We got off to a slightly rocky start! Karilyn told us to text her 30 minutes before arrival. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get through airport security and travel to her place so I just said it’d be late. We werent told there was a cut-off check in time and after we had a nightmare trying to get to Karilyn’s we received a text from her at around 1am saying it was too late to check in and we’d have to wait until the next day. We hadn’t contacted her yet as we were still about an hour away. We then spent a very stressful hour still making our way to her place, worrying we’d have to sleep outside in an unfamiliar place, after being awake for over 24 hours travelling! Luckily Karilyn did meet us there to let us in and we’re very grateful for that, especially considering it was 2am! We appreciate that it was very late and we never expected to arrive as late as that!
After that Karilyn was very helpful and accommodating. She gave us some food and there were things in the fridge we could use. Her place is lovely!! The photos don’t even do it justice! We had the place to ourselves and there is your own private entrance so you can come and go as you please. It’s in a lovely and quiet area right next to a 711 and the train station. You can hop on a train for around 20 minutes which takes you to the ferry and then a half hour ferry over to Manhattan.
I would say the downsides were we spent a lot of time each day travelling around to get to where we wanted as it was out of the way and sometimes there were no direct routes from Staten Island, the place is so nice and looked after that you worry about making a mess, as it’s connected to her house if you come back late you feel you have to sneak in so you don’t disturb anyone, and limitations on arrival time. Perhaps one of those key boxes could be used and guests arriving at inconvenient times could put a code in to get the key. But overall it is a really lovely place to stay and we enjoyed our time there, also it’s a lot more cost effective than staying in the city, and you get a lot of space for your money!