First, the good.
- The location is excellent and you can walk into the water in less than two minutes (and probably run in less than 15 seconds). There are quite a few restaurants nearby in walking distance and the Hollywood "broadwalk" is really nice during the day
- The unit access is purely by electronic lock which is super convenient
- The beach is great during low tide. We had a school of fish follow us around for swimming, pretty cool
- For the most part, the unit was clean and most things were functional
- A parking pass for Hollywood was provided (though the listing said we'd have to buy our own...which we did before arriving)
- The main bed was comfortable and the linens for the beds and for the bathroom were clean
- We didn't use it, but the property provides a laundry room and it looked like it'd have everything you'd need
- Maggie is very responsive as a host, even if we didn't always get the response we were hoping for
Now, the not-so-good.
- The neighborhood isn't great. There were a few shady individuals skulking around and right across the street is a low-cost hotel with noisy families and more shady individuals. We didn't feel super safe going out at night towards the Broadwalk. With that said, you are shielded from the street by some tall hedges, so it's alright inside.
- As soon as we entered, we were hit with a strong odor of marijuana mixed with air freshener. It was pretty obvious to us that someone was smoking in the unit not long before our arrival. The smell eventually dissipated by the 2nd evening.
- The Wi-Fi stability was terrible. We told Maggie when we booked that we would be working remotely. When we arrived, we found the Wi-Fi incredibly unstable and we were unable to attend meetings for work. When we raised the issue, Maggie ultimately told us it was working fine and that we should consider it "divine order" that the Wi-Fi wasn't working for us and find a nice cafe to work in instead. We rented this unit because Wi-Fi was listed as an amenity. In our opinion, when you advertise an amenity you should provide it in working condition and a broken amenity is not truly an amenity
- Similarly, a lot of things were broken or in an unusable state (beach umbrella with a broken rib, TV remote with no batteries and no spares, boogie board floats but is broken in half). Not a big deal to us, but may be to you.
- The kitchen items weren't cleaned thoroughly. One of the pots had (and probably still has) a slick coating of oil visible inside of it.
- The sofa bed is awkwardly on a decline and not comfortable at all
Lastly, some things you may want to know
- The beach is not great at high-tide. It's raked in the morning by the city and at low tide it's super, but by high tide the seaweed is thick and the water is murky
- The TV in the living room is a RokuTV and you can stream to it. It has a cable connection but we weren't able to get the cable working
- Like most major beaches, there is a shower between the beach and the unit to wash off