Dog Friendly Isles of Scilly Holiday Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• John - Verified booking

  We are appalled by the lack of response and the extreme difficulty of contacting Sykes during our stay.

  We had three serious and one very serious problem with the apartment during our stay. 1) No hot water when we arrived. 2) No instruction or idea on how to deactivate the burglar alarm, inadvertently triggered whilst searching for means of turning on the hot water. 3) A very serious leak in the roof during a rain storm, where the water was pouring through the electric light fitting in the entrance hallway and above the second bedroom doorway. 4) Despite turning off the storage heaters, they remained on and very hot during our entire stay. This meant that we had to keep the windows open the entire week as a means of keeping the temperature to a tolerable level. This also led to us leaving the apartment a day early due to the discomfort. We travelled home on the 8th October, not the 9th. I attempted to contact Sykes for all of these issues above and on many occasions. The phone lines were either completely dead, or when it would connect, rang for at least 15-20 minutes each time before cutting off. On the first of two occasions when someone finally did answer, a message was taken and the owner himself phoned me back (from Bermuda!) 5 hours after the first incident. With the code he gave me, I was able to deactivate the burglar alarm. He told me he would send someone to sort the hot water for us, but no-one arrived. We therefore had to switch on the "full rate" switch next to the hot water tank, which seemed to eventually provide us with hot water. This would not turn off again! I could only finally get hold of someone for the leak incident on the afternoon of the following day. I called first thing in the morning, but was cut off. Following the online instructions, I had raised a chat incident immediately the leak occurred, but apart from an automated confirmation of receipt, I never received any response from this. The person I spoke to in the afternoon said he would speak to his manager, but again, I never heard anything else until the cleaner called me on the Wednesday. I was surprised at this, as I assumed the issues we were having were house maintenance, not cleaning problems. It remained though that none of the issues were resolved during our stay. There are electrical problems with the property, and there is a serious leak in the roof. This is the first time that we have experienced not only so many problems, but such difficulty in contacting anyone for help. The apartment itself is really lovely, but our holiday was spoilt by the time we spent trying to get things sorted that should not have been our problem, and the fact that we felt frustrated and ignored. I'm afraid we are very unimpressed, especially considering the severity and potential life-threatening nature of the leak. Had we been out and attempted to either activate the light switch for the light fitting through which the water was pouring through, or slipped in the dark in the water covering the floor, things would have been very serious indeed!

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• Gordon - Verified booking

  "Well it’s advertised as having a small garden ,but all you get is the space under the fire escape which to use you would have to duck under the metal bar that’s fixed there.

  " The inside is very damp downstairs where the bedrooms and bathroom are located, the bathroom is very mouldy and needs completely gutting to fix the problems, and needs a large extractor fan and a deeper drain to enable the shower to drain away as the water just soaks the floor. The disabled lift is really old and outdated and is starting to rust, it’s also the only way to move between the levels inside, without having to go outside and use the fire escape to go up or down, so the property could definitely use an internal staircase . The property is situated within the beer garden of the pub, which is not ideal when customers are gathered there while using the pub. We did have one meal purchased from the pub which was very nice and the owners were friendly, and the nice little touches were the cream tea that was waiting for us on arrival and the fact that there were dishwasher tablets and washing up liquid and also some tea and coffee items available. Reviewed by Robert Aug 2020 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above as can be seen is dated Aug 2020. Now in June 2023 it has not had any improvements and certain items within the property have deteriated even further. On arrival there were customers at the tables drinking etc and made no effort to enable us to walk pass with all our luggage and belongings. Many a evening we could not have the door or windows open due to the pub customers being noisