Beautiful secluded location! But the house was dirty with cobwebs in corners, the screened porch full of bugs and dirt. The fridge’s water was broken so we had to use unfiltered water to cook, the smoke detector above the fridge was halfway unhooked and obviously not hooked up and working, and the hot tub wasn’t entirely clean. There were commercial style dispensers for shampoo, conditioner, soap in the shower but completely empty which is odd (they do mention in their handbook that they don’t provide soap or shampoo starter bottles).
The property is listed as 6-8 people, so when we booked for 7 people, we saw we are being charged for an extra person. When I talked with staff about it, they said their fine print disclaimers state that any more than 6 guests and you’ll be paying extra which is shady, so just keep that in mind.
Their rules are riddled with threats of charging you if things aren’t done a certain way which isn’t the best customer experience – we weren’t constantly on edge about whether we cleaned correctly, if we’re allowed to use this without charge, etc. I.e. we paid a $xxx cleaning fee but were told that if we don’t wipe down the kitchen until there’s no grease or food stains on any appliances, there would be a cleaning fee of $xx/hour above the $xxx we already paid with the booking. $xxx fee if you move the grill. Fee could be accrued if you change the temp on the hot tub, etc. Obviously it’s their property and they can charge what they decide, but I would have liked for someone to make me aware of this before we stayed. By the way, I’m x’ing out fee amounts since VRBO doesn’t allow this.
The one encounter I had with staff about the extra person charge I mentioned above, was cold and dismissive. A “Call us because we’re done with this conversation and inquiry on email” sort of tone. For what we paid to stay, we probably wouldn’t choose to stay at The Refuge again.