"Brand New" 2 BDR/Heart of Paris

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  Calie

  Nikos: Our stay at your appt was AMAZING! Good location, in the heart of Paris, near the subway and the Museums, le Louvre, etc.. My husband and my parents were thrilled about everything. clean sheets, and kitchen, towels, fridge, bathroom. We could have a family breakfast in the comfort of the appt. I will definetely come back with my children, next time. Thanks a lot---Calie and IJs from Washington DC

  February 2012
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  Jackie

  Nikos, the owner, was very responsive to my initial inquiry - I believe I heard back within a few hours. The apartment is in a great location! We could easily walk to the Pompidou in 10-15 minutes and metro is just a few steps away.... The house is sufficiently equipped with most everything you need. If you have a small child there is a baby cot in the closet. The apartment is very clean and spacious enough for 3-4 people easily. We all really loved the place and would definitely stay here again. It's an easy walk to the grocery store and to some very nice restaurants/bistrots... etc. Highly recommend but almost don't want to recommend for fear it will be reserved for the next time we want to stay! Thank you Nikos for providing a great holiday rental.

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  Nicholas

  The apartment is clean and cosy, well kept and equipped with the desired utilities and aminities. We loved the comfortable mattress and the cleanliness of the sheets ane kitchenette. The only drawback is the narrow staircase leading to the unit.

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  Jessica

  We enjoyed our stay at Nikos' apartment in Paris. The apartment is very conveniently located in the heart of Paris with easy access to everywhere we wanted to go, either on foot or by metro. The apartment can be a bit noisy at night time but I wouldn't expect many places to be any different in Paris! We were particularly appreciative of the opportunity to do some much needed laundry at that stage of our trip and Nikos' apartment was well furnished with everything we needed. The single beds weren't the most comfortable I've stayed in, but this is a minor complaint. Nikos was very easy to communicate with and I would have any hesitation in renting from him again. Thanks a lot!!

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  Rafael

  I had absolutely the best time at Nikos Apartment! Apart the the apartment being very comfortble and cozy witch makes you want to sleet until late, the location is absolutely the best! You have everything you need right next to your door! Seriously, i could`t be any happier i chose this place to stay in Paris. And me and my friends even got to see Jude Law and Guy Richie in the Sherlock Holmes 2 movie premiere that just happened at the Rex cinema right beside the apartment!

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  Susan

  Our recent stay in Nikos' 2 BDR/heart of Paris apartment was very enjoyable. It's location is brilliant, as we could walk to pretty well all the places we wanted to visit. The Eiffel Tower was probably the farthest away, but still only took about 30 minutes. Nikos was really helpful with any queries we had, and the apartment has all we needed to make our stay comfortable. Probably the only downside was that it was quite noisy most nights, but I guess that's due to its central position. We would definitely recommend this for a good stay in Paris.

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  Bernard

  This is a spacious modern apartment conveniently located in the central of Paris within walking distance to Louvre, Montemarte, Centre Pompidou and Opera. A metro station is just a few metres away from the apartment and there are several cafeterias and convenience stores in the area, including one right across the street. We got very clear and details instructions from Nikos, and he replied to our emails very quickly, most of the time within minutes. We were 5 people and we did not feel that the apartment was too small for us. We did not have any problem connecting several devices to wi-fi at the same time. Everything worked fine and having an oven and unlimited free international calls were a welcome plus.

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  Christian

  Great place, great location, great host. Looking forward to coming back again soon.

