Mrs Price
July 2018
I haven't been able to fill in the 'Your Holiday Cottage' part of the feedback properly because the boxes to choose from aren't showing what they represent (very good, good, poor etc) so please ignore the above.. My thoughts would be Accuracy - good, Cleanliness - poor, Comfort - good, Facilities - average.
My feedback:
Despite giving an average review on your website for Porthmeor Beach House last year we decided to rebook for this year due to the location of the property and the stunning views, which on reflection is the main thing we paid for with this property.
After arriving very early in St Ives on the first day of our stay we were disappointed to be told that we couldn't enter the property until 6.30 that evening due to there being an issue with the cleaning company. We advised CCH that a Tesco order was to be delivered between 4 and 5 and so had to enter the property. We met the cleaners, who had been drafted in from elsewhere. They did their best but unfortunately they had only arrived at 2.00pm so could not have managed to clean the whole house between the two of them in 4.5 hours. We actually helped them in the kitchen in the end and asked them to leave other things so they could leave us and we could start our holiday. A very disappointing start, not to mention a not thoroughly cleaned house.
We discovered the next day that not enough towels had been left for all the guests (two children had no towels) so I phoned CCH to ask for more and they promised to contact the company responsible and get them dropped off. They never arrived so the children ended up sharing towels. It also transpired that there was no hot water (which meant the cleaners had used cold water to clean the property!). After wading through the very complicated and unhelpful Hive instructions to no avail I found that the hot water had been turned off under the stairs. Unfortunately, however, there was no hot water to be had in the sink in the top bathroom (the same as last year).
We decided to read the guest book and were shocked by the previous guests 4 page review who were more than unhappy. We then started to find a few of the things they had mentioned had still not been addressed before our arrival - upstairs shower still fills up too quickly (as it did last year), the downstairs toilet was still leaking, lots of bulbs blown esp, in kitchen etc. The thing that worried us most, however, was that the electric was still tripping so there is something somewhere in the house that is at fault and is a potential fire or electrocution hazard - unacceptable for a holiday home.
The house generally needs some TLC as it looks grubby in places and lots of little things need attending to (damp patches, missing handles, misted double glazing, plumbing etc) and I find it difficult to understand why these things haven’t been addressed considering the amount of money being charged for high season bookings. I am assuming that the owners of the property don't ever visit to see how their house is deteriorating and the service from CCH has been less than perfect, hence my negative feedback.
We did enjoy our holiday despite all of these niggles but they certainly took the edge off our experience. We had considered returning to the property but have decided not to as the price had risen by £400 from 2017 to 2018 but the house was in a worse state of repair. I dread to think how much it will be next year for a house that is becoming shabbier and shabbier by the week. Unfortunately it is also making us think twice about booking another property with CCH.