My Cousin's Place — Hotel in Burlington

This place takes the “bare minimum” to the extreme. Accommodations are exactly what is required and nothing more. A small room with barren white walls, a basic white bed with paper thin white sheets and a tiny white desk large enough for your laptop and nothing else. Two small white bedside tables but only one tiny white lamp. My immediate thought after a long day of travel dreaming of my bed was nothing less than I’d stepped off the plane and into the sanitarium. For $200 per night I expected more. Feels like a trap for parents of the local college students.

By far the most distressing and annoying part of my stay was the complete lack of response from the owners/staff. A few days before my stay I received an email that stated I should have received my check in information, and that I if had not, I should contact them via email or phone. I checked thru my emails and saw no email containing my access codes or Check in information. No worries, I figured, I’ll just email them and I’m sure they’ll get it to me before we arrive. Well three emails, two voicemails, a text message and 3 days later I was at the airport, having no clue if I had a place to sleep that night with zero reply from management. The only communication I received was a text from a housekeeper informing me my check in had to be delayed due to them still needing to clean. Which you can imagine annoyed me greatly since I’d been trying to reach them with no reply and it didn’t much matter if my room was clean if I couldn’t get in. In the end, despite all my efforts no one ever got back to me. They insist they’re a small team and may take a day to reply to messages, which is fine of course, but they never got back to me at all. As I type this, no one has replied. Far as they care they got my money already I guess.

Luckily, while at the airport during our layover I managed to find a text from months prior when I had made my reservation that contained a link to a website with my check in info, but I found it completely by chance while looking for something else. So, in the end, they did send it which is my mistake, but if they had not, or had I not found a random text from months ago by pure chance, my wife and I would have been looking for a hotel at 11pm and I’d likely be chasing them for weeks trying to get a call back to discuss a refund. I don’t know why they wouldn’t send you another text/email closer to your stay with your actual check in info, rather than an email saying if you haven’t gotten it to contact their apparently non-existent management. You’re already emailing me, just send it again.

The location is the one redeeming factor of this place that I’ve found. It’s extremely convenient and there were tons of local restaurants still open despite us arriving at almost midnight. My wife and I made the short trek to a local khabab shop. I had planned to bring the food back to the room but my wife preferred the small crowded shop to returning to our “sad room”. The one negative to the location is parking. Parking in the driveway of the hostel requires a complicated dance of phone numbers and white boards with other residents you may be blocking in with your car. We instead opted for a nearby parking garage which was cheap, convenient and a short walk away.

Overall, I can’t say they gave me anything less than the minimum of what’s required, but I also can’t say I got a thing more. I understand it’s a hostel, but $200 per night comes with certain expectations that this place definitely did not meet. I wouldn’t return if I were...

Preface: I have stayed in hostels in nearly 40 countries, making my review all the more reasonable. The reason I gave two stars:

Pros Great location, walking distance from bars, restaurants, the waterfront, etc. ⁠On-site parking, even though it can get a bit tricky with getting boxed in by other cars. ⁠Comfortable bed for a good sleep.

Cons This place looks absolutely nothing like the pictures posted on AirBnB, where we had booked this place. ⁠Filthy. This place is absolutely filthy, and it really makes you wonder when was the last time it was cleaned. The bathroom is disgusting. I have shared bathrooms in European party hostels and nothing was this dirty. The room itself was dirty and it looks like it hasn’t been maintained in at least a decade. ⁠Got scratched on a nail sticking out on the staircase. Luckily, the nail was not rusty and I’m up-to-date on my tetanus shots, because that could have ended badly. ⁠Communication was null. The check-in information was sent via text message. I am ignorant as to the situation in the U.S., but in Canada, many folks get multiple scam text messages a day and delete anything from an unknown number. This was the case for us. There was no check-in information over the Airbnb app. We messaged the host for the information - silence. Only later did we find the text message. I messaged the host a picture of the nail on the staircase - silence. We did not have any interaction with the host during our entire trip. Their disclaimer is that they’re a small business and replies are slow. I get that. But how can you be an Airbnb host and just ignore your guests? What if something were to happen?

All in all, save your money,...

I made a reservation for a two day stay but ended up cancelling when I arrived to My Cousin's Place for the following reasons: I had a specific question and, despite texting x2 and emailing x2, I received no answers. I did receive an auto-response to my emails but no one answered the question I had. My confirmation email did not contain access information to the building or the room I booked. I made three phone calls when en route to get that information and only received the access code to the building. The link to the guide provided in the emails was broken and I received no response when I emailed requesting the correct link. When I arrived in Burlington, I had to walk through a large group of unhoused people who were yelling and swearing among each other. The building itself is located in a fairly run-down neighborhood and I was feeling more and more uncomfortable about staying there. Using the code provided to me on my third call to customer service, I accessed the main door at the address provided to me only to find out it was the wrong address (36 instead of 38). Once in the unit, I discovered I needed to get a code for the room I had booked. My phone was not able to connect to make yet another phone call to get the room access code. All of this was just too much after a long journey to Burlington. It was one issue after another. Feeling unsafe and uncomfortable and being completed fed up with this company, I left My Cousin's Place and checked into a local hotel. I should have read and heeded the negative reviews that are on Google Maps. Of course, having cancelled too late, I...