Again. Last min rental on AirBnB. My husband wanted to drive straight from Ljubljana to Dubrovnik & stop at the Split for lunch. I rejected the idea as it would take almost 8 hours in the car, and get to Split for lunch? That’s impossible as we could never leave home at 8am (the reality was we left Ljubljana after 12 noon that day).
So the responsibility landed on my shoulder to look for accommodation in Split. I quickly browsed hotel.com and booking.com, hotels are quite expensive, over $100 per night. Then I decided to use AirBnB again. First lady I contacted replied to me after 1 hour saying that since it was last minute, she could not get the apartment ready as she wasn’t in Split at the moment. Pity! Then we only have 12 hours left till the date we were travelling. So I booked on apartment although only had only 4 reviews, which were all sound a bit tepid, but the apartment looks having a good view, the living area was looking alight as well. So I booked it, instant booking made things very easy. $59 per night, including the service fee.
The host messaged me asking what time we might arrive. I checked GPS saying 4 hours 19 mins from Ljubljana to Split. So I added a bit buffer, saying that we were arriving at 5pm. But I forgot to add in the time passing boarder and stopping at gas stations to stretch legs. So after that time already passed 4:20, we were still a long way to go. I hurried to some gas station to get wi-fi and message the host. Interestingly, she just messaged me one minute ago, saying she would be late and maybe meet us around 5:15pm. I told her that we would be late too, so shall meet around 6:30pm. She replied “perfect”.
When we got there, it was a busy, messy residential area. Big buildings, old, and there is a big parking in the front, but seems not really managed by any organization. My husband immediately criticized me of ‘not doing homework well’, should still book hotel, etc. I messaged the host for exact address, she replied with a long message, saying that she was late again ( raise the eyebrow?), and the key was under the carpet, the unit was cleaned, so we can go inside. Oh well, we followed the instruction and went upstairs. The apartment was Ok, very old, but partially renovated. We could see a bit sea from the balcony, however we didn’t’ have time to really do that. My husband started worrying about the car, as we rented the Mercedes this time and all our luggage were there, we could not take them all up. Then I messaged the host to ask if it’s safe to park here. She replied “still a public parking and don’t leave valuable behind. However her Mercedes never got any problem.” Ok, I felt safe now. (Sarcastic). You know what? I don’t mind if the host treat this as pure business and doesn’t want to meet in person, just take the key and move in and out. Just be honest and upfront, nobody will have any hard feelings. It’s not a big deal, no need to find any excuses. Funny to me.
We went to Split city to enjoy the night. And back home, we didn’t bath the little one as the bathtub looked too old. My husband spent hours ‘monitoring’ the car park & got a bit stressed. I would say, he was a bit over reacting, but know this, I probably wouldn’t book this place, as it was a waste of his time and energy instead of fully enjoy the little holiday. We left the apartment by leaving the key under the carpet, the host didn’t contact us again after I messaged over to tell her that we were about to leave. Oh well, No biggies.
Lesson: Still try to find more reviewed properties on AirBnB, if the picture doesn’t look bad however with little reviews, there must be something wrong with it.
Overall Score: (2.9 out of 5)
Environment: 2
Location: 2.8
Cleanness: 4.2
Teddy Score (Child friendly): 2.9
Host: 2.8
Ad truthfulness: 2.8
Value for money: 2.5
(AirBnB link:) https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/8287221
*The post is all about my own personal opinion, due to the different perspective, I don’t have any negativity regarding the host or the agent. Booking or not will depend on your own judgement. If you visit the page on airbnb, some people gave good score on the same property, so I say people have different views on things based on their own needs and situation.