We stayed in an Airbnb for the first time on our trip to Hawaii. We needed one extra night and we wanted that night near Volcanoes National Park. Well, there aren’t many hotels on that side of the island, much less hotels that fit 7. I looked into using some of my points at the one Hilton in Hilo, but It wouldn’t have worked. I decided to try Airbnb. I got a friend to refer me, so I got like $40 off our stay. I then bought an Airbnb gift card to get another 5% off (Thanks Amazon!)
The first Airbnb we reserved CANCELLED us not long before our trip. Ugh. I had booked it months beforehand. I didn’t know that was possible. I scrambled and we found another Airbnb. Still a pretty close location to Volcanoes National Park (About 10-minute drive)
When we arrived at the Airbnb, it was not exactly what we expected. It is probably the area of Hawaii, as most of the neighbors looked similar, but they really should have stated it in the listing. The kitchen wasn’t much of a kitchen, other than there was a fridge and a sink. No stove. No Oven. We had to cook our dinner on a hot plate. (good thing I just had boxed mac & cheese – the only time our kids get that!)
Apparently, you couldn’t drink the water. I think that should have been in the listing. There was nothing saying that in the house, but they had drinking water signs on the big jugs of water and if you looked outside there were big cisterns of water that looked like they collected rainwater. I am guessing that is where the water in the house came from. So even though they didn’t say NOT to drink the water, we just assumed.
The rooms and furnishings were nice enough. There was Wifi, soft beds, and HOT water – so that was good. They could have used more plates, cups, utensils, etc. There were hardly any and very mismatched randomness.
Then at night, there were Coqui frogs that were annoyingly loud – they croaked ALL FREAKING NIGHT! The come 3am, there were 2 roosters roaming around crowing at each other – well before the sun even came up. When I got up to shower, I noticed a container of earplugs in the bathroom. Well, I know why that had them in there now! We found the roosters under the house when we were packing up to leave. They did not live at that house (obviously a neighbors). (see above picture of the roosters roaming around with some hens as we were leaving) If they have earplugs, they know this is an issue and should warn you. I know it was in the country, but the noise level was just too much!
I was REALLY glad we were only there one night!
Will this keep me from using Airbnb again? Probably not. If we need to, I’ll probably book with them again. I’ll try to stick to our hotels and nice condos though! In places like National Parks though, there is often not anything like that close by. HOWEVER, I will look much closer at the listing! (although the noise and the lack of kitchen was NOT in their listing. *sigh*)
So not the best first Airbnb Experience, but for one night, it was liveable (I would have cried if we had booked more than one night!!!)
