Thank you for the lovely curated week, I really enjoyed meeting you and the other women on the trip. I’ve always loved Florence, and it was such a pleasure to be back with good company. It was a good balance of down time and touring. Loved the fact there was a photographer for the trip. Excellent restaurant selections! Leaving off one star because of accommodations. The housing accommodation was, well, spartan. I was led to believe we were going to be pampered. I expected a cozy hotel or a staffed retreat house. I did not expect an Air B&B. Don’t get me wrong, the view was fantastic, but the eyes just make up one part of the experience. 1. There was no housekeeping, my bed was not made every day and my room tidied. I don’t feel like I’m on vacation when I still have to make my bed and tidy the room. There wasn’t even a trash can in my room. 2. Sharing a bathroom with four women. 😳 I was expecting my own en suite bathroom to be shared with a roommate. It should have been disclosed that this wasn’t an option for everyone. I didn’t even think to ask because the last time I had to share a bathroom with that many strangers was when I was staying in a hostel as a teenager in Poland. Also, if I had known I would have brought shower shoes and a bathrobe. 3. The bedrooms were not comfortable. There was no place to retreat to for quiet time. No chair in the room or desk for writing. 4. Hardly any linen. We had one bath towel, one hand towel and one washcloth for the whole week. This is just gross. Again, laundry is something I avoid on vacation because, vacation. Also, we didn’t have regular hand towels in any of the bathrooms. And I had to steal a kitchen towel to use as a bathmat, otherwise there was wet slippery marble tile. 5. The bathroom was not cleaned all week. There were poop stains in the toilet multiple times (not mine) that I cleaned with toilet brush. I had to clean out hair accumulation (again not mine) in the shower. 🤮 I also restocked the toilet paper a few times in our bathroom, apparently no one replaces the last roll. Again, I’m on vacation. Why? 6. I didn’t like the fact that we didn’t have a front desk to monitor comings and goings. A couple times I tried to read in the living room and just spent the whole time getting up and down to get the door. 7. The kitchen situation. If there was staff making coffee and catering, a kitchen is nice. But I felt like I was in college again, not in a good way. Open food containers on the counter all week. 8. I don’t like sorting trash on vacation. I touched way too much trash on this vacation. Overflowing trash bins aren’t appealing. I don’t know if I would attend another retreat if they have similar accommodations. However, would definitely recommend otherwise. Per your response on Feb 5: Again, the planned trip excursions were lovely, which is why I rated four stars. But my experience was not the restorative experience I expected because of the issues I pointed out. For me, a clean space is really important for my mental peace and well-being. I appreciate your perspective, that some of these issue could have been resolved if I talked to you. I didn’t feel like I needed to verbally point most of these things out, to me they seemed like obvious points of hospitality, but it appears my standards are higher. I understand now our priorities in this area don't quite align. As for living like a local, I had every other day housekeeping when I lived in Italy, and my own bathroom. Also, none of the things I mentioned were included in the “what to expect,” and “what is not included”as you indicated. I have screenshots of all these descriptions. It looks like a person can have very different expectations based on your descriptions of accommodations for your Florence trip, and they need significant clarification.