C'est la vie vacation rentals -

Andy Tollinger

We booked a two-night stay through AirBnb at the “Zen Beach Getaway w/ Hot Tub near Park & Las Olas”. The reservation was booked for two adults, two kids, and two pets. This first incident happened upon arrival when they would not send us the access code to get into the unit until we did a couple of things.

• They wanted to know why we were visiting.
• How many guests were in our party.
• Tell them a little bit about ourselves.

It was strange because the Airbnb reservation has the details about our party. In terms of why we are visiting, that is none of their business, however we were down there for the weekend because of a concert my wife had tickets for.

Anyways, once I stated we had two pets (which again was on the Airbnb reservation) they said there is a nightly charge per pet, however Airbnb only charges a flat pet rate on their site so they needed additional money before letting me in. Out of principle this concerned me because I had already reserved and paid in full through Airbnb. I stood outside the property with my 9-year-old daughter in the dark for an hour and a half on the phone with AirBnb and C’est la vie vacation rentals trying to work this out. Finally, Airbnb paid the extra pet charge and we were let into the property however our first night was completely shot at that point. I was offered no apologies from C’est la vie vacation rentals for this mix up.

In terms of the property, according to records the property we stayed in was bought and renovated/flipped in 2022, however the inside of the place showed a lot of wear and tear. Overall, the place was dingy and did not live up to the pictures online: the window A/C units could not really keep up with the cooling at all, the couch was broken on one end and they had attempted to repair it with a 2x4, the master bedroom’s mattress was sagging in the middle, the blinds were busted. Other than that, we had an okay stay, checked out, and I decided to not leave any review on Airbnb.

15 days after checkout, I received a Smoke Remediation charge from Airbnb. Note, that my wife and I are both healthy individuals and have never smoked, it’s a disgusting habit. There so called “proof” filed with the smoking claim included an invoice from a cleaning service called “Prestige Services & Investments”, a fuzzy picture of the tile floor that shows nothing, and a picture of some machine plugged into the wall. I tried calling the cleaning service and the phone number was no longer in service so that is shady. They conveniently waited until after the 14-day period to file this claim so that I could not leave a bad review on Airbnb (you can’t leave a review after 14 days). This seems like a scam to me and luckily Airbnb has not charged as of yet, but I wanted to make others aware of C’est la vie vacation rentals and our experience. They still haven’t apologized for the false smoking accusations, provided no proof and their check-in was a nightmare. On Airbnb they have good reviews which is why I booked the place but based on my experience I have to think that other customers have gone through this, but you won’t see those bad reviews on Airbnb because they wait until after the review period ends to file the additional suspect cleaning claims.

Robenson Altidor