Just Another Customer

Crayons and FernGully - Not a Bad Rainy Day at All

Attention owners of vacation rentals - is your property rainy day friendly?

Event: Vacation
Location: Fort Loudon, PA
Company: Long-Vu Rentals
Customer Experience Grade: A

What was done right:
My brother-in-law works on an organic vegetable farm in south central Pennsylvania (New Morning Farm) and, last week, my family and I took a brief vacation to visit him. Last year, when planning a similar excursion, we used an extremely valuable Web site, VRBO, to find a rental property near the farm. It is a two bedroom log cabin about 1/2 hour from the farm and just a few minutes away from beautiful Cowan’s Gap State Park. We had a great time last year and rented the cabin for a 2nd time this past week.

The afternoon of our first day there we spent the entire time touring the farm and only came back to the cabin in the evening. The next day, our one full day there, it rained…and rained…and rained…and rained. We had plans to spend a good portion of the day at Cowan’s Gap Park but that really wasn’t an option with the steady rain. Years ago, I would have been perfectly content to spend a restful and a relaxing day in the cabin catching up on some reading or, even better, some sleep. Those types of plans are no longer an option with rambunctious four and one-year old girls.

Fortunately, the owners of the cabin did a good job of ensuring that there were a good supply of activities for just such an emergency. There were crayons, coloring books, games, puzzles (better for older kids) and a few children’s videos. None of these items were new and the videos were not the latest Hollywood releases (we watched an old Donald Duck cartoon and FernGully: The Last Rainforest) but they did the trick. They kept the kids just happy and occupied enough to make sure that the rain didn’t put a damper on our spirits, our vacation and on the experience. A rainy vacation can be a disastrous vacation and one never knows when this might happen. Everyone who operates a “Vacation Rental by Owner” would be well served to anticipate this and equip their property accordingly.

What was done wrong:
There is apparently a small animal that frequently visits the cabin at night. Based on some of the recent entries in the cabin’s guest book, the best guess is that it is a squirrel. It did not cause us any problems the first night but the second evening there was loud, prolonged scratching within the cabin walls on and off throughout the night. This was rural Pennsylvania and this was a cabin and this type of thing can certainly be expected. Nonetheless, if the owners are aware of this, I hope they will take some action to resolve this problem. I look forward to returning to the cabin next year and a little more peace and quiet at night would make a big difference.

Suggestions to Improve the Customer Experience:

• The guest book had some interesting comments but they were mostly about how much everyone enjoyed the cabin. Although interesting, it was probably of greater value to the owners as a mechanism for collecting feedback. I would have preferred commentary from past visitors about what they had visited in the area and what their experience was. A map mashup or wiki isn’t really feasible as there is no Internet access but it could be as simple a wall map with numbered pushpins and a corresponding logbook. We had plenty to do in our short visit to the area and we know the region fairly well but new ideas are always welcome - particularly for rainy days!
• Although it did not matter much that the games and videos were out-of-date, it would be nice to have some newer items - particularly the coloring and puzzle books.