The apartment was clean and spacious. It had great AC, good wifi, and also we really appreciated the free coffee pods, chocolates, and bottled water. But communication and check-in were really rough. The management company messaged me both here and in WhatsApp asking us to please send a precise check-in time to their “check-in person,” a random WhatsApp number that they apparently could not forward the information to. We did so. Then that person asked us again - hours later - what our check-in time was again, although we’d messaged it to her and the company. We told her again.
We were at the building entrance (which was not marked or clearly described in the listing, but we found it) right when we told her we would be. She did not show. We messaged the booking company. They did not respond. We called the check-in person’s number (she did not call us first) once it was ten minutes past the arranged time. She told us she’d be there soon and would not give us a precise time. “I’ll be there soon, ok?” she said, sounding irritated.
We sat on the steps of the building for almost 40 minutes before she arrived. When she got there, she said she was sorry for running late, but she seemed irritated with US. We’re pretty easygoing people so we tried to shrug it off. Once in the apartment, it was very nice and she gave us a map of her favorite places to eat nearby.
Hours later, the booking company finally messaged us back. They responded to the message we’d sent 10 minutes into waiting. Instead of confirming we’d gotten in, asking how long we had to wait (a total of 40 minutes sitting on the street with our bags), or offering a sincere apology, they said, “We’re sorry you had to wait ten minutes, Michael. Sometimes unforeseen things happen. One of those happened to my colleague today.” It felt very condescending.
The final straw was the morning we left. We had to catch a flight and had scheduled an Uber to the airport. We left the keys in the apt as instructed, exited the building door - which locked behind us - and went to one of the building complex gates. We discovered it was locked from the inside with no discernible exit button anywhere. The other gate was the same. (Both are inside a kind of tunnel, so we couldn’t have climbed over the gates if it came to that.) We couldn’t go back into the building, and we couldn’t get out of the complex. We were locked in a courtyard area and were going to miss our scheduled Uber and our flight.
Thankfully, we were lucky enough to catch a local at that early hour who told us there was an exit button in a very non-intuitive place, 20 feet from the gate. The fact that this was not communicated by the company or the Airbnb owner is truly mind-blowing. It was really quite alarming to be trapped behind a gate and not know how to get out.
We’ve stayed at 8 other Airbnb’s in the last month in Spain alone, and we’ve never had issues like this.
If the booking company and lister make an effort to fix these things, then I’d recommend staying here. It was a lovely modern interior with great AC in a central location and decent wifi. But until they fix the check-in process and communication in general (especially about keys and gates!), I absolutely do not recommend this place.