Pros: the chalet itself is beautiful. The inside is adorably decorated and clean. The location right on the lake is fantastic. The town of Lindstrom is super cute with lots of convenient stores and restaurants as well as cute boutiques and vintage shops. Owners were very kind in offering us use of their kayaks and offering to take us for a ride on their pontoon.
Cons: We received long-winded messages from the wife each day of our stay, providing overly-specific instructions on basic things like not running the air conditioner with the windows open.
At the time of booking, the place was advertised as the entire property, but that isn’t accurate. The listing seems to have been updated since I booked. The chalet is on the upper floor, the owners live on the lower floor. I would not have booked this property if this had been clear in the listing. Thankfully, the owners went out of town for the weekend so we were able to relax without worrying about being too loud or intrusive. Despite our efforts to be quiet and respectful, the next door neighbors clearly are not happy about the property being rented as they made a point to glare at us every time we were outside at the same time.
There was debris like carpet remnants and boat parts on the dock that we had to move out of the way to avoid tripping hazards. The owners were kind enough to offer us the opportunity to use their kayaks, but didn’t tell us where the life jackets were until our last day, and the life jackets were stored in a box that had a bed cover soiled with poop on it. I know it was poop because the owner Carol informed me it was. Needless to say we did not bother.
My chief complaint is regarding climate control in the house. One of the bedrooms doesn’t have screens on any of the windows. It gets SUPER buggy by the lake at night, so sleeping with the windows open at night was not an option. We had to run the air conditioner each night to avoid a hot, stuffy, uncirculated bedroom. On our third and final night, the husband came home, increased the temperature on the thermostat by 5 degrees (we had it at 68, which I thought was very reasonable considering the humidity and the fact that we paid more than $1000 for our 3 night stay) then locked it somehow so we couldn’t adjust the temperature again. We woke up uncomfortable and sweaty because the temperature was increased without warning and we couldn’t open the windows. It felt very patronizing to have the temperature overridden like we were children playing with the thermostat.
If I wanted to stay in Lindstrom again, I would likely choose a hotel.