We rented out the largest La Bodega cabin for New Year's for my annual girlfriend get-together. I am really in two minds about this place. Once you get there, and get over the fact that you are in fact sharing one room and you have to drive down a very very steep hill that you sometimes can't get out of to get there, the place is clean, brightly colored and cosy. However, from looking at the pictures on the website and reading the descriptions, it was not immediately apparent that it would be only 1 large room with 3 beds in a large futon in it. Oh, and also? It's someone's converted garage. There is a "kitchen", but there is no hob, so you can't cook.

Because we chose Lost Parrot over renting a house further out from Austin and paid a higher price, we were a bit shocked when we arrived. It's not that what is put on the website isn't true, it is just that it doesn't make easily apparent what the situation actually is. For example it is not clear what a "efficiency kitchen" is, or what constitutes a "privacy divider" I think the owners would still be able to attract lots of business even if they were to make the website clearer about what the facilities and rooms actually were like, maybe even a floorplan would have been helpful. I think it just helps to set expectations accurately. Oh also, WiFi doesn't work in the La Bodega cabin, so you don't actually get free Wifi access.

We were there on a weekend where the owners were away, so a friend was looking after the place. He tried really hard, and I felt really bad about complaining why the cabin was not what we expected, but it just kind of felt like the poor guy didn't really know the place and didn't know what to say or do. Because we already paid, we kind of had to put up and get on with it, which is not a nice start to a vacation that all of you have saved up for.

Seriously, if we had known what we were in for, we probably may have chosen Lost Parrot anyway for its location over other full-sized cabins/houses further north, but it would have been really nice to make an informed decision and tradeoff for the price, rather than feel that we were duped into it.