Our vacation rental was supposed to be a delightful retreat, but it quickly turned into a culinary comedy of errors. Picture this: a hopeful family of 7, ready to enjoy a cozy home-away-from-home meal after a full day at Silverwood, only to discover that the oven was more of a chilly cupboard, & the BBQ a metal block of false promises. Our current & future dinner plans crumbled faster than a poorly baked pie crust. The oven, which couldn't muster the heat to cook an egg, left our chicken pot pie in a state of raw ambition. The BBQ, on the other hand, was as empty as our stomachs, with a valve more stuck than our situation. Sandwiches became the unexpected heroes of the first day, saving us from the growling beasts of hunger. When we reached out to the property manager, his response time was longer than the lifespan of leftover sandwiches. If I had known that 'fully-equipped kitchen' meant testing our survival skills, I would've opted for a hotel with a pool & a buffet instead of a culinary obstacle course. As for the playground promised in the listing? It was as real as a unicorn, though we did find a deflated ball, a fitting metaphor for our deflated expectations.
Despite the unexpected twist in our vacation plot, where cooking turned into a culinary quest beyond our rental's kitchen, VRBO & the property owner seemed to miss the memo where compensation saves the day. They called it a 'minor inconvenience,' but we were left to embark on a costly pursuit of sustenance.