Garretts Plymouth, Devon

I would like to start this review by saying that the property itself is absolutely lovely, however, similar to a previous review, it is the owner that has somewhat diminished myself and my families view of Garretts. We experienced quite a major issue whilst staying at the property which meant that after three nights in, we were left with no choice but to claim for a full refund and find somewhere else to stay. I do not wish to disclose this issue as I am aware after speaking with the manager (not the owner) of the property that measures are being put in place to stop this from happening in the future. I did however expect to be contacted by Kathryn to explain what she would be doing to rectify the issue. Not once did we receive any communication from Kathryn. No apology, no explanation, nothing. All communication went through Sykes Cottages and the manager of the property (who I must say was extremely lovely and tried his best to help under the circumstances). Sykes on the other hand, were quite frankly useless. They were not accommodating when trying to help us find another place to stay, and they also did not chase Kathryn for the 10% compensation that she said she would pay towards the cost of somewhere new. Yes, we haven’t forgotten about this. Luckily, we managed to find somewhere else to stay, however we are now substantially out of pocket. The least I would expect is for Kathryn to honour her 10% compensation towards the cost of somewhere new. One of the most important things to me when staying at a holiday home, is communication. It is YOUR home, it should therefore be YOUR responsibility to be on hand to speak with the holiday letters, especially under circumstances such as this. Of course I understand that Sykes and the hiring manager are on hand to oversee the management and organisation of bookings, but it does not cost anything to have the courtesy and decency to pick up the phone and have a conversation with your holiday letters. If Kathryn were to have rung us, honoured the compensation offered and spoke to us herself, I can guarantee I would not be writing this type of review. It really is a dire shame because of the character and location of the property. I am really sad about what happened because we were so looking forward to spending our week here, but the situation meant that we had to move, which overall lead to an extremely stressful week (not what you expect on your holidays!).

We arrived in Cawsand on Saturday 6th August having booked for one week with Air bnb. No host met us, no details of how to get the keys despite numerous messages, no telephone number provided, no replies to any messages! Absolute nightmare ensued. We didn’t complain until the Monday as we eventually got in thanks to local people making lots of enquires and amazingly a local person’s sister stayed and the code was the same! We were outside for hours. Kathryn didn’t actually get in touch until after we made our complaint, no apology, blamed everyone else bar herself and we never heard from her again until we left. Zero responsibility and refused to give any compensation until Air bnb gave us £72! That was all we got. In addition to this when we arrived there were two used grey towels behind doors, quite a lot of cobwebs and the cutlery drawer obviously hadn’t been cleaned in sometime, lots of old debris when we took out the tray to clean it. All of which we wouldn’t even have mentioned if the host had ensured we got keys, apologised, made amends. If you’re wondering why we stayed, we had spent over 20 hours travelling to this accommodation and everywhere was sold out. Our return journey booked for the following Saturday night, we had no choice. The house itself is spacious, Cawsand is a beautiful village. It is the host you need to worry about. Today, 6 days after our return she has lodged a false complaint against us, in her own words accused us of ‘trashing the place, ruining her carpets and urinating on a bed!’ Thankfully for us, I videoed the entire property before we left so I’ve evidence to counter her allegations. She also accused us of putting food (orange skins) under a bed - we did see these under the bed when we were stripping it, the only reason we actually saw them was when we removed the sheet we saw the mattress protector was badly stained. We didn’t want this being covered up on another guest so we removed it, the mattress moved and we saw the food material under the bed. It wasn’t ours, we cleaned up so much already that we certainly weren’t cleaning someone else’s mess that they hadn’t noticed prior to our stay. They photographed a towel that they’d obviously dragged around a dirty floor and tried to accuse us of it. This woman is an nightmare, avoid at all costs. We paid £2977 for the week to stay at what we thought would be a lovely holiday. The house lovely but did have cleanliness issues, the host is someone who should be avoided at all costs. She has zero respect for her guests, zero communication and must just be in this for easy money and when she feels slighted she’s them for even more money. I don’t know yet what the outcome of her claim will be but please be aware, I wouldn’t want anyone else to have the experience we have had.

We stayed at Garretts for a week, whilst getting married at Polhawn Fort. We were welcomed with roses and wine to welcome us. The house is located perfectly in between pubs and beaches of Cawsand and Kingsand, as well as next door to 'The Old Bakery'. The house itself is outstanding! Each floor is spacious and has been given a modern yet warm revamp. We will definitely be booking to stay again. Our dog loved it there too. Thank you for making our week the best week of our lives.