Guest
June 2017
Sykes the company, were great, no problems there. Sadly Beck cottage was not what we expected. Nowhere in the description does it mention that the cottage is actually in the owner's garden! We prefer privacy when we go away and I found the owner to be intrusive. If this information had been available on the listing, we wouldn't have booked.
The car parking space that is mentioned, is on their drive along with other cars coming and going and several people looking into the downstairs area and even shouting through the window at you. It is fine for people who don't mind sharing their holiday.
Another gripe was that when we arrived, one of the things we look forward to the most is to open the door and explore the place, even having a joke over who will be the one to open the door. We had expected to just get the keys from behind a plant pot or somewhere like that, like at every other place we've stayed, and we stay at a lot of places, but the owner was waiting for us as we pulled in, we both groaned but little did we know that it wasn't just to hand the keys over. She actually unlocked the door and proceeded to show us each room from where the fridge was to the dishwasher to the washing machine (even being told she didn't think we would need to use the washing machine!). She pointed out the log burner....yes...but also saying she didn't think we'd need to use it. Even saying 'And this is a seating area'...not to be rude but yes we can see that, and she kind of took part of the excitement away by not letting us discover everything for ourselves. It was all a bit of a let down.
And another thing that perplexed us was that when she unlocked the door and lead us in, she stopped just past the door and there was an awkward silence for about 15 seconds, and we sort of just stood there...and then I realised she was waiting for us to say it was lovely! I said it was lovely and only then she continued to talk and show us round!
All of these things did not stop us from enjoying ourselves, they were minor irritants, but we should have been made aware of how in your face the owners are. We just pulled the blinds down most of the time.
Maybe a little tip would be to leave a note along with the keys to future guests advising that if they need anything to contact - and then leave a number.
The cottage wasn't as clean as I'd have liked and there were quite a few cobwebs and fluff balls around the place. Luckily I had taken my own washing detergent as there had only been 2 tablets left and the same for the dishwasher. There was no tin foil, only one roll of toilet paper and one kitchen roll. We had brought our own milk and I'm pleased we had because the only milk that was there had been tipped into a tiny jug and stuck in the fridge, it was open and we didn't like that so we didn't use it.
There were 6 eggs but we didn't know how long they had been there for so we didn't use those either.
The bed was comfortable enough, if not a little hard but the pillows were terrible. Extremely thin. Luckily again..we had taken our own so we managed. Another thing will say, please be careful of the huge step in the bathroom, it is not highlighted in anyway and is extremely easy to fall or trip on.
Overall, it was very average and we would not book here again, it wasn't for us.