Luxury Cathedral Views in Sevilla

* Overpowering drain smell in the main bathroom * No door on the en suite shower (or splashback on the sink) so the bedroom floor becomes a swimming pool * No space to put wet towels or clothes on in the bedrooms or bathrooms! Just a towel rack somewhere in the flat, and a chair or something in the bedrooms would have made the world of difference * Some of the switches didn’t work or got stuck (in bathrooms) * Basics like oil and garlic would have been appreciated

The property is on the 3rd floor. They only provide 1 key to the metal security entrance door to the whole building, which is on the ground floor. If any guests need to go out, the remaining guests are left in the property with no method of escaping from the building in the event of a fire. We reported that the thermostatic control valve in the 2nd shower was broken. It was either very hot and dangerous or totally cold. We were told it would be fixed, but they lied. Our friends had to use the shower inside our bedroom for the duration of our 4 night stay, which was massively inconvenient. The waste water drains in both bathrooms and in the kitchen absolutely stank of sewerage. It was so disgusting we had to open all of the windows to get the smell out. The bad smell made us feel very sick. Numerous wall mounted switches to control the lights did not work and were broken. The open shower in the main bedroom leaks water all over the bedroom floor.

The main pinpoints for me were the quality of the furniture and equipment in the flat. As it was labelled as "luxury", we had much higher expectations. 1) So many things were just left unfixed, to name a few (with photos attached): the door of the main shower had been removed so water was going everywhere, electric wires just showing in plain sight in main bedroom, broken handle of the shower door just left lying on the floor of the main room, no door handles in the second bathroom so very hard to open it from inside, water in second bathroom either boiling hot or freezing cold so it couldn't be used... 2) So many things were unpractical: nowhere to put stuff like toiletries in the bathroom (the "design" sinks didn't have space on them to put things away, washing machine but no drying rack, nowhere to put bath towels, no rack after washing dishes, 4th floor without elevator plus stairlift (chair) in the middle of the stairs so hard to pass by with suitcases... 3) Hygiene: things were quite dusty, our feet were black after walking around the house in the first minutes, the stench of sewers in the second bathroom was awful... Last but not least, communication wasn't great - I hadn't received any instructions for the check in so I had to contact the host on Whatsapp in the morning of the check in. After 1.5 hours I nudged because I hadn't received a response. She just replied that it was self check in. A few hours later I still hadn't received any instructions so I contacted again. She sent the instructions which was a big block of text with photos. Then, I had to text her as I was in front of the building for her to remotely open it, she didn't reply so I had to call her, even though I had given my ETA several times throughout the day.

There are some beautiful touches like candles in the fireplace but if you do this you need to make sure they are clean. Thick dust on top. The main shower was impossible to get the temperature set, it was either scalding or freezing.

The only issue we ran into was that we couldn't figure out how to open the front door to the building from the inside, without the key. Our group had left the building, with the key, leaving one person behind in the apartment... and when they tried to leave later, they were stuck at the building's main door, and someone in our group had to walk back to unlock the door and let them out. I think we probably simply didn't understand how to unlock the main door of the building from inside without the key (some doors are pretty tricky)... but it's potentially a big safety issue to be trapped inside a building without knowing how to get out. We would have liked to have had more clarification on accessibility of the building's main door, and how to leave the building without the key.