Meredith LodgingReviews of meredithlodging.com

I wish I knew about this website before I booked with Meredith Lodging! It would have saved a lot of hassle and heartache. I had selected this house and booked it a year ago. From the outside it looks wonderful, great location, across from the beach with an attractive deck. The rental cost was a substantial upgrade from previous rentals in Manzanita (not through Meredith Lodging), but it looked like it was worth it. The neglect and lack of attention to details both large and small throughout the house was shocking. The primary issue was the toilet in the main bathroom. It wasn’t usable. My husband used a plunger to no avail. We called Meredith and they assigned a maintenance person. He worked on it, bought a new plunger, used a snake, and nothing helped. Clearly a new toilet was needed. We learned that maintenance service can’t replace anything in a unit, that’s up to the owner. They can only attempt repairs. Our thought now was how many times has the maintenance person gone through the same dance with other renters? This was not a new issue. We had overnight guests coming and had to explain to them that we’d be using their downstairs bathroom. We also discovered that the clothes dryer did not work, would not even turn on. And the handle was a rag hanging from a slot in the door. The floor to ceiling shade in one of the downstairs rooms, covering a sliding door to the outside, was completely unraveled, with a portion sitting on the floor, and the top attached by duct tape. It could not be wound back up. The toaster had twisted and broken coils and only toasted one side of the bread, lights are burned out in the dining room, some light switches and outlets don’t work, the windows in the living room facing the water don’t open, a smoke detector is missing from a downstairs bedroom, a heater is broken, frisbee like plastic dishes substitute for dessert/salad plates, etc. etc. etc. After our guests left, we left on Monday, June 13, 3 days ahead of schedule, after calling Meredith first. To date my husband or I have spoken to 5 different people at Meredith Lodging, all very sympathetic. We have requested a refund of the equivalent of 3 days of rental. We have received a credit of approximately $250, which is simply not adequate. This house, in its present condition simply should not be available until some attention is paid by the owner to the various issues. I wasn't planning to add a response to my review, but the reply from Meredith has insulted my integrity and I am offended. Yes, I contacted Meredith a few months ago to ask if it was possible to drop a few days. I was told there was a significant penalty and so I backed away and let it go. Remember that the house had been booked a year ago, this meant a lot to me, and it was devastating to see the condition of the house when we arrived. Our decision to leave was based on nothing more than our total disappointment with the house.

RENTER BEWARE  RE: Meredith Lodging Vacation Rentals are rented “AS IS WHERE IS” meaning if you rent a vacation home from Meredith Lodging based on what you see in the photos or description and the Vacation Home is in disrepair and in very different condition than what was advertised in the photos you will have no recourse and Meredith Lodging will not compensate you.  See below for details on our experience.  May 2022 -Review on “Whale Watchers Condo 1” has an amazing view, but furniture is/was in disrepair such that it dramatically reduced the value of our rental and the overall enjoyment of our holiday (see below). Independent of the furniture, “Whale Watcher’s Condo” is a fourplex and an old building with very thin walls and ceilings. On the nights when there were people in the unit above us we could hear them walking, moving and talking.   I would not recommend this unit if you are looking for peace and tranquility as there are far better options in the area. What Happened: This was the third trip my wife and I took to Rockaway Beach. We love the area and have had nothing but good experiences with other management companies and vacation rentals. Our usual spot wasn’t available so we tried Meredith Lodging (ML) for the first time. We found an ad on Meredith Lodging’s website with beautiful photos of a Vacation Home named “Whale Watchers Condo 1”, in Rockaway Beach.  The ad’s photos showed an amazing view of the ocean, comfortable patio furniture to enjoy the view and a modern looking sofa inside facing the ocean view.  We rented this unit for 5 days in May 2022 trusting the ad, reviews and photos. We picked this unit based on the photos and description and envisioned our holiday spending lots of time relaxing and enjoying the view while we chatted and read books over the 5 days.  Upon our arrival we found that some of the key pieces of advertised furniture was either destroyed, severely rusted or collapsing to a point where it was no longer comfortable or usable.  On the patio, the frame of the wicker sofa was rusted through and had collapsed prior to our arrival making it completely unusable. When I sat in one of the wicker chairs the rusted bottom frame collapsed (FYI - I am 200 lbs) making the chair unusable. The remaining metal bistro set and table were covered in rust and dilapidated, when I briefly sat in one of the rusted hard chairs I stained the back of my white jacket, and I still have not been able to get the stains out yet.   The sofa in the living room looked cosmetically nice but as soon as we sat on the cushions we sank deep into the sofa well past the frame. The sofa was extremely uncomfortable and had minimal structural support with the main support coming from the hard frame pressing on your legs.  This condo was advertised as sleeping 4, I do not see how 2 people could comfortably sleep on this sofa.  I immediately contacted Meredith Lodging and they were very polite and seemed responsive. Halfway through our stay (2.5 days) the maintenance person moved two plastic patio chairs over from the owner’s suite which was the unit beside us.  Had I known this was an option I would have done this on day one myself. ML told us they would speak with the owner about replacing the interior sofa upon our departure. The maintenance person also acknowledged the poor condition of the furniture and took photos of it too. I sent ML my photos of the furniture as well as screen captures of their advertised photos. I did not expect the sofa to be replaced during our stay however, I did expect some financial compensation for the fact that I rented a vacation condo based on photos that were very misleading and we could not enjoy the exterior patio for half our stay nor the interior sofa for our whole stay.  They referred me to their contract which states their units are rented “AS IS WHERE IS”.  I checked their contract and this term is in there, but I expected based on the blatant difference between the photos and condition of the furniture they would take the high road to retain a future customer and avoid loss of good will. They did not and our request for a partial refund for the state of disrepair of furniture and their misleading ad was denied.  So my big takeaway from this experience: When you rent a Vacation Rental from Meredith Lodging “Sight Unseen” online you should not rely upon or trust the photos, description or reviews as being accurate. If what you believe you rented turns out to be in disrepair you will not be compensated.  This builds no trust with the online renters whom have no way of independently verifying what they see in the ad as being correct. This is a very poor business practice/model.  Any rental company can and will have issues the question is will they stand behind what they advertise when large discrepancies are pointed out. Meredith Lodging does not.

We booked a rental home for 12 people for 5 days. Got there and the oven did not work. Called maintenance who were very helpful. They came looked at it said they would be back the next day to replace it. I had spoken to Meredith Lodging 2 days prior to our arrival about an early check in. I had actually talked to multiple people 2 days in a row prior to our arrival. On Saturday when no one came to fix the oven, I called again and was told that 5 days prior to my arrival they sent me an email (which I had never been contacted by email prior to this) stating that the oven didn't work. It was not until Saturday that this email was found in my SPAM folder. I was told that an oven was an amenity (the definition of an amenity would be the pool, hot tub, fireplace, air conditioning, internet, game room, etc.), and that they would not be fixing our oven. Not having this "amenity" caused stress due to some of our meals that we had planned and brought food for not being able to be cooked. We could not eat as a family because we could not keep things warm in the small convection oven that they provided (which did not have a rack in it and we had to use the flimsy drip tray). An appliance should not be an amenity and since they had contacted me by phone for ALL OTHER communication, an email should not have been sent to notify us of this failure to properly maintain appliances. The other thing we ran into is that many of the outlets along the kitchen wall, including upstairs did not work. If the convection oven and microwave were running at the same time fuses would blow. This house was not cheap. Our family gets together once a year to enjoy a week together. It was very disappointing to not have the upkeep on this house as it should have been for as much as we paid. We were given a refund of $139 for the oven. That is RIDICULOUS!!! For the amount that was paid $139 did not even cover the extra groceries we had to purchase to replace the meals we could not cook. I will NEVER rent from Meredith again, nor would I recommend anyone renting from them.

We booked a house through VRBO and specifically searched for "pet friendly" homes. When we looked back at our reservation a few days before our trip we realized that the house was not pet friendly. We have tried dealing with VRBO and Meredith Lodging directly to explain this was a problem with the booking system or maybe how it was listed, but they will not allow us out of reservation which means we will have to pay for a home we can not stay in because we have no where for our dogs to go. This was a family getaway we were really looking forward to and our kids are really disappointed, as are we.

I need to separate my review into two parts. Property: B- Meredith Lodging: F First, the property was really nice; great value for what you get. There were a few issues with the property, but it didn't impact our visit too much. The gas range is missing parts for the burners to work properly. I don't know what they are called but each burner should have a small plate that spreads the flame out. Those are missing and the flame is a single jet from the middle of each burner. it worked, but not well. Also, it would appear some of the bedding hadn't been cleaned in between stays. At least one bed had hair between the sheets. The game room, while functional did have some issues. The air hockey table only keeps score for one goal, so manual scoring will have to be tracked by the players. The foosball table was leveled using poker chips. If you've ever played foosball, you know that didn't last long before things were unlevel. The ping pong table net was sloppy and would not stay in place for more than a game. It all works but takes fiddling. Lastly, the TVs in the property could use an update. With exception of the living room, all the TVs were small 19" CRT TVs. All in all, I would stay here again if it was managed by someone other than Meredith Lodging. Now, my comments about the management company, Meredith. I will think twice before renting from a property managed by this company in the future. As we were preparing to depart, I realized we were going to be a bit late on our check out time. I messaged Meredith through the Airbnb app on my phone letting them know. They responded rather quickly and indicated that I would risk additional charges if it delayed their housekeeper and the next guest. I understood that. At this time a housekeeper did pull up to the property and was friendly, asked how much longer we would be. We indicated we were almost done and would be gone in 15 or so minutes. At this time, I get another message from Meredith telling me that the housekeeper indicated we "refused to leave and left the house in bad shape" so they were charging me an additional $255. Check out is supposed to be at 11:00a, we were gone by 11:30a. Again, messaging through the app I told the Meredith representative that this was predatory as no one refused to leave nor had they been in the house to see what shape it had been in. Which was clean with all check out instructions followed. Not only had we filled and ran the dishwasher, but remaining dishes were also washed by hand. All bedding at been pulled and put on the laundry machines. No messes were left. A few hours later I got notified by the Airbnb app that Meredith had tried to invoice me $255 but later cancelled the charge. This was obviously because I called them out on their bull and the housekeeper had nothing to prove that we left the property in anything but perfect condition. Beware of Meredith and make sure to document your property with pictures at check in and check out.

We stayed at Juniper house. When we arrived there was a new hot tub standing on it's side in the front of the house. When we looked in the back yard there was a collapsing wooden swing set that had been cordoned off with yellow "caution," tape. The back deck looked sketchy so we didn't try it. Inside the walls were filthy dirty. The carpets had huge stains on them. The bedding had to be from the 60s judging from the color. The fact that all the elastic was no longer working on the flannel sheets confirmed the fact that the bedding was not only old, it was worn out. The kitchen was nice and the space was adequate but I would wait for updates before visiting. We have asked management to refund our money and are still waiting.

We stayed at Depoe Bay Whale Song condo. Dirty area rug , Filthy windows, old, outdated crowded furnishings, Broken sofa, light fixture hanging off wall, old bedding, old and scratchy towels, out dated decor, dark walls, water damaged laminate flooring, old and stained carpets. Entire house needs updating ,maintenance and a good cleaning. Bare minimum tv channels. The only saving grace was the view (once WE washed the windows).

We were very disappointed with our stay at Seacrest south of Waldport on the Oregon coast. The location and beach access were great, but the condition of the house was grim. This home/cabin is very old and lacking. Nothing in the home has been updated since probably 1970. Clearly there has been no maintenance or deep cleaning in decades. The carpeting was old, dirty, and stained. We chose to keep our shoes on in the house so we wouldn't have to touch it in bare feet. The linens were old and very worn, a living room curtain rod was broken and hanging down. Both of the toilets ran constantly and worked only sporadically. Years of grime settled on every horizontal surface - baseboards, door, window sills. I reported my dissatisfaction to Meredith Lodging and they left two messages on my phone, wanting to send someone out to fix the toilets. However, there is no cell service at this location and I did not receive the voice mails until I had returned home. I have since written to Meredith with my concerns, and they have not responded. This place is way overpriced and should be taken off the rental roster. It looks more like it is awaiting tear down.