Cayucos Vacation Rentals and Beach Rentals by Vacasa — Local services in Cayucos

We rented a house in Cambria (Wanderlust Cambria Seaside Village - Cambria, CA) for a family gathering over Thanksgiving hosted by Vacasa (booked through AirBnB). The property is fine – clean, beds and bathrooms as advertised, nice deck and fenced yard, new or nearly new furnishings. Nice neighborhood. Very pleasant. Nothing terrible happened, and we had a very nice stay overall. But….

Vacasa was the “official” host, and because this wasn’t a person, there is very limited and poor communication. Clearly without any thought of customer service for renters. Prior to the non-cancelable booking, our multiple message requests regarding the availability for parking a third car were answered with confusing and totally wrong info. – and were clearly going to an AI responder rather than a person. We booked anyway, after figuring out the address of the property and looking on Google maps to see if it looked like street parking was available/legal.

The house clearly has not recently had anyone “living” in it. Everything was clean, newly furnished, and many things seemed unused. It was pleasant, but more like a hotel suite than a traditional AirBnB (a “home”). There was no “instruction book” that explained how to use any of the equipment, locks, etc. etc., and other specific to the property and location, as there usually is when there is an actual “host”. The minimal instructions were the generic Vacasa info that didn't help at all. For example, it took us awhile to figure out how to lock the house using the electronic keypad when we went out for a walk.

It may seem like a little thing, but the most disappointing issue was the missing cooking kitchen utensils. The listing said fully equipped kitchen with cooking utensils, and we were planning to cook almost all of our meals (including Thanksgiving dinner) at the house. We are a family that cooks at home and it would have been very difficult to cook Thanksgiving day with a single slotted spoon as the only cooking utensil. No, we were not going to try to call Vacasa when we arrived to bring all-new cooking utensils, etc. just as no, we don’t want you sending in a team of people to fix your unit while I’m in it. The unit should be equipped as advertised for normal activities. There was a full set of non-stick pots and pans, a vegetable peeler, some measuring cups and spoons, a whisk, and even a big unopened box of pancake mix in the pantry. But try making pancakes without a spatula (or with a slotted spoon!!). We ended up buying our own spatula and spoon.

It was a little strange that although every bedroom has a large TV, there was no TV in the living room – so don’t expect to watch a movie as a family if you don’t want to all pile onto a bed together (we ended up watching a movie on a 17” laptop set up on a stool in front of the fireplace). The only way to watch anything on the TV was to sign in to your personal Amazon account (remember to log out before you leave…one the Amazon echo devices had a previous renters account still active :-o ) or to stream and connect from HDMI/casting from your own device.

Although generally the house was very clean, the fireplace was full of ashes from previous renters, and the deck and patio furniture hadn’t been cleaned for awhile (not a big deal).

Warning: the shower curtain rod in the 2nd bathroom was very flimsy and did not hold in place. Made it difficult to take a shower in that bathroom.

Although our stay ended up just fine, we will definitely think twice before booking a house hosted through Vacasa again. And we are a bit disappointed with Airbnb as well for not holding their hosts accountable for what they advertise and...

Before you rent a VACASA vacation home think about those who clean these homes. High cost of living and low wages in California makes it difficult enough for service people to make ends meet and working for VACASA doesn't help us either. Last November the local VACASA rep in Cayucos contacted us to clean windows at several locations. We had high hopes in building a long term business relationship so out of curtesy we even cleaned the rep's residence windows for free. It started with invoicing to the wrong address. After 30 days we still had not received payment we contacted the rep. We were told the address listed online; 177 N. Ocean Ave. Cayucos does not exist. I then asked her to give us the corporate office allowing us to contact account payable. She said just email me the invoices and I handle it from there. So we emailed the invoices but nothing happened. We called again. No returns and no replies. By going through some hoops we found out the corporate office is in Portland Oregon so we contacted them. They told us they need a W-9, tax ID and proof of insurance and they would pay us right away. We submitted the information and again nothing happened. We are almost in February and we still haven't been paid. So before you rent from these folks think about us service people and how it makes you sleep at night knowing those who made your bed don't get paid. PS To submit this review we have to highlight at least one star what is one...

Our family paid for a 7 night's stay at a beachfront residence at 784 Pacific in Cayucos, California. We booked through Cayucos Vacation Rentals. After our 2nd night, we discovered spiders in the master bedroom bed, both showers, the children's bunk bed unit, as well as a cricket in the sofa sleeper. Needless to say, we vacated the premises after our third night. When made aware of the issue, Cayucos Vacation Rentals was slow to act and failed to offer an equitable solution to the problem nor a refund for the unused portion of our stay. The office manager, Cindy, has been especially difficult to work with regarding our complaint, as her condescension and stubbornness to recognize the severity of the issue has essentially fallen on deaf ears. We paid over $3,000 dollars total for a stay for a beachfront 2-star residence masquerading as a 4-star. Businesses are measured not by how they handle praise but how they respond to complaints. Cayucos Vacation Rentals has been absolutely abysmal in this regard. There are other vacation rental business in Cayucos. I encourage anyone who is looking into a stay here in Cayucos to book with a...