Caroline has a beautiful home and was delightfully engaging. We enjoyed interacting with her.
Having said that, from the start we had some concerns because her response time to emails usually took days.
When we arrived at her home, we were not invited “into” her home but were escorted from the entry directly to our room. After a brief dialogue in our room, we went from the room back out the front door. The private entry was undergoing renovation and consequently was not available for our use, but Caroline did not provide us with a house key. We went out and during dinner (8:20 pm) received a phone call from Caroline saying that she was exhausted and was going to bed…we were taken back by that call, as she came as close as she could absent asking us when we would be back.
There were two of us and were provided with one small bottle of water; there were two beds but only one had a blanket. The room is certainly not quiet. We loved having the windows open, but it makes for a very noisy night, as the street is very busy. The very worst of it all was that the private guest bathroom reeked of cat urine. There is no doubt that her cat’s litter box resides in that bathroom…yuck!
Among other things, amenities listed a kitchen, washer and dryer, all of which we planned on using. Although Caroline was asked, well in advance, for the location of the nearest supermarket, as we made it clear that we planned on preparing a meal the evening of our arrival and Caroline directed us to Trader Joes, we were clearly met with resistance and asked “well what are you cooking?” Consequently, we took ourselves out to dinner. We had been traveling for a week and asked to use the washer/dryer and was told “that is for long term guests”.
While Caroline is delightfully engaging and kindly provided us with tape to wrap a damaged suitcase, we both felt that she was interested in making the money for the room with the least expenditure of effort. We did not feel welcome and had to ask for everything. Breakfast was promoted as being coffee/tea, yogurt, toast, and fruit. We were never offered neither yogurt nor fruit and had to ask for everything to accompany our tea/coffee and toast, from a spoon, knife, sugar, napkin, and creamer for the coffee.