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  Eric

  If you stay here, you are renting from Nikos P. If things don't work out, you're dealing with a tenured college professor, not a hotel front desk clerk. We had quite a few problems. There was no water when we arrived and we all needed showers. I contacted Nikos and he arranged to have it switched on, and did so in within the hour. Next we had difficulty sustaining a connection to the broadband network in the apartment, both via wi-fi and plugging directly into the router with a broadband cable. Nikos stopped by to try and help, but since I'm a Mac guy and he's a PC guy said, he said it's probably an incorrect proxy setting. But he was unable to provide me with the right settings and I was offline for the duration of my stay and had to go to Starbucks to get online. As an aside, I went to Orange and two other local cell phone providers to see if I could get my own wireless connection and discovered that prepaid broadband access is not available in France without a contract. Regardless of what anyone tells you, it's simply not available. When we were on our way out the door one evening, I had difficulty getting it to lock. I notified Nikos and got the feeling I had worn out my welcome and he did not come out to check on the door. The next day, the lock failed and we were shut out of the apartment entirely. I contacted Nikos at 3pm and by 5pm had received no response. At 5:30 he said he was out of town that day but that he'd try to come around 7pm. To me, that just doesn't seem right. If you rent an apartment and the lock fails, I think it's both the owner and AirBNB's responsibility to make sure there's a way for that to be resolved in a timely manner. My wife was in tears and furious and my seven-year old had to use the bathroom, so I asked Nikos to send a locksmith immediately. He responded by saying that this was the first time he's had problems with tenants, that he would refund our last two nights but that he wanted us to leave the apartment that evening. Does that seem fair to you? If I were to have canceled my reservation, he would have kept 50% of my deposit. But he can throw us out and only refund the last last two nights? What does AirBNB do to guarantee that owners live up to their booking commitments? As far as I can tell, nothing. We were scared. It was late and raining and we had no where to go. Our day and night were ruined. It's easy to look at an apartment on AirBNB and get excited about the savings. But you get much better service from a hotel front desk than a Parisienne University Professor, and a hotel lobby with reliable wi-fi and a bathroom are easy to take for granted, but we found out first hand just how important they are when you're traveling, particularly abroad. AirBNB buyer beware! When we met Nikos at the apartment locksmith's were there fixing the door and he apologized for asking us to leave. But we were still pretty bummed about the experience. He said he had a bad day and over reacted. And I think he meant it. He is basically a decent guy trying to make a few extra bucks with his Paris apartment, and as long as nothing goes wrong, everything will probably work out fine for you. But if things do go wrong, and you need help, it's not going to be speedy, and it's definitely not going to pleasant. And I imagine this is the wholesale shortcoming of a service like AirBNB. Nikos credited us back the cost of one-night's rent, and then deducted the cost of the locksmith from that amount, which seemed like a backhanded way of making it up to us. I tried to get AirBNB to talk to me about what happened for my podcast, exchanging tweets with the company's founder Brian Chesky and emails with Christopher DiNunzio but no one would agree to talk to me on the record about what happened, which is surprising for a company that boasts about being "engaged" with the social media community. AirBNB did, however, issue me a $200 refund, which was very thoughtful of them. My take away is that renting an apartment directly from an owner is just too risky an endeavor. After you spent all the money to get somewhere, the lost opportunity cost of getting locked out, stuck without broadband or music blasting next door is just too high to make it worth it. What if Nikos threw our stuff on the street? What if we went back the apartment and were locked out? What what would we do? I (website hidden)d AirBNB support twice from Starbucks for help, but got cut off after 20 minutes holding for a supervisor. What would you do if this happened to you? Go to the French Police Station? These are hypothetical questions. None of these things happened. But they are risks that simply don't exist when you stay in a hotel. AirBNB sent en email saying that they could have found me another place to go, but how would you like to have to spend the last nights of your vacation moving to an apartment you didn't pick in a different part of town, without your stuff? The problem with AirBNB, as I see it, is there's no feet on the ground to advocate on your behalf in person if things go wrong. They can and will call or email the owner of the apartment. Or they can remove their listing. But what else can they really do? Either way, your vacation suffers. I do not think mine was an isolated incident. It could have happen to anyone and probably does, which is probably why AirBNB declined to speak with me on the record about my experience. In the future, I would never rent from an owner, but I might rent from an agency that manages rentals for owners, so as long as they have a good reputation, a local presence and can show up to cure problems in a timely manner. View host response

   

  Response from host:

  It would have for me very easy to provide an answer that is at the level of the review from Eric. However, neither my education or my culture does not allow me to do so. I will just be factual: Never/ever rent your apartment to Eric and his family. He treats and he is convinced that you should be is servant [actually funny enough he is even putting down that to his review], addresses in a arrogant manner and the word politeness is missing from his dictionary. to summarize, Eric rent a 1,000,000$ 2-BDR apartment, that has not a single complaint, with more than 50 reservations, excellent reviews, cleaned and maintained from a professional manager...he paid 804eu for 6 nights, he broke the lock that cost 850eu, I spent 2 nights out of 6 at the apartment, but the worst thing out of all is that he treated me like nothing, with extreme arrogance, expected to be 24 hours servant the front-desk of his hotel reservation. 1. water...we checked with the city of Paris and the building and there was no apparent reason for having no water at the apartment. eventually Eric sent an email that the water was back and running at 12:30 (normal check-in is 2PM)...of course Eric forgot to mentioned that he checked early at 9:30...like the internet problem (see bellow), not a single complain about the water before. 2. internet...well it happens to have triple play offer, with a provider that has approximately 6million subscribers in France. We have this service at our apartment for the past 6 yeas without a single problem, I went to the apartment, the wifi was visible, Eric couldn't connect his mac laptop...TV was running, telephone was running, Wireless was sending signal and I was able to connect with my DELL + Samsung mobile. However, you have to be at the service of Eric, a system administrator, that can take over his computer and solve his problems!!! that was my first night I spent at the apartment [6 to 9 PM]...eventually no one complained for the internet before... 3. lock: other thank lying since I was at 5:00PM at the apartment and I have his mails on it, well the lock broke while Eric was there, I called the 24 services immediately once I got the mail that his son [who BTW while I was there the first night kept running and jumping on the couch, I guessed he thought that I am a handyman given the attitude of his father] and his wife are locked outside [it happens that my son has the same age as his son]. I left my office immediately and was dealing with the locksmith from 5:00 to 9:30pm. the repair cost 850eu and normally he should have paid for it. 4. refund: when people treat you the way that Eric does, you have absolutely no reason to host them in your property. if they had no a son on my son's age, I would have kicked them out, they do not deserve to be your guests at a property that you own and you worked hard to buy and maintain. anyhow, I ask airbnb to refund him one night because again I consider the situation if my wife and my son was in his place [eventually it wouldn't have been hard for any airbnb guest to behave better and be respectful to people]. from his review it seems that it didn't happen, however I have absolutely nothing to do with that and is something between him and airbnb. eventually, I will return him the compliment, there is nothing wrong with him, he is a very descent guy...who also tries to save some money by renting a 700ft apartment at the cost of **/***hotel 150ft ROOM, while expecting a 24-hours front desk service where the word respect is not part of his dictionary.
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  Dimitri

