Our trip started with a curt phone call with a Vacasa person at a call center in Oregon. It was 12pm and I was hoping for an early check in or at least the ability to drop off camping gear in an out-of-the-way location. This would have allowed my family and I the chance to head into Santa Cruz without worrying about our camping gear getting stolen from the back of our truck. We were summarily shut down by a snippy employee, who seemed to relish in following some scripted responses, to my deep, deep frustration. Any owner-operator would have seen the reasonableness of my simple request and let me drop gear on the deck or some other out-of-the-way location. It's possible that Vacasa's hands were tied here, but this is just the type of issue you'd get with a remote call center for a seemingly large management company. Right off the bat, not my typical AirBnb experience.
The cabin itself is conveniently located. The trees surrounding the cabin are lovely. Parking is adequate. Keep in mind that you'll have to walk up a few flights of stairs to access the cabin, which worked for us but might not for some.
The unit that you would rent through AirBnb is not the entire cabin as advertised, but the upper floor. There is a full-time renter on the lower floor. We found this to be misleading, as this is not described anywhere. The deck is a great place to relax. The interior of the upper floor of the cabin (i.e., the rental unit) is filled with Danish/Swedish artifacts, which plays well in the photos, but for us, not so well in person. I can clearly see that this upper floor of the cabin (i.e., the rental unit) was deeply loved by the owners, who accumulated many possessions that likely each had personal meaning to them. We found the house to be a little overwhelmingly stuffed with things. The bedroom in particular seems to have remained just as the owners left it. The double bed is high off the ground and partially tucked into small alcove. This is the only bed (i.e., there are not three beds as the ad suggests). We considered putting our two kids in the double bed, but given its height, we were a little uncomfortable with the idea that our youngest (5 years old) might fall between the high bed and the wall, in the alcove. Therefore, we all elected to sleep in our sleeping bags, in the living room. This was an unwelcome continuation of our camping trip to say the least. The ONE L-shaped couch was probably considered by the hosts as beds two and three, but let me disabuse anyone of the notion that these couches are fit for sleeping. After two nights on this couch, my wife and I were dying for the "comfort" of flat ground. On the ground, however, our kids were awakened several times by the (I am sure very low volume of the) downstairs neighbor, who was quiet but easily heard in this older structure. Finally, the bathroom. It was functional, but the hanging shower curtains around the old claw-foot bathtub enveloped and clung to me like plastic wrap.
This was our 20th wedding anniversary trip. Needless to say, we won't be booking our 30th here.