The Bridges 106 - Mammoth Lakes, CA

Really loved the location. It is ski-in, ski-out, perfect for a ski trip.

Excellent location...ski in/out is right at the end of the building. The condo has nice furniture, very comfortable memory foam mattresses, and a beautiful Mountain View. There’s a bus stop at the bottom of the driveway. The gas fireplace makes it super cozy. Washer and dryer in the unit makes it easy to dry snow gear. Excellent water pressure for hot showers after a day in the slopes. The only negatives were that most of the frying pans are really warped and the WIFI was occasionally slow (but working). But that’s minor and the positives are so many that it warrants a 5 star.

This unit needs to be outfitted to accommodate outdoor activities such as skiing and biking. This unit is great as a hotel room, but needs improvement for a ski-in-ski-out facility.

When we first walked into the condo we were pretty pleased. It seemed clean and the view was awesome (though there wasn't really a "lake view" as mentioned in the title of the listing at the time of our booking. There was a blue dot of a lake you could see many miles in the distance if you stood at the far end of the deck, but the predominant view was of trees and mountains, and it was really quite lovely). The kitchen had a really nice, user-friendly layout and the carpet was seemingly brand new.

Later in the evening we started noticing certain things were busted, however. The fireplace did not work during our stay. The cable went out every 5-10 minutes for 30 seconds at a time. There was no remote control to cable box so had to get up to manually change channel at box-- this also meant there was no tv guide available for local stations. The produce drawer container in the fridge fell out when the drawer was pulled on. The right side of dishwasher handle literally detached from the main dishwasher body when tugged enough to open the dishwasher (looked like someone had actually previously tried to fix it with superglue-- no joke). Three light bulbs were out when we arrived. The hot water heater did not always get hot, though it was always at least lukewarm. The place was not ready to be rented.

The day after we arrived we notified Vacasa of the fireplace, cable, and lightbulb issues using their 1-877 phone number that was listed on the fridge of the rental. A "tech" came out that day but only things that were fixed were 2 of the 3 light bulbs. Nobody left a note or anything about the other issues (and why so hard to even finish replacing light bulbs??). We called the 1-877 phone number again the next day and were told the problems would be fixed. We went to the local Vacasa office in person afterwards and talked to Nancy to underscore the importance of the fireplace to us, and to explain that we might just not understand how to use the remote control and to ask if instructions could be left if it was just an issue of our misunderstanding the device (there was no "welcome guide" or house manual anywhere to be found with instructions for operating anything. At one point I thought the heater was broken too since the heat control next to the heater did not turn on the heat-- it turned out that control was not operational and a control on a totally different wall not near a heater was responsible for turning it on).

A "tech" came out either that day or the day after and determined the fireplace sensor was broken and a part would have to be ordered, but there was again no mention of all the other issues and no offer to place us in another unit that had a working fireplace. Two days before our departure we took time out of our vacation yet again to call-- this time we called the local Vacasa office to explain our situation regarding the cable and other matters and spoke with Nancy again to ask why no one had yet looked into the other issues. She said the two people I had spoken with at the 1-877 number previously had not logged our notification that the cable was not working and the remote control was missing. Pretty frustrating, as I had mentioned it both times.

The day before we checked out, we went into the Vacasa office one last time to voice our discontent that we had essentially been ignored, not offered a replacement rental or anything else to make up for the false advertising. We were given lame excuse after lame excuse: "The cable company has moved to Bishop," "We don't have a full time maintenance person right now," "Our maintenance person is new," etc. None of these things matter to us of course-- the cable needs to work if it is advertised as an amenity. We paid for those amenities. We would never have booked a condo that we knew did not have working cable or fireplace, especially given how empty the town was at that time of year-- we could have had our pick of other rentals that did have working cable and a fireplace.

Eventually as we were about to walk out of the office, Nancy rummaged through some drawers and managed to find a couple of remote controls, new in their packages. She handed them over to us to try. We took them both and the first one worked right out of the box. Then we wondered: why didn't anyone offer us these remotes on day 1 when we mentioned we didn't have one then? It ended up not mattering because the cable kept going out so often, right in the middle of a football play, that it wasn't worth watching. We turned off the tv after about half an hour of utter frustration.

When I checked out on the last day of our stay, the person I dropped off the keys with asked how our stay was. I told her about our experience and she said she would talk with the manager or owner about getting us some kind of discount. Nancy had also said the same thing the day before. She said she had already left her manager a message requesting some compensation for us due to the unacceptable issues we experienced, but the manager would be out until Tuesday, two days after we were checking out. She said her manager would call us. Well it is one week now from that last Tuesday when she was supposed to be back and I have not heard from her. Somehow I am not surprised given the laughably bad service we experienced throughout our stay.

One fully expects an operational fireplace and cable tv when one is promised such amenities. I can live with the other stuff, however rinky-dink and lame it is to have a dishwasher with a handle that detaches when you pull it. Not having the fireplace and cable that were promised to us, and having to continually interrupt our vacation to follow up with Vacasa about it to no avail, really resulted in a sub-par experience and we are even more upset now that nothing has been done to try to make amends with us for Vacasa's failures.

Everything was great except the tv's were not working properly and the view of the lake was not what it was said to be.

We stayed here in the summer and the surroundings are superb! The condo is smaller than others we've stayed in. It's well maintained but compact. It's also part of a larger complex. We personally prefer something more private or removed from neighbors. The views are stunning and the access to the Lakes region is great. Also, it's more updated than most in this price range. I'm sure the ski-in and ski-out in the winter makes it even more special!

The unit has a wonderful view, inside the unit was very clean, but the balcony was full of debris. Nice kitchen and living area. Small bedrooms. Nice furnishings. Airy and light.
The front door should have a deadbolt lock. Missing bathroom screen. Toilet seat deteriorated. Overall very nice, but excessive $200 cleaning? charge.