4/10 Poor
Max D.
5 Jul 2017
Fantastic house but terrible communication with Owner
This was my first time ever using Home Away and after this experience I will never use it again. While the house is exactly as stated in the pictures (even bigger actually, there is tons of space) I was completely put off by the terrible communication with the owner and the millions of rules the property has. I emailed the owner 3 times without a single response, simply asking for the directions to the property because we were a large group of people flying in from different countries and needed to coordinate how we were all getting there. As I did not get a response for weeks and the stay was starting shortly thereafter, I called HomeAway who had the owner finally email me. He responds saying that he was pretty sure that he sent it, to check the spam and if not he can resend as he is traveling at the moment. I responded saying that I did not receive the email and had checked my spam to please resend. Days go by and nothing. I had to call HomeAway AGAIN to have them get in touch with the owner and have them send the directions. He finally sends it arrogantly saying, "Here we are again!" 6 days before my arrival date - no apology or anything. The stress and annoyance of having to deal with this situation made me regret choosing this location, there are plenty of other options that would have been suitable.
When we finally arrived to the house (there were no GPS coordinates or real address, a series of pictures and written directions that were confusing) we found the keys easily and the house was great. The pool is bigger than in the pictures but the tennis court smaller. The check-in and check-out policy (6pm check in and 10am SHARP checkout or you are fined) was over the top. The other rules like if you move the furniture and dont place it in its exact location you will be charged, if you place kitchen utensils in a different room then they assume it was broken and charge you for the item and a variety of other rules, made it so that our time was not as relaxing and enjoyable as it should have been for the amount of money spent for the vacation rental. Small things like not having soap in the bathrooms, no garbage bags and strong restrictions on water (with a limited water heater) made it just more annoying than we would have all liked when on vacation to a new place.
Max D.
Stayed 4 nights in Jun 2017