting an overnight service wash and fold and my needs differed from what was available. Instead, I travelled one subway stop to Brooklyn Sudz. I called in advance, planned my excursion, but found that their wash and fold was also busy. The staff was kind and suggested I use their laundromat self-service. I was navigated through purchase of a wash card and did it myself (yes, easy). For the wait times of 23 minutes per wash and dry load, I walked across the street to The Sweet Cafe. 7) Make use of local grocer and City Chemist: for last minute items and needs, use local. One of our favorite local (there were many) ended up being @HudsonWilder a California fusion curated store in DUMBO and had items shipped to SF. 8) Amazon: consider for specialty items needed prior to extended UK travel. I used a local locker with easy pick up. This works far better than asking any host to arrange Amazon delivery and safeguards delivery storage.
Overall, our DUMBO LOFT experience was terrific and we’d easily return if the opportunity presents itself.