If your expectations are set by the pictures and the price tag you are going to be very disappointed. It is a great shame because with a little bit of effort this place could be lovely….but it isn’t.
Let’s start with the outside. Until the day before we left the beautifully manicured lawns you see in the photos were very overgrown and disheveled. The grass hasn’t been cut for sometime, it was ankle deep and the path was covered with weeds. The bushes were overgrown and so you have to fight a bush on route to the pool. Our host happened to stop by the day before our departure and I think she was surprised by the garden state so a few hours later a quick lawn mow has taken place. Sadly that didn’t solve the weeds and overgrown bushes throughout the property which make the grounds look very unloved.
Up in the main bedroom the balcony is now practically unusable on account of the wisteria that has taken over completely, consuming half of the what would otherwise be lovely balcony. The sun loungers by the pool are so old and broken that they have become remarkably uncomfortable to sit on because the canopy has ripped to the point that your bum touches the plastic frame when you sit on them! And if there are 6 of you staying here note there are only 5 sun loungers along with a single small and rusty parasol that will provide shade for just one of you. Not ideal with the children.
The scruffy poorly kept theme continues inside. In the kitchen one of the cupboard door hinges has become completely unseated from the cupboard frame. One of the other cupboard doors has a handle that is only attached at one end with the screw completely missing. The dishwasher barely washes the dishes meaning you have to wash everything again by hand or just don’t bother with it at all, the oven doesn’t even have any shelves in it so you are limited to cooking one thing on the bottom, nor is there a baking tray in sight.
The fitted sheets in the main bedroom are too shallow for the mattress so you wake up with the sheet off in the middle of the night and some of the pillows appear to be made from cotton wool they are so sparse of padding.
The bathrooms are very tired, the baths are rusty and the upstairs loo leaked smelly rusty brown water all the time from the cistern. The over bath showers are very poor. I think we counted 5 times the shower head fell on one of our heads while showering so rudimentary are the shower attachments and holders.
The security is quite lacking also. Most of the windows and patio doors have just rudimentary latch type slide locks and nothing more. Some doors have none. Whilst the shutters do have full latches we felt that wasn’t sufficient given that the advertised safe in the main room has no key. Nowhere to secure your passport and valuables at all. We did ask for a key to be provided only to be told that the owner refused to supply one because tenants lose them!! With modern pin code safes this was disappointing and shows the lack of investment in the property.
Unusually for an AirBNB there was no welcome pack or book. So no information on the house, where to go etc.
Credit where it is due, the air conditioning is good and quiet in the bedrooms and there is a office style water cooler provided which is very useful. Maria was responsive and friendly.
To top off our stay as we went to leave and pulled the suitcases down from the top of the wardrobe we were covered in thick dust, I would estimate at least a year since anyone dusted up there!
All in all this is a very poorly kept, scruffy, tired place that I would consider 2 star at best. I wish we’d booked something else!