How to I start? This review is of very mixed feeling. We traveled with our friends (2 other families) for 10 people total and after looking at the pictures we had very high hope for this place. But that is not the reality, let’s start with the good:
1: decor was beautiful, just as pictured. Very clean with hotel standard white set.
2. Very convenient location to all the sites and restaurants.
Now the bad:
1. To start with, let’s talk about the check in! I have communicated with the host the day before informing them our train’s arrival time. I texted them as soon as we got to the train station and was told that they would be there in 30 min. What?! It only took less than 10 min from the train station to the apartment. Anyway we all got there and waited and waited and waited… for another 45 min for someone to show up with all kind of excuses. We were all tired from traveling. Kids got very restless after 15 min and kept asking when we could get in. The apartment is on a super small alley where the van taxis would not even come in. Imagine all 10 of crowded in front of this place on an alley blocking everyone passing by. And when car come in we had to yell all the kids to look out stand aside and be careful not to let the passing car scrape you away!
In the meantime I messaged the host and all I got was they were 5 min away. But you know when people in Spain said 5, it is more like 15-20 min! After what seemed like a company employee arrived, she said she had no key. We had to wait for the keys to be delivered. So we had to continued waiting. We had hoped to drop the bags off and hit the bull fight ring for a tour before the sunset. After all the ordeal of finally going into the apartment, it was too late. So it completely ruin our day 1 plan.
2. This place seems to be run with a company. They communicated with us through WhatsApp and then go to airbnb to state we have solved your problem. So that all Aibnb message history they only have covered all the ground. While there are problems remaining unresolved. Very sneaky!
3. Super slow internet! And no so much cell reception inside the apartment. We had to perform tele supervised Covid tests before flying back to the US. The internet was so slow that we had to keep repeating everything with the nurse and finally one call dropped. The cost was a wasted 30 dollar test and we had to redo with a new one! Thank goodness we have just one extra. At the end we had to go to the top floor and hot spot on our phone after many attempts using their snail slow internet provided. It was ridiculous!
4. This is personal and probably should not be counted as con. But I am going to list here because we didn’t enjoy as much as we thought we would because of all the beautiful pictures. We did not like the floor plan and this is not conveyed in the description of the apartment.
This place has four floors:
Bottom floor is entry, a garage, an empty pool plus a bedroom with a tiny bathroom. The sink size was smaller than the airbus sink we took from US to Spain. This bedroom has a pull out sofa bed. The floor was wet in the tile groove and the place had a damp smell. The empty pool was the scariest for us. It has very low sides. We have a two year old kept wanting to climb over. Although no water, the fall, if happen, would bony be pretty. Yike! My family of four took this floor with the pull out sofa bed. They contacted us to come out to check on the wet spot while we were in tours. I didn’t want anyone to come in with all our personal belongings scatter around so I told the host I didn’t want people to come in to check it out. But I took pictures.
Second floor is the prettiest with the instagram dining room. The living room is rather small. The kitchen is well stocked.
Third floor has three bedrooms. Two families and their children each took one room and two children shared the one bedroom with two twin beds.
Top floor has the balcony and the laundry room. Washer only. No dryer. One dryer rack was not enough for all three families to hang dry clothes.
Each floor is small (probably spacious in Spain standard). And fragmented and we three families felt very disconnected. The stairs are quite high, climbing up 4 floors to do laundry was not fun!
5. Check out! Now comes check out time we asked for an hour of late check out they told us no sternly with “it is not possible!” I had to use the argument that you guys were almost an hour late with you check in. The person on the other line grudgingly said okay one hour till 12. Comes 11, a rude maid with all the cleaning supplies and cart came in start running into our bedroom started cleaning. I the her we had until 12. She said no, 11. She didn’t care and kept going on with all our things inside. So I had to take out our things from the bedroom and packing in the entry way. Not pleasant!! By that time I am just tired of talking to the sneak unpleasant host anymore.
Overall terrible experience for us. I decided to give three stars because of the beautiful decor and great location. But my friends all agreed on this place and the experience should not worth more than one star. There you go, I am being more generous