My girlfriend and I visited the apartment this past weekend for our 1-year anniversary and had a lovely time. If I could give this apartment 3.5 stars then I would, but here are my thoughts on the apartment:
POSITIVES:
1. Location, Location, Location! - smack dab on the main road in Downtown Pacific Grove. You can walk to cafes and restaurants, walk to the ocean, and uber just about everywhere else in the Monterey area, including the Aquarium and Cannery Row. Very convenient. Parking was fairly easy as well.
2. Price - The Monterey area in general is SUPER expensive. This apartment, for what it is, is overpriced. However, when you compare it to other 2-bedrooms in the area (and I did a TON of research on this before booking), and with it's proximity to the ocean, it's in the top 15% of most inexpensive 2-bedrooms in the area. So I can't fault the owners for pricing according to the market they're in.
NEGATIVES:
1. Not Fresh? - When you book a rental, there is an expectation of a "crispness/freshness" that you desire so you don't think about all of the people before you who have rented the place. You want a clean smell and everything to FEEL clean. It was not the case with this apartment. My girlfriend and I continuously had stuffy noses and allergy issues within the apartment. As soon as we stepped outside and breathed in the ocean air, the stuffiness went away, so it was definitely something in the home. Previous pets maybe? It just didn't have that crispness to it. The instructions for checking-out require that you take out the trash and load & run the dishwasher which also led me to believe that this apartment is rarely if ever professionally cleaned.
2. Needs Updating/More TLC - There were many small details lacking that with a little more TLC could have easily boosted this to a 4-star review. There were no garbage bags in the apartment. The towels were very old, mismatched, and falling apart. The handsoap was empty and we had to refill it ourselves. There was hair on the bathroom floor. The sheets of the bed were so old that they were pilling. Leftover ice cream in the freezer. No Keurig coffee machine (but there was an old coffee-pot machine).
So all-in-all we would say it was a positive stay but we will probably stay elsewhere next time. NOTE: Also it is attached to the movie theater and you can hear the sounds coming into the home. It didn't bother us, but if you're sensitive to sound it's something to consider.