This cottage is located within ten minutes of our son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren, and my husband and I had high hopes to enjoy this home and stay repeatedly. Because I was so excited about the size and location, I put down a deposit right away, and then promptly paid the balance the week prior to our stay. I had no communication with the owner, Stacey. I was not concerned, as I had stayed at vrbo homes four times prior in four different states and had excellent experiences. A week prior to our stay, I messaged Stacey through the proper channels of this site and did not hear anything back. I was aware that the owner did not provide keys or entrance information too far in advance. I was only looking for a, "Yes, we have you confirmed and we are looking forward to your stay." I sent her several messages in the days leading up to our scheduled arrival, and about five frantic messages the day prior, the last of which was, "Stacey, I don't feel comfortable landing in Atlanta not hearing from you. If I don't hear from you, I'll need to cancel this stay." When I went to bed at 9pm the night before, I had not a single response. The next morning, at 4am, as we were up to catch our flight, I finally received three messages from her. The first seemed to be the general one, as it was not personalized to us, the second was a lengthy explanation; she had changed internet providers. I don't know if I believe this as I have to assume she still had access to a phone some time during the week. The last message was to tell me that she had refunded our money. So she never even gave us the option to still stay. With a genuine apology and a reasonable explanation, we still would have stayed. Instead, we had to drive around stopping at hotels for availability before we could visit with the kids. This was by far the worst vrbo experience I've had, and I will be very reluctant to use vrbo in the future. The only good thing I can say is that she did refund our money, as I was very worried about that being an issue.