This was my first experience with Airbnb and it started off rocky. I booked and paid for a 3 day stay in the home of my host and not even 12 hours later, our plans fell through and I needed to cancel. I contacted my host Veronica and she was very kind and helped me to navigate the cancelation process. When I was about to hit the cancel button, I noticed that if I cancel I would lose over half of my money and we had not even set eyes on the home. I say this to stress the importance of reading all the rules and regulation and policies for the place you will use before paying anything. The hosts have had good and bad experiences and despite your best intentions they have to set boundaries to protect themselves and their home. As hard as it is to take what happened to me, that's the reality and I can't blame my host. I also had opportunity as I tried to deal with my problem, to interact with Airbnb. They were forthcoming with information I needed to and at the same time they had integrity and showed fairness to both me and my host.
We made the decision to stay and I'm so glad we did. Veronica is an incredible host. Her home is quite beautiful and accommodated my large family beautifully. My family that we came to visit loved the place so much that they are planning to work with Veronica at a future time and they are telling their friends as well. Veronica is very warm, she made sure we had everything we needed, she was available for any questions we had, very quick to respond and act. She made this a wonderful family gathering for us and we are thankful and grateful to her and for her. We wish her luck in all her endeavors.