Cecily is a very sweet and thoughtful person and there was a nice big piece of chocolate to welcome me, which I appreciated. Her location is amazing as I had a conference at the Hilton Austin, which was just under a mile. Her place is very comfortable feeling with colorful dining table and sofa for relaxing in the living room.
My biggest complaint was regarding the bed she offered. She said it was a new twin to King convertible bed and that it was VERY comfortable. I was mostly interested in renting her room for sleeping as I was attending a conference that started as early as 7 am and often was at the venue until after midnight, and mostly until after 1 am, making my limited sleep super important to me.
Every description I could find online with the same type of convertible bed, recommended two mattresses 4-6 inches in height to be stacked as double high until you needed to convert to a King, where you would pull the top mattress over onto the second half of the now KING bed.
As I finally was going to sleep the first night, on this beautifully made King bed, I sat on the edge after already having pulled back the sheets and covers, and remember feeling every wooden lat under my bottom as if I was sitting on a wooden park bench, with missing pieces equal to the width of one of the lats. I went ahead and laid down and had the weirdest sensation that there was a drop off of about an inch cutting halfway through my body. I also could feel every lat and the alternating spaces between each lat. I tried desperately to fall asleep, but it was so uncomfortable, it was impossible.
I sat up to investigate and stood next to the bed with video camera recording and discovered a two-inch thick seat cushion and a half inch thin piece of foam. This wasn't a mattress at all. The uneven height difference is real, as it's about an inch between the two sides of the trundle bed. The wide space between the lats is because when the bed is folded back to the size of a twin, the lats intertwine. I ended up pulling the whole mattress to the floor, folding it over and pushing the trundle bed under the main part.
I am 6'5" and a very big ex Football player who is now permanently handicapped with a back injury and getting down and back up again at the floor level was extremely difficult and very painful after having 17 surgeries. The second night I put the doubled over cushion on top of the twin bed and tried the best I could to make it work.
Cecily is a very nice person, and wrote back that she had researched it and said this is how the fancy hotels do their beds. There is not a hotel that would EVER put someone on a 2 inch or so thick mattress. Especially not a convertible bed that didn't lay flat.
I know Cecily is a very thoughtful and sweet person, not only from her communication with me, but from all of the wonderful comments of her previous guests. That doesn't change my opinion that it is completely unfair to list her setup as being a bed as anyone would assume that a bed would include a mattress and that two-inch cushion and super thin yellow piece of foam are not enough. It might be plenty for her little daughter, folded over as a twin, but no one would be very comfortable with it opened up as a king, especially with the wide open spaces and the dropoff of an inch 1/2 way down the bed. If I was a friend staying for free and grateful to not be sleeping in the park, it would be one thing, but I paid $425 to sleep on a King bed and mattress, but instead slept on a twin on the floor, and the last 3 nights, slept on a twin bed. I pray Cecily does the right thing and uses my money to buy the recommended 4-6" high/thick twin mattresses.
I would be happy to stay with Cecily and her daughter again, provided there were actual mattresses on the bed and it was a King.