Dog Friendly Alnwick Holiday Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Helen - Verified booking

  This is a mixed review…read on!

  Good things: lovely fluffy bath towels, comfy sitting room with smart TV. Warm and cozy. Shower very powerful and hot though needed the shower head connected to the bath taps rather than the electric shower which was pitiful, as they often are. Shops and pub close by (though see below on this!) However, there are some significant downsides. The property backs right on to the dual carriageway A1. It is VERY noisy. We had super weather but sitting out in the garden was not possible, for us at least, if you don’t mind noise and traffic fumes then it won’t be a problem. It is also right on the edge of an enterprise park/industrial estate. Again, if you need something from Screwfix or a new kitchen from Howdens it could be for you! None of this is mentioned in the property details and it needs to be. ok, we could see on the map that there was an A road nearby but never having been to the area before we’d assumed it would be a reasonably quiet one. We certainly hadn’t noticed an industrial estate. The pub that is referred to in the guide to this property is a large road pub not the cosy country pub we had imagined. Inside the property was basically equipped in the cheapest way possible. The bedding was very poor quality, cheap flat pillows and synthetic duvet, the covers were a horrid poly cotton. Hot and sweaty to sleep in. The kitchen was poorly equipped. The plates were scratched and chipped and the poor selection of glassware had cracks in it. There were plenty of wine glasses but no pint glasses at all. No teapot. I get that this is a business but we stay in a lot of holiday properties, at least five a year. We spent nearly £700 on this for an out of season week in April. I’d expect it to be better equipped and with higher quality linen etc. we usually find a welcome pack of coffee, tea, milk, often a bottle of wine and some local delicacy (Welsh cakes in Wales a few weeks ago) All that was provided were a couple of sachets of coffee and squeeze tubes of UHT milk. There were no basics like cling film or foil. Just not encountered this before. Overall, we loved Northumberland and will be back. We’ll just avoid this property.

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• Sally - Verified booking

  One of the poorest, most disappointing holiday cottages I’ve stayed in - certainly with Sykes - which is a shame because almost all of the problems could be fixed at no or very little cost.

  The property was dirty - the smell hit you immediately on walking inside and was pervasive. The floors were covered in bits, even the crockery had bits of food stuck to all the dishes and plates. The place was teeming with wildlife - cobwebs everywhere and daddy long legs crawling out when you moved anything. Basically needed a thorough clean - and clearly hadn’t had one for some time. A few things seemed very basic - not even a bar of soap in the bathroom and only one poor quality loo roll to last the week (potentially between 3 people) - not up to Sykes’ usual standards and I would have much preferred a few basics to fancy wine and coffee. Garden was overgrown and grass wasn’t cut all week, despite leaving the gate unlocked all week for the gardener (and apparently hadn’t been cut the previous week as the people staying there had locked the gate so the gardener couldn’t get in). A pretty major downside was that it was blighted by road noise from the A1 which was about 50 yards from the rear of the property. You should state this in the property details as there is nothing to indicate this and the photos make it look as if it’s in the middle of the countryside. Finally, my only request while I was away was where to find the key to the patio door in the lounge. I raised this as soon as I arrived and nobody got back to me by the time I left (even to say you’d been unable to find out where it was). Again, a pretty poor show. So all in all very disappointing.

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• Sally - Verified booking

  One of the poorest, most disappointing holiday cottages I’ve stayed in - certainly with Sykes - which is a shame because almost all of the problems could be fixed at no or very little cost.

  The property was dirty - the smell hit you immediately on walking inside and was pervasive. The floors were covered in bits, even the crockery had bits of food stuck to all the dishes and plates. The place was teeming with wildlife - cobwebs everywhere and daddy long legs crawling out when you moved anything. Basically needed a thorough clean - and clearly hadn’t had one for some time. A few things seemed very basic - not even a bar of soap in the bathroom and only one poor quality loo roll to last the week (potentially between 3 people) - not up to Sykes’ usual standards and I would have much preferred a few basics to fancy wine and coffee. Garden was overgrown and grass wasn’t cut all week, despite leaving the gate unlocked all week for the gardener (and apparently hadn’t been cut the previous week as the people staying there had locked the gate so the gardener couldn’t get in). A pretty major downside was that it was blighted by road noise from the A1 which was about 50 yards from the rear of the property. You should state this in the property details as there is nothing to indicate this and the photos make it look as if it’s in the middle of the countryside. Finally, my only request while I was away was where to find the key to the patio door in the lounge. I raised this as soon as I arrived and nobody got back to me by the time I left (even to say you’d been unable to find out where it was). Again, a pretty poor show. So all in all very disappointing.

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• Martin - Verified booking

  Loved the whole experience of the cottage, Alnwick and the wider Northumberland area.

  Locals lovely, neighbours lovely and a great parking spot as I drive a pickup truck. Bed amazingly comfy and loved the lounge chairs that , at the click of a switch turned into luxury slouching chairs. I've genuinely never been on one of these before. As others have said cottage is a little dated in the kitchen but absolutely nothing wrong with it, I'm still using a similar era kitchen at home with no plans to change. Minute gripes.... Front door can be a bit difficult to open but I do have arthritis in my thumbs. Could do with advice on what to do with glass for recycling. We couldn't find anywhere (not that we were searching high and low) so bought bottles home with us. Finally, if I read your instructions correctly, a dog isn't supposed to go anywhere in the cottage but the kitchen. This is not practical. Fully appreciate not letting them upstairs but we weren't going to even try and stop our little jack russell girl joining us in the lounge. She knows she's not allowed on furniture or to put her paws on them, she doesn't at home either so we trust her. Anyway, love to stay with you again in the near future, thanks for a great week

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• Lesley - Verified booking

  The cottage was ideal for both us and our two dogs.

  The furniture and fixtures were all top notch in quality and made our stay very comfortable. The location was perfect as everything was so close to hand (especially an M&S food hall just around the corner - such a treat! The only down side for me was the lack of attention to the kitchen. I always take the kitchen sink but after having so many Sykes holiday cottages holidays and finding the facilities in the past so impressive that I let my guard down with this one and this is the reason I had to knock off a star. There was an extremely limited welcome pack and next to nothing to help with the day to day household chores required. There was the tiniest bottle of washing up liquid (enough for one bowl of washing up). Two bin liners for two very small bins, No dishwasher tablets or washing powder for the washing machine and the only two containers for spray cleaning under the sink were both empty. Therefore we had to do a big shop immediately as we were booked in for two weeks. Maybe we have been spoilt in the past but this is the first time I had come across this inconvenience.

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