“When we arrived at the cottage it was disappointing to see in one of the double bedrooms the toilet and shower were not working and a sign on the door.”
We had received no communication about this prior to arriving or any compensation for not being able to use it. Secondly, we booked a long weekend stay from Friday night to Monday, and we found another note on the Hot tub informing us we could not use it until Saturday P.M. I feel we lost a night by not being able to use it. Thirdly, we found cobwebs in the rooms, on the walls and lights hanging from the ceiling. We could not access the property till 4pm on the Friday due to cleaning but I felt the cottage was not sufficiently cleaned! My last point is check out time was 9 am Monday morning, I rang the owner a week beforehand to request a later check out, he asked me to request again on the Sunday before we leave on the Monday, which I did message him only to receive a message back saying "If I had known on Friday I could have changed it sorry" which did not make sense as I had spoken to him! I explained the situation again only to receive a message at 6:39 a.m. (the next day Monday) basically saying if we do not vacate the property I will be charged for late check out - I was upset, woken early by the message and confirmed we would leave by 9. At 7:10 a.m I received another message informing us that we could stay till 1030 a.m as the plumber would be arriving. This is not how i wanted to end my weekend away. Please understand my family and I enjoyed the cottage, it is spacious, football table, pool table and hot tub but there is a lack of customer service. I have stayed at previous cottages on a family break and the owners have been attentive, checking in with us to ensure everything is ok and meeting our needs. I feel after this occasion I would not stay here again.
Thank you for your feedback, we are glad that you enjoyed the property and its facilities.
However, we are surprised with regards to the issues you have raised.
We ask all guests on arrival if everything is ok, we are on hand during the stay for guests to contact us should they have any issues or questions. From our records we asked you on arrival if everything was ok, and to let us know immediately if there were any issues. None of the issues raised in your review were brought to our attention during your stay. During communication with the lead booker on your second day, the response we received was ‘loving your cottage, it’s perfect for us.’ We are sorry if you feel that our communication did not meet your expectations.
The property has 8 toilets, one was not in use. Unfortunately, the toilet repair has taken longer than we had expected. This has now been resolved, we apologise if this was not communicated to you before you arrived. The shower was operational, there is no sign on the shower saying that it is not.
The hot tub was emptied, sanitised and filled following the previous guests. When there is a changeover on the same day the water then takes up to 24 hours to get to 37 degrees. If guests wish to use the hot tub sooner then that is absolutely fine, but it will not be up to temperature. The information in the property description has been updated to reflect this and guests are already made aware of this in the welcome pack.
We have passed the comments to the cleaning team, however looking through their handover form, the property was clean and ready to welcome you. Having checked the walls and ceilings, I myself could only find one cobweb on a tall ceiling in the living room. If you had raised this during your stay, then we could have resolved this issue for you.
On the booking form guests are made aware that check in is from 4pm, if the property is ready then an earlier check in may be possible.
The check out time is 9:00am as stated on the property information, this is to allow the team to access the property and to get it ready for the next guests. Where it is possible and guests request a later check out in good time (before they start their stay) then we have tried to accommodate this, however this is not always possible. We are also not always able to confirm this until later in a guest’s stay due to cleaning schedules. You did ask us to consider you remaining at the property until 10:00am in the bedrooms and to leave the property at 11:00am, and the cleaners could enter the property to clean with you in the building. Unfortunately, this is not something we could accommodate as all guests must have vacated the property before the cleaners arrive. We received a response from the team on the day of departure and informed you that a 10:30am checkout was possible, this was confirmed in a text at 7:10am.
Property Owner
