The Old Cornhill Snowdonia, Gwynedd

The apartment is in a lovely part of Porthmadog – near to the facilities in the town but far enough away for them not to be obtrusive. There is a great view, from the lounge window of the apartment, over the marina, towards the mountains. The instructions supplied by Sykes Cottages to gain entry to the apartment are confusing. The address given for The Old Cornhill is No6. But the door has a Number 2 on it. But there are two doors with Number 2 on them. You need to use the one at the back of the building, along the short, damp, rubbish-strewn alley way. There are two key boxes – use the one on the left of the front door. And the 5 digit code you are given is incorrect as the key box has only 4 digits. You need to omit the 0 at the end of the number you are given. It seems to us that the apartment was renovated for holiday lets about 15 years ago and has been left to fall into decline ever since. The two sofas are saggy, shabby and uncomfortable and the cushion covers are stained. The mattress of the double bed falls away at its edges as the edge springs have failed. The bed is very low to the ground and 4 flat pillows are supplied. There is a lot of black mould on the grout in the shower. The bathroom sink plug hole does not fit and your bowl of water will seep away whilst you are using it. The kitchen sink tap drips. The front door is not very secure and better locks would be advisable. The windows are draughty and, when it is windy, the wind whistles through them. The electrical items display stickers that state the last electrical test was in November 2022. There is an iron with a ‘failed – do not use’ sticker on it. There is an airer that has a broken catch so you have to lean it up against something otherwise it falls over. The oven door doesn’t close properly. The drawer of the washing machine was full of black mould when we came to use it. The freezer is heavily frosted up and, as a result, we could only open one of the three drawers. The cooker hood filters smell strongly of grease. The kitchen is fairly well equipped but a set of tongs would be useful and there are only 2 teaspoons and 2 mugs (4 or more of everything else). One of the wine glasses was cracked. Many of the glasses have dishwasher burn. We could hear every footstep made by the users of the apartment above us and, from our bathroom, we could hear nearly every word said by the users of the apartment alongside. The listing says there is a patio or outdoor seating area. This takes the form of a few pieces of broken and dirty garden furniture against the wall in the small courtyard where residents park and the bins are stored. The bins were overflowing and there was rubbish on the ground in the courtyard. One bin, in particular, was overflowing when we arrived and was only emptied a fortnight later as we were leaving. The gateway to the courtyard is very narrow and the courtyard has room for 2 cars if they are parked well. The spaces outside the building, on the road, were always taken and so we parked in one of the 20 or so spaces outside the Pen Cei pub along the road. The listing states the apartment has a TV. It is not a smart TV and only offers the freeview channels. The remote control for the TV does not work (we changed the batteries and it still did not work) so you have to use the channel and sound buttons on the back of the TV. The USB port on the side of the TV does not work. There is a blu-ray player but it and the TV do not ‘talk to one another’ and so the blu-ray player is useless. We reported this to Sykes Cottages AKA Menai Holidays on our second day and did not receive a response for 5 days. They sent round a ‘technician’ in our absence but the problems were not fixed. We reported this to Sykes/Menai but never heard from them again.

This is a lovely, well thought out, nicely equipped, clean and tidy flat on the second floor. The bed was comfortable but low down. The bathroom clean and shower maintained temperature. The arrival instructions from the booking agent were clear and concise. View of the harbour from the front window Parking in a shared courtyard or out on the harbour lay by. The entrance is at the back of the building and not nice, damp and mossy as it faces a large stone wall. It needs some tlc The main downside being; the floors all creak, it's not soundproofed-so you can hear all the goings on in the neighbouring flats, this then made us concious of our noise level, if we could hear them, they surely heard us (apologies) - and so not very relaxing!