Ostsee Schwedenhäuser

The staff were pleasant, and we had a great time using the sauna and the campfire pit. The house also has a stove that keeps things nice and warm. It's a lovely place for a small family or a few travelers, close to town and further along toward Glowe and its big beaches.

It gets wonderfully quiet at night, so we slept really well. Apartment Petterson is a romantic red wooden Swedish house, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, including one with a bathtub. Everything was fresh and clean when we arrived, and there was a box of Celebrations and a bottle of white bubbly waiting for us. The kitchen is small but does the job, though you'll want to bring a garlic press and Parmesan grater. The main drawback is the living room seating: there's room for four, with a three-seater sofa and one chair, so a group of six would need to use the dining chairs.

The house is only about 250m from the harbor and lagoon, and the Wi-Fi worked perfectly. Beyond those pluses, there were a lot of problems during our stay at "Petterson House." Getting the key was a mess. The mobile number in our booking confirmation only played a recording. We were already at the house when we found a landline number on the fence and called it. With four of us listening on the car phone, we were told to go back to the office, 16 km away, to collect the key. At the office, the woman asked why we'd come because she'd sent a text saying not to. She checked her phone and said it must have gone through. The keys were in a coded key box. Couldn't that message have been sent ahead of time? The shower doors wouldn't close, so the shower couldn't be used, and there was no rain shower as advertised on the website. Using the bathtub as a shower wasn't great either, since it has a very low step-in. The bathroom also smelled unpleasant, and its window had only a curtain, no privacy screen, leaving the room dark all the time. The baking tray was greasy and filthy, and the oven smelled of old grease. We reported the tray and shower door and were told someone would come, but nothing changed. The maintenance service was basically nonexistent. The house felt too small for six, and the sofa only seats three. The TV remote worked only when standing right in front of the TV, so from the sofa we had to stretch an arm up to get a signal. The parking spaces were so narrow that people had to walk past our car to reach the garbage can. We could hear a lot from the neighbors, and there were no blinds or blackout curtains in the bedrooms. There were no mosquito nets either, and we had mosquitoes indoors even in October.

The TV didn't work for the first two days after we arrived, which was a shame. We stayed in one of the Swedish-style houses over New Year's, and it was a cozy little apartment with almost everything we needed. Our unit could perhaps have used a small oven or something similar. Still, it was a lovely stay.