Story Time: Awesome Surprise or Worst Nightmare?

You are going to love this.

Or hate it.

I was planning and organising a big trip to the USA over Christmas for us. We were flying into Boston for a few days then driving to Vermont for Christmas and then dropping the car back in Boston before catching a train to NYC. I thought it could be cool to check out Salem, Massachusetts. I like history and I was interested in checking out the town that’s famous for the witch trials. The town is only a 30-minute drive from Boston Logan international airport where we were returning the car so it seemed kind of fun to stay somewhere different as we had to stay the night somewhere anyway.

Considering our Airbnb guide – we only needed somewhere to sleep so I picked a Superhost private room in a house near the centre of Salem with free parking, good wifi, and impeccable reviews. This is what it looked like when I booked it.

Now I am a very prepared traveller so I booked this precisely just over 3 months out to arrival date. I don’t think that’s crazy early, to be honest, but it was early enough for me to completely miss the severe renovations that occurred in this room before our arrival.

December 2018 we arrived at the Airbnb and as explained by our host in email – we parked in the driveway next to the ‘Rose Cottage’. It was dark and a little eerie for us but that’s because we just came from the witch trials museum and well, we were in Salem. The instructions were to just come on through the front door (Welcome to America) and we had details of how to find our room in the cottage.

As soon as we opened the front door we walked straight into a sheet that was made to look like a bookshelf…and suddenly I hear someone say “Wave your wand to open the bookcase” – We both looked at each other, laughed and obviously waved our wands and went on in. Nothing could’ve prepared me for where I would be next. I started to wonder if we were in the right place. Our host in the photo had brown hair but the person I was standing in front of had pink hair. The living room was no longer a cottage, but actually Gryffindor Common Room. There was nothing about what I booked that was being reflected by what my eyes were seeing and well, it was hilarious.

We were shown our room and remember what it looked like? Well, this is what it now looked like.

Please enjoy the following photos

Now, some people have said that this could’ve ruined their holiday, and a few people said they would’ve had nightmares (lol) but Harry Potter or Fantastic beasts fans would be celebrating. It certainly didn’t ruin our holiday and we certainly didn’t have nightmares. It was one of the best nights of sleep I had on our whole holiday, and I’m a big fan of both The Harry Potter books and Fantastic Beasts films.

The next morning we were leaving early so we had planned to just sneak out unnoticed, leave our wands and head through the bookcase to hit the road. Instead, our host was waiting for us! She had prepared breakfast – eggs and bacon and homemade gluten-free muffins – not only had she woken up extra early to cook it for us but she had wrapped it all in foil and put it in a takeaway container for our drive back to Boston! She was amazing and our whole experience – no matter how crazy it was, still lead me to leave perfect reviews for the newly named ‘Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts Room’

If you travel enough you will realise that traveling is an absolute catalyst for surprises and the unknown. It’s all part of it. Embrace it! I do believe in complaining if you aren’t receiving what you paid for (it’s important) but this was just too good. 5 stars.

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Want to book this Airbnb in Salem? You can here.