Apartment reviews from Levanto (via Airbnb) and Alghero (via Booking.com), Italy.
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Here is my review on booking two private apartments:
- our great experience at the “Da Carlo” apartment in Levanto, Italy, booked at Airbnb with an excellent, fast service.
- our bad experience at the “Via Spano” apartment in Alghero, Sardinia, booked at Booking.com with a slow and so-so service.
Let’s start with the short, positive one :).
First you need to know: many Italians do not speak English, or not that well as you could have a longer conversation with them. In restaurants and stores it is okay but when I wanna delve into a topic mostly I get an ‘I don’t understand’. Nevertheless the locals are great. Anna and I have been here this year for the third time. It is funny when they talk with me and they continue speaking Italian as if I could understand them :).
Postive - Apartment “Da Carlo”, Levanto, Italy
Making a long story short: me and especially my girlfriend had one of our most beautiful vacation at this place! You can read my review on Airbnb here:
This place is great. Especially Gianni is an excellent, very kind host. I can’t list all the details he did - at the end we forgot our parasol when we left and he contacted us, came down to the beach and brought it to us.
The place has everything we needed: two bikes, coffee machine, cooking gears, a welcome gift with local pasta and pesto. The appartment is clean, cozy, quiet and has a great view.
By bike you are in the center of Levanto within 6 minutes, on foot it takes 17 minutes. We enjoyed walking downtown - especially back home after a good dinner :). Halfway - on foot in 7 minutes - you get to train station. Making a long story short: book this place and if you’re lucky, you’ll get and enjoy it :).
Juli 2018
For 8 nights at this place we paid 743,09 Euros, including 89,49 Euros for Airbnb.
Negative - Apartment “Via Spano”, Alghero
Our apartment was one the ground floor. You can find it on Booking.com or my review on Google Maps
Regarding her apartment most people seem to be happy with it. At the time of writing it is rated with 9.3 points - Maria advertises it with 9.8 points from Booking.com at her appartment.
On the positive side the apartment provides:
- Centrally located to the beach and old town.
- Spacious living and dining room including a dish washer.
- Sleeping room with air condition on the back side.
- Backyard terasse with a washing machine.
These were the good things. But as my pregnant girlfriend said: the worst sleep at a place she ever had been. Maria, our host, leases two apartments: one on the ground floor and another one on the upper, 2nd floor. The other (or bad) things you need to know are:
- WiFi is reachable basically only in the staircase. Probably because its signal is sent from Maria’s apartment on the top 2rd floor. The solution is pretty simple: buy a WiFi repeater like on Amazon!
- A poorly ventilated apartment compared to outside - where there was often wind from the sea. Opening windows didn’t really help and is not advisable because of the mosquitos.
- The mattress was in our opinion too soft, we couldn’t get a good sleep most of the time. You need to be quiet cautious getting out of it without waking up your partner lying next to you.
- Very old kitchen equipment. The blunt knifes made cutting vegetables, bread and other stuff a pain. One pan curled and not flat. Same goes to one plastic cutting board: old, badly worn, and curled.
- The walls are thin where you could hear the streets and neighbors.
- Last but not least the tightest shower - even for small people like me. It this that small that there are no shelves. You can’t knee down without touching any wall. The anti-slip mat is dangerous - I almost slipped away.
We booked the apartment end of August, 12 days, until September 2018. In total we paid 1360 Euro, including service fee … well, Booking.com doesn’t tell you that. But it ranges something between 20 and 35%.
Some personal notes about…
So far I’ve tried being as objective as possible. Here are - in my humble opinion - my personal comments about:
… “Via Spano” apartment and her host, Maria
This is our communication protocol with her and I on WhatsApp - and only on WhatsApp (we haven’t met here after day 2 of our stay):
The shower is very tight and for this price not acceptable. Honestly: the kitchen equipment is overdue for the garbage and is a disgrace - especially for paying customers. The same goes for the mattress: it gave me the impression it has been used for years and instead of throwing it away she ‘recycled’ it for us.
My biggest complaint is the minimal communication and service from our host, Maria. Why? Decide yourself. Because:
- After our first night we asked the host, Maria, whether we could move to the upper (so far unused) apartment but we couldn’t since other guests have booked it. She only offered us to remove the walls from the shower?! But that was not an option for us.
- The apartment was not clean. The baking tray was completely dirty with olive oil. Underneath the sink we found some egg shells. She apologized and offered to clean it personally in the evening when she comes back from work.
- A few days later we asked whether we could cancel the remaining stay at her apartment and get some refund. Maria was not able approaching us half way.
- We informed her that we will leave the apartment two days earlier. She only wrote us to leave the door open and leave the key inside so that the cleaning lady could do her job since she is at work.
Am I complaining on a high level? I don’t think so. We left two days earlier and stay at the Hotel Colonna San Marco. It is a 4-star and it was lovely there. For the 1’360 Euros we have paid for the Via Spano apartment we could have stayed at this 4-star hotel for another 10 nights - including breakfast, room service, daily cleaning of our room, and you get all other comfort like restaurant reservations.
Booking.com
On the same day, September 7th, after her last response I contacted Booking.com:
Unfortunately there was no response. Right now while I am writing this, on September 29th, I found this response from them:
Hmmm…. too late but I will contact again and check what will happen.
… Airbnb and its service
In short: there is absolutely nothing to complain about. On the contrary: its service is absolutely great. You can book an apartment free of charge until 9 days before your arrival - at least what I thought that. So I booked 3 additional appartments, because I thought in case my host cancels my booking. A week later we finally decided for this appartment. So I cancelled the other appartments and what happened? Airbnb has charged me a service fee for 2 of 3 appartments.
I went on their support site where you can enter your phone number for calling back. How great is that? No holding line, no listening to some stupid song, no “please be patient” message, and most importantly: no waste of time! And their sevice is something that deserves their name: customer service. End of story: the service fee for the cancelled bookings have been fully refunden :).
So far so good - or not! At least not for us. I’ll keep you posted on Booking.com and the “Via Spano” apartment. Promised!
Enjoy, Mr. T
Oct 4th 2018 - Updates…
…on Booking.com
I have rated the Via Spano apartment and Hotel Colonna San Marco on Booking.com:
Besides that I’ve replied to their customer service. Let’s see what happens…
… Google Maps Just in case I’ve put my review also on Google Maps.