We recently had the privilege of residing at an Airbnb in the Centro neighborhood of Merida from February 1st to February 29th, 2024.The area is a perfect location for shopping, dining out, and having easy access to the arts and culture which are in abundance in the Yucatan.
Although we enjoyed our time, we were not happy with this Airbnb because they did not deliver the advertised amenities. We trust that this blog post will help future Airbnb customers. By the way…we had shared this information directly with the owners and their property manager before we wrote this blog post and reviewed them on Airbnb with a 3-star rating. I have decided not to list the name of this Airbnb or its owners in this post. We also shared with the owner that we would consider renting their property again if all the below issues were addressed to our satisfaction.
Here is the list of issues we had.
1- The lack of hot water was a major problem. We never had hot water in the kitchen, and the hot water in the shower was sporadic.
2- The power button on the microwave oven was broken and recessed. The only way to turn the microwave on was to put our pinkie finger inside the power button opening to touch an internal switch to start it.
3- Their 2-slice toaster only toasts one slice at a time, with you having to hold the toasting button down while you toast the one slice.
4- There were four each of bath and hand towels, along with two beach towels. However, they did not have washcloths, so we purchased two of our own.
5- We purchased several small kitchen items to make our living arrangements more comfortable; a large colander to drain pasta, measuring cups, measuring spoons, whisk, and spatulas.
6- There are no screens on the patio door in the living room or bedroom window, although the listing indicates mosquito netting was available.
7- There is a restaurant/club down the street that opens at 1:00 pm and closes at 3:00 a.m., and you can hear very loud music in the building. Although the owner has no control over loud music in the community, we recommend bringing earplugs, and adding this on their listing so that others are aware and could bring/purchase earplugs.
Within two weeks of starting our stay, we spoke with the owner and their property manager about our concerns. However, nothing changed.
We identified some opportunities for additional amenities:
1 - Adding a small shelf safe that can fit laptops and other small valuables.
2 - Adding a peephole would provide another level of security.
