Rustic Cottage with great potential
Review Submitted: May 23, 2011
Date of Stay: May 2011
Our family definitely enjoyed our stay in Scotland and at "the cottage". We loved being on the Loch and the privacy offered. After reading other reviews I definitely had higher expectations at first though. The cottage was very cold when we arrived (we did get this regulated and much warmer for the duration of our stay) and I felt a hand rail should be provided for safety when climbing to the second floor bedroom. You can definitely see the upgrades that have been done (new windows, trim, shower) but I would suggest replacing the carpet in the dining area and main part of the cottage as it is looking very worn now. After that a weekend to do some minor repairs (drawer and cupboard doors in the kitchen) and a quick coat of paint to freshen it up again will certainly increase it's rating in my eyes.
A highlight was the conservatory with it's windows all around- great place to relax.
The cottage is about 25 minute drive from Inverness so be sure to leave travel time in your itinery. We competed lots of great day trips- tour to Falls at Foyer, Castles in Elgin, Banff, Stirling, Fort George, day in Inverness- all were interesting and part of the Scotland experience
Iain and Turan were a delight to deal with and I wish them great success with their cottage. We certainly enjoyed ourselves here.
Recommended for:
Pet-friendly,
Adventure Seekers,
Girls Getaway,
Sightseeing,
Families with Teenagers,
Families with Young Children
Owner's Response: We're delighted you enjoyed yourselves in The Cottage and found it a great touring base and loved the views and the conservatory. We do feel you have been rather harsh is rating The Cottage at just 3 out of 5. You are the first people in over ten years of us welcoming holiday makers to The Cottage to award it less than 5 out of 5. We have very recently had new windows installed throughout the cottage, a new heating and hot water system and much redecoration so we don't understand what was so serious that warranted your rating. You were disappointed with three things, firstly you say the cottage was cold when you arrived. Our new heating system is very sophisticated and we have programmed it to come on 2 hours before holiday makers arrive, so that The Cottage is nice and warm on arrival. We can only think that you arrived earlier than the agreed 4pm on Saturday, in which case, the Cottage may well have been cold. But we are glad that you were nice and warm for the whole of your stay from shortly after arriving. Secondly you say there was a loose kitchen unit door and a stiff drawer. While these are very minor repairs, if you had told us we would have had them fixed immediately, as we do with all repairs we are alerted to, but it is clearly not a factor that would have affected your enjoyment of the cottage or use of the kitchen to any great degree. Thirdly, you say the carpet in the dining area was rather worn. Actually, the previous holiday makers had spilled red wine on the carpet, and in the few hours we had between them leaving and you arriving, we managed to remove most of the stain but did not manage to get all of the stain out of the carpet, and left a note explaining and apologising. We have since managed to remove the last of the stain, but such things are not always possible to completely rectify in the short time we have to change over from one party to another. Again, this would not have affected your enjoyment or use of all the facilities in the cottage and also does not seem a very serious matter. The holiday makers the week before you, wrote in the visitors book "wonderful cottage with everything we needed. You have thought of everything!" which is the sort of response we are more used to getting. We do try our best to make every holiday special for our guests and are pleased that you seem to have had a great holiday despite these issues, and that you found us delightful to deal with.
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Helpful votes: 3/3
