We were so excited to stay in this Air BnB to escape a cold climate. We booked this house many months out, based on reviews and photos. We had very high expectations. John and Russ were always extremely responsive to emails and questions.
However, I feel that our experience may have been the "lemon" among other guests and I feel it's my responsibility to explain why I didn't rate it 5/5.
I want to start by saying that my family and I are keeping strict COVID protocol. We do not spend time with others, we do not go out, and we have not had any cleaning teams in our house since March--nor has anyone been in our house since March, not even parents/grandparents. I was very clear about this with John from the day I booked the house.
Check-in is at 3pm, and we drove by at 2pm to make sure we knew where the house was. We saw the cleaning team's car still in the driveway. I contacted Russ as we felt uneasy and learned that the previous guests had left at 8am that morning. However, we knew that official check out was at 11am. Russ told me that he was there checking the house for any damage, and opening windows shortly after they had left; what if they checked out at 11am? That would have given the cleaning team only 4 hours to clean and sterilize the house between guests? I do not feel that is sufficient during a Pandemic, nor do I feel that 8am-3pm is sufficient.
Anyway, at 3pm, we entered the house and it seemed clean enough--although it did not have that clean/disinfected scent we expected. I wiped down every surface and sprayed as appropriate. My husband noticed the vents throughout were dirty and some of the utensils in the kitchen drawers were not clean.
During our stay, we noticed the AC in the Master Bedroom closet was very noisy all night, the washer/dryer was in the bathroom of the 3rd bedroom (converted garage) and if we chose to run it at night to dry towels for the next day, it was also annoying/loud. We felt the house could use more light throughout, especially in the master bedroom, where the only light was a small lamp next to the bed (not overhead).
The Master Bedroom has a great closet, but we felt the other 2 bedrooms were lacking in drawer space; the guests in those rooms just opened up their bags and took clothes from there instead of unpacking for the week.
The fire pit in the front of the house was not working and the fire pit in the backyard and gas grill were left open.
The backyard is gorgeous. There is ample furniture to sit and enjoy the scenery (and huge iguanas) and the pool is very pretty--however, we found the water temp to be very cold (compared to the house where we spent the week before, also salt water). I did contact Russ to make it warmer, which he did, and explained how the heater worked, but we probably would have used it more had the water been warmer. We enjoyed the hot tub, grill and backyard fire pit to make s'mores one evening.
The house is situated in a cute neighborhood, a short walk/drive to Starbucks, stores and restaurants.
Overall, I feel that the value for money was not there, that the cleaning expectations should be revisited, and that the house needs some refreshing. Attention-to-detail was missing and I do not feel the "experience" was present. I am certainly bummed to write this review, but I have been in touch with Russ and John with my feedback, which they were very open to hearing, so I hope some changes will be made for future guests.