This was our first-ever AirBnB rental, and I was hesitant about switching things up from my familiar (if somewhat slow, impersonal, and occasionally smelly) hotel bookings I've grown to rely on over the years. That hesitation quickly disappeared when I decided to message the host, and Veronica replied to me quicker than I could toast a pop-tart (okay, that's a lie ... I eat them cold. But she was that fast). She walked me through everything and made me feel very confident about this being the right choice for a last-minute get-away to drive our 4 kids up the road for 13 hours to see NYC for the first time. On-site parking in a private drive big enough for one vehicle (our Pacifica minivan is pretty big, but we squeezed in just fine) was a big plus versus having to do the street parking shuffle and made unloading and loading back up a breeze during check-in / out.
We never drove during our stay, as the F train was 2 or 3 short blocks away. We walked a little farther to take the E train the first day because the card machine in the F train station was only selling single-ride passes, but the kids were perfectly happy since that took us past a donut shop. There is a little market in between the house and the F train station that sells some standard grocery items like milk along with your typical convenience store fare, so we stopped in there to get some breakfast food for the house part way through the week, too.
Speaking of the house ... it was wonderful! I loved the decor and the openness, and it was great getting to stay somewhere with the kids that wasn't some newly-built sterile-feeling prefab or an apartment with tenants coming and going all the time. It had a lot of charm, a few loving stairway creaks like any home with history should, and most importantly - COMFY BEDS!
I almost never sleep well when I travel, and we all slept SO well in this house! Mom and Dad took the master bedroom with a queen bed, the two smaller kids shared the full sized, and the two big kids shared the queen at the end of the hallway. All of the bedrooms and the bathroom are right there together, which made the kids feel good having their own private rooms but knowing we were close by. The rooms heated up quick when we turned on the heat the one night it got colder, and they cooled down very fast when we turned on the A/C for a bit on a warmer night (we travelled in early October, so the weather was still fluctuating a bit, and the house stayed very comfortable).
There is a single bathroom to use, and it was very nice. The shower water (and the sink faucets in both the bathroom and the kitchen) get HOT if you want, so if you're a hot shower person, you'll love that. The extra large shower head with the separate removable wand head was really nice, too.
The house was so nicely stocked! There was plenty of toilet paper and paper towels, bath towels folded up and laid out on our beds for every person in our family when we arrived, but also things like new spare toothbrushes, bandaids, and other toiletry items in the bathroom cabinet, some individual-serving-sized oat milk containers in the fridge, ice already made in the freezer, snacks set out on the counter for us (the trail mix and cashews were awfully nice to have while waiting in line at Ellis Island!), tissues, a few other things I know I'm forgetting where I pointed and said, "Hey, that's really nice!" and a bottle of wine and a bottle of spirits in the mini-bar in the dining room. We left early most mornings and got in late, but the couple of times we did eat a quick bite at the dining room table for breakfast, it was very nice and spacious for a family of 6!
Last but not least, the great communication didn't stop once we had booked our stay. Both Veronica and Jessica wrote us during the week, letting us know things like when the TKTS booth was shut down downtown (we didn't ask them - they just knew we were travelling with kids and planning to see shows at some point, so they gave us a heads-up, which was amazing. When has your hotel front desk ever proactively contacted you mid-trip to let you know something in NYC was shut down temporarily? Hotels ... pshhha!). They also saved us money with a great tip on the best way to purchase admission to the big museums like the AMNH and the MET Museum.
I'm sure I could ramble on for a while longer about how great our stay was and how this was the perfect place for our family and how happy I am I trusted my gut and booked it, but I think you get the point by now.
TDLR: Veronica and Jessica are great, their communication is beyond fantastic, the beds are super duper comfortable, the heating/cooling and hot water all work spectacularly, and I really couldn't be happier with our stay. Thank you both so much!
(Okay, one last thing because I couldn't find a good segue to mention it in between the other stuff - the wifi worked great, and the master bedroom had little outlet extenders with two 120V outlets and 4 USB charger slots on the nightstands on each side of the bed. Made keeping our phones charged especially easy, and the 120V outlets were easy to access in the other two rooms, too).
Thank you again!