  This is a combination of a great host and a fantastic apartment. The apartment is in an excellent shape (I guess due to the very recent renovation), extremely well kept/maintained and spotless. It has everything you might need and you feel like being home. Nikos is doing a great job prior of your arrival as well as while you are there. Clear instructions, functional check-in/check-out system [with the possibility of collecting your luggage late the day of the checkout, worked wonders for my late flight], and immediate answers to the questions you might have. Nikos is courteous, efficient and having lived in the US himself is able to deal with my concerns in a much clearer way than my typical experience with french hosts (I am a frequent visitor in france) The area is also nice,central, with a genuine Paris feel but not overwhelmed with tourists, not far from Chatelet and the Louvre (walking distance ~ 10min) with three lines of subway at less than 2-3min from the apartment which could take you wherever you want to go, all shops and commodities and plenty of non-tourist restaurants and bars. In brief, memorable experience.

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  Laura

  Just AMAZING! The studio is very cosy and located in a perfect place, the subway is literally 1 minute from there, to get to the Opera around 10 minutes. Furthermore, I went by walking to the Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Moulin Rouge, of course this would depend whether you like to walk or not but all the places are not so far from the studio. You can cook in the kitchen, you have everything in there, microwave, plates, glasses, salt, sugar, etc. I think a coffee machine is the only thing missing in there. Nikos answered to all my emails in a very prompt way, he'll give you all the detailed instructions for everything! I wouldn't hesitate to stay here again.

  February 2012
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  Carol

  Both Nikos and the apartment were wonderful. It was well enough equiped that we cooked every night after walking to the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Arche de Triomphe (though that was a very long walk). Grocery store was close and a wonderful market street also close. Although it seems criminal to say so ,the best coffee (and best value) was around the corner at Starbucks. Nikos answered any quiries promptly.

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  Sonia

  Appartamento comodissimo, pulito e confortevole. Si trova in zona centralissima da dove si può visitare anche a piedi: Torre Eiffel, Notre-Dame, Louvre, Opera, Place de la Concorde, Le Marais, Jardin du Luxemburg, ecc... inoltre ci sono parecchie fermate della metropolitana. La zona è fornita di bar, ristoranti, brasserie, supermercati, infatti proprio di fronte all'entrata dell'appartamento c'è un piccolo supermercato fornitissimo e distante 100 metri un altro supermercato + grande. La zona è ricca anche di luoghi di intrattenimento per i + giovani (cinema REX 7 sale!) e non a caso qui c'è il famoso negozio/bar HARD ROCK CAFE'. Noi siamo arrivati sabato sera e abbiamo visto una marea di giovani che popolavano tutta la via principale. Insomma un appartamento ideale per visitare Parigi!

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  Barbara

  sistemazione piccola ma molto confortevole. le foto rispettano l'appartamento. la posizione è ottima e la zona offre molti servizi.

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  Christian

  Great place, great location, great host. Looking forward to coming back again soon.

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  Bo

  This place is great. The apartment was perfect for me during my short trip in Paris. I would imagine that it would also suit two people nicely, but no more. The location is great, incredibly close to a Metro stop or in reasonable walking distance to some great sites (Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, etc.) Nikos is a fantastic host. He laid out perfect directions to not only get to and from the airport, but he always responded quickly (typically within 30 mins) to my email questions. The apartment was very clean and had everything I needed.

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  Pilar

  La estancia ha sido estupenda.Muy buena ubicación tanto para desplazazarse como los alrededores. Al estudio no le falta de nada. Ha sido una buena expereiencia que repetiría sin duda y el trato con el propietario perfecto.

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  Ana maria

  The Nikos studio is O.K. as location, cleanness, all commodities. The kitchen is well equipped, a coffee maker(or at least a kettle) would be needed. The bathroom was perfect, clean and large enough. We find easily the location and managed to enter the studio thanks to the detailed instructions from Nikos. Nikos was very prompt when we needed help in using the TV. We had a great time in Paris.

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  Kristina

  Great modern studio in a lovely building, very convenient location with all possible extras (wifi internet, hair dryer, towels, extra cushions, kitchen items etc). Plus Nikos provides all kinds of helpful information in advance!

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  George

  This is a great little flat downtown Paris, just around the corner from Rex cinema and not for away from Montorgueil street. The area has plenty of restaurants. The apartment has the perfect size for two, just renovated, fully equipped and extremely clean. Its location is very convenient, very close to several subway lines that can take you anywhere in Paris. Nikos is a perfect host, the checkin/checkout system very convenient. Definitely will stay there again and recommend this property.

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