Amazing holiday due to staying in the villa

As with any house that is not your own, there will be some initial frustration with finding things in the kitchen. But once we got to know the kitchen, everything was great. Only thing we couldn’t find was a grease cup for the barbecue. We ran into a few minor house maintenance issues: safe was stuck closed, master bedroom shower light was intermittent, dryer broke, and the internet battery backup in the garage beeped but it did not bother us. Pretty hard to predict or avoid those things! Overall, Robert was excellent in helping us out throughout the week. The best parts of our stay? Definitely the pool. Very glad we got the pool heat option since it was quite a cold week and getting into the pool each night was almost like entering a hot tub. It was a lot of fun to just hit the beach ball around; lots of laughs! A very close second to the pool was the games room; we had a blast playing ping pong! Our holiday was amazing and most of that was due to staying in the villa. We really enjoy being able to have our evenings together in a quiet location, cook our own meals, play games and play in the pool. Staying in the house and being so close to all the attractions we wanted to go to was perfect.

• Stars 5/5
• Property BOV
• Stayed January 2014
• Submitted May 5, 2014
• Posted To VRBO By Guest
• Guest Tressa O.
• Home Location Burton, New Brunswick, Canada
• Reservation ID  167
• Recommended for: Sightseeing, Families with teenagers, Families with young children

Owner response: Thank you Tressa for your review. I’m glad you posted your comments because nothing can be perfect 100% of the time. I believe that how a business performs when things are going well reveals little; it is how they respond when things go wrong that demonstrates their true concern for customers. As you saw, we tried to respond to any concerns as quickly and effectively as possible. Regarding the points you raised: It is very hard to ‘control’ where things end up in the kitchen of a vacation rental, particularly one as well stocked as ours. Both we and our cleaners try to put everything back in its place, but it is an ongoing battle – guests tends to put things where they think they should go, not where they find them, and we spend two to three hours on each visit just re-organizing the kitchen. This is one of the reasons we have photos of the contents inside the door of each cupboard – to help guests find things and keep them organized. The grease cup was in a kitchen drawer, instead of on the BBQ where it should be! The safe was apparently damaged by a previous guest, resulting in your parents being unable to re-open it. After our maintenance staff opened it and retrieved your parents’ passports we felt it best to leave it locked until the needed repair part arrived and could be installed. The safe is now back in full operation, good as new. The shower light had a loose fitting, and the dryer needed a switch replaced – something very frustrating given that it is so new but just outside its warranty period – and both were repaired as soon as possible. The back-up battery in the garage keeps the phones on in event of a power outage, and must be replaced every 3-5 years. It will beep before it needs replacing to ensure that service is always available. This was the first time we ever had to deal with this. The problem had to be researched and the battery ordered, shipped in and replaced. This was done, so we should have another 4-5 years to go without any issues. It seems that if something goes wrong, then lots of things do at the same time! It was just unfortunate luck that these all occurred during your visit. But you and your family were GREAT guests, and very understanding as we worked through it all, which was very much appreciated. Ultimately you did have a great stay anyway, and that is always our goal. Tressa and her family were terrific guests and are welcome back anytime!