Overall, we enjoyed our stay at Ricardo’s. Although I honestly would not return given the choice! It was the most affordable thing we could book last minute, and yet the price was very high for the location.
The place was very clean, generally. The kitchen is nice and obviously newly renovated. The place is spacious and cute. It’s nice to have a yard and place to sit outside, too! They even provided snacks, coffee and frozen dinners.
There is a bit of cleaning asked of the folks who stay, which I wish I had known before booking. Check out requires taking out trash and sorting recycling/compost, putting all laundry in the laundry room (I assumed this includes stripping the beds), and loading the dishwasher. Not a huge deal, but considering the cleaning fee is quite steep, and the reservation can’t be cancelled (even far in advance) without paying 50% of the total cost, this kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also, the bathroom fan is caked with grime and accumulated dust, gross!
We have some critiques of the place as two disabled folks who struggle with chronic pain. The living room couch does not appear to have back cushions and is uncomfortable, we brought some pillows from the bedrooms out to help. The beds were a little challenging—one is a futon that is very uncomfortable/extremely firm, and the other bed is very soft (also not great for back pain, and overall comfy but it’s very low to the ground and hence harder than normal to get out of. FYI there are 3 steps up to the front porch—not a big deal or anything but useful to know for some bodies!
I am highly allergic to mold, and noticed my allergies acted up while we were there. There are many cracks in the ceiling/walls, evidence of structural damage and likely water damage. If you’re sensitive to mold I do not recommend this space.
And lastly, we have two hypoallergenic emotional support dogs. There is a strict no pet policy, and emotional support animals do not count as pets. I was transparent with them and let them know about the ESAs. In their response it was pretty obvious that they weren’t thrilled about it, but I reassured them that our dogs are very well behaved and housebroken. Regardless of the reassurance, they let me know we’d be charged an extra cleaning fee if there were to be a trace of them. This made me nervous, and especially because I couldn’t cancel without being charged, so I opted to board one of our dogs elsewhere during our stay. This definitely made me less able to relax and enjoy the stay, but being anxious that my dog isn’t welcome would have been a stressor as well.
Overall it was fine, but it didn’t really meet our needs. We do expect better when paying as much as we did to have a relaxing staycation. Perhaps this would be a better fit for folks with different needs and expectations.