Twins Bungalow Sapanca

We left amicably after one night, but the refund situation left us upset. Our booking was for January 27-30, and we cancelled on January 28 because the pool was too cold to use. We had asked during booking and again on arrival whether it was heated, and were told it was. Once we got in, we were shivering and told the owner the water wasn't warm. At first, he said the pool had just opened and its 30 tons of water would take time to heat, so we waited. When it still hadn't warmed up, we said that staying three days made no sense since we hadn't used the pool. The owner was understanding at first and offered to cover the first night. We asked instead to have one night deducted and the other two refunded. He apologized when we left, saying there had been a pool problem that he couldn't deal with before we arrived. The booking was through Airbnb. Before cancelling, we had told the owner that Airbnb gives very low refunds for this kind of cancellation. He said he'd handle it himself and asked us to cancel. That evening, only 6200 TL of the 15400 TL we'd paid had been returned, so we got back in touch. We ended up paying around 8000 for a single day in a house whose pool we hadn't used. We said it felt unethical, since the pool issue should have been mentioned and this wasn't an arbitrary cancellation. He then offered to refund the one-day fee if we wanted, but we said the request was only for the amount Airbnb had deducted, because the cancellation was caused by the pool problem. After that, the pool water suddenly seemed to be back to normal, and our neighbor swam without complaining. Still, from the start the owner had told us the neighbor didn't think the water was warm enough, showed us the pool heater, and said it would heat more easily, then apologized as we left and acknowledged a problem. Businesses like this should take full responsibility when a pool problem leads to a cancellation.

We left on the evening of February 15, although our Airbnb booking was for February 14-16. The bungalow had a strong, unpleasant smell when we arrived, and we spent hours airing it out. There weren't even paper towels, which surprised us as such a basic item was missing. A short outage on the first day didn't seem like a big deal. On day two, though, the power was off for about five hours and never came back. That's when we found out there was no generator, and nobody had told us beforehand. My phone lost service and my fiancée's was about to, which caused a lot of trouble for us. The host said it was a general outage and not their fault, and offered a free night, but we declined. We contacted Airbnb, got one day's refund, and left. We'd been respectful and polite with them on WhatsApp while trying to sort things out. We didn't leave a negative review at the time, since we saw it as a matter of personal gain, but then my fiancée got a "problematic" review on Airbnb. The comments afterward made me write this so people could know what happened. It was a far below-average stay. I'd suggest booking somewhere through a platform that protects your rights.

There were at least 20 huge flying insects, which was the one real problem. Apart from that, our three nights were clean, quiet, and peaceful. The place was nicely warm with both air conditioning and radiators, and the pool was quite warm too.

Mr. Baran was attentive to anything we needed right from arrival, and we appreciated his hospitality through checkout. The owners respected our family's privacy and only came when we asked. The place was very clean, with not a single insect despite being a wooden house. We stayed two nights, found the pool adequate, and the owners handled the needed maintenance when we requested it.