Nice but neglected and badly managed
Review Submitted: January 31, 2012
Date of Stay: January 2012
Cute quaint cottage in great location But have to say we were very disappointed. On the booking website it said electricity by meter. But what it didn't say was everything was electricity, cost us a fortune to stay for a week in January almost as much as we paid to rent the place. We could have rented a nicer cottage with inclusive electric for the total amount we spent. The description was 'home from home' but when we arrived, the place was a bit grubby, broken tin opener, fire place full of ash, empty box of fire lighters so we couldn't light a fire. leaking sky light in bathroom, toilet leaked all over our clean towels on the day we arrived. Oven no numbers on the knobs so we burnt so much of our food trying to guess the heat. We thought there might have been a washing machine in a 'home from home' house and no where to dry any hand washed clothes that we did wash. No shelf or cupboard to put any food we had, and 1 cupboard full of old food left by previous guests. Because of the cost of electric nearly £10 per day we were worried about having a shower or leaving a lamp on as we just didn't budget for this. We booked the cottage because it was reasonable compared to others in the area but we feel we booked under false pre tenses. I emailed the owner about the electric but her reply was 'that does sound dear, but the tariff has gone up recently'. Then no reply to my next message. Dirty used bath mats that smelt. Another thing was that we had to clean the cottage before we left, which took us half a day as the place was dirty when we arrived and I could not for shame to leave it like that for the next guests. It also says please leave the amount on the electric meter that was on when you arrived, so that was £3.70, but surprise surprise you can I only put a minimum of £5 on the key. So with £1.80 left on that would have meant leaving her £6.80. I've cancelled my other booking for my honey moon in may, And I would not recommend this cottage to anyone who has any kind of cleanliness or basis standards for a holiday. I've stayed at pontins in southport for less money and it felt the same kind of standard.
Owner's Response: This review in no way represents the views of the vast majority of our guests, in fact it is the first of its kind. Our guest book gives an accurate reflection of our many satisfied customers who have simply fallen in love with our simple basic budget holiday home.Although, tempted to respond to each negative comment we have decided to respond to 2 points. Firstly there was a leak on the toilet which you let us know about on Sat morning and which was sorted by lunchtime on Sat afternoon. We offered you clean towels which you refused and when we asked if everything else was ok you assured us that it was, we have the e-mails as evidence of this. We rely on the services of a housekeeper who has never given reason for concern and cleans to the same high standards as we do. Unless we are told of any issues we cannot do anything about them, we feel that we gave you the opportunity to express any concern you may have had at that time. We could not apologise enough for the inconvenience of a leeking toilet however these things happen unfortunately. Secondly, we have taken your energy cost concerns on board and we are in the process of changing our energy supplier. We are confident that we can reduce the cost of electric within the next few weeks, however we do not set the tariff or gain from it. We would also stress that having a key meter is a great way of being energy conscious and not wasting much needed resources. We are very sad to find out at this stage that you were not happy, had we known at the time we would certainly have endeavoured to do anything in our power to make your stay more comfortable. Unfortunately as hard as we try we cannot please all the people all of the time. That said if coming 1st means a lot to you, congratulations ! - you are the 1st guests to have not enjoyed our 'chocolate box 'idyll '!
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