I’m just commenting my rare experiences along the lines of what the OP’s title states…My directions are spot on (150 plus guests find the place ok) and my anecdotes were just in support of what the OP wrote about, and meant to be amusing tales. The directions could not be more explicit…It’s not ‘hard’ to find the farm, but GPS drops you at the mailbox and the house there is not the farm, am 1/2 mile farther down the road…hence the need to explain to guests how and where to travel on. Text, and a photo , then text and then a photo so they know they are tracking correctly, as LONG as they have them in hand. No one has complained about the quality of them, just that they have many reasons why they didn’t use them, or have them, or need them, lol! Cell service here is poor, it’s why I insist that they print these out. I’m not having any problems, just some funny and sometimes entertaining responses to the few who ‘get lost’…
And I agree, nothing beats a personal check in, and I’ve never considered doing anything else. It also gives me a chance to ‘look them over’ so to speak…I’ve turned away two in two years, wouldn’t have known what was going on had it been a 'self check in ’ property.
Thank you so much for this! Google thinks I live on XYZ Lane, when in fact it’s XYZ Drive. Now, hopefully, they will fix it!
Sometimes, guests read and then decide to do what they think is right anyway.
I have two rooms and a big driveway. We have two cars and there are usually two cars here that belong to guests. I’ve figured out where everyone should park so that any of the 4 cars can come and go without anyone else having to move a car.
Depending on which room they are staying in, guests are told 3 times before they arrive where to park in the driveway. Yesterday’s guest arrived and parked in the other guest spot, which happened to be vacant at the time. I assumed I’d somehow gotten confused and sent guest wrong info about parking.
I told guest they would have to move their car, and apologized for giving them the wrong information. No, they said, they saw where I wanted them to park, but thought it would be too close to the car they’d be parking next to, so decided to park elsewhere.
Indeed, the guests need to park next to my car, but there is far more room for each vehicle than one finds in almost any grocery store or whatever parking lot, so there is plenty of room.
I stayed in an Airbnb near you a few weeks ago (near PWM). They have three parking spaces in front, two for their cars, one for the guest. When I arrived there were no cars there and I parked in the closest spot. I went in and read the guest guide and oops, I parked in the wrong spot. I was supposed to park in the one closest to the street, not closest to the suite. So I went out and moved it even though I was planning to go back out shortly. They painted stripes on their parking area to mark the spaces after they had someone park across the intended spaces leaving room for only two to park instead of three.