Which Is The Best Poipu Vacation Rental? April 21, 2009
Posted by Herb in : 1 , trackbackWow, that’s a loaded question, huh? Especially when the writer of this blog owns several vacation rentals in Poipu. How could anyone expect me to give an objective answer free on any bias? Well relax, I’m not going to give you my personal opinion, which, if I didn’t say Hideaway Cove Villas Poipu Beach, you’d suspect I wasn’t doing a very good job marketing my own properties.
The best way to evaluate most anything these days is by checking on the internet. You can start where most people do, with Google. Just enter the name of a particular vacation rental (this also works for restaurants too) you wish to evaluate and up pops a multitude of information. If you don’t know the names of any vacation rentals, enter something generic, like “Poipu Vacation Rentals” and you will instantly have a list.
Once you’ve shortened your list down to three choices, then it’s time to visit the sites where former guests at vacation rentals go to write independent reviews. The granddaddy of these sites is www.tripadvisor.com, as they’ve been around the longest. The site began by posting reviews of hotel stays and has since branched out into reviews of vacation rentals. If fact, they are on the verge on creating another website that will use the guest ratings found on tripadvisor.com to rank hotels and vacation rentals. Look for vacation rentals that have a significant number of reviews and you will definitely get a very good idea of what’s up. If cleanliness doesn’t equate to godliness at some vacation rentals, you’re going to find out right away.
Another great review site that’s been around forever is www.fodors.com. Yes, this is the same company that has published guidebooks forever of many, many different parts of the world. They have leveraged that expertise and now allow guests to post reviews. Fodors then uses the reviews to rate each vacation rental, from one to five stars. I’m not sure what algorymthem Fodors uses to arrive at their star rankings, but all in all the system seems pretty democratic. No matter how many sterling reviews a particular vacation rental receives, be aware that there always will be at least one reviewer that thought this was the worst place on the planet.
Having been a vacation rental owner the past nine years gives me a good perspective on this type of unhappy guest. You know the one– their glass is always half empty and never half full. In short, nothing makes them happy, although is some cases I think meds might be a giant step in the right direction.
Doesn’t Yelp sound like a great name for a review site? Well you can go to www.yelp.com for reviews of hotel and vacation rental stays and a lot more They describe themselves as “User Reviews and Recommendations of Top Restaurants, Shopping, Nightlife, Entertainment, Services and More at Yelp. We’re the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great – and not so great – in your local area. It’s about real people giving their honest and personal opinions on everything from restaurants and spas to coffee shops and bars.” I couldn’t have said it better myself–check them out!
KauaiHerb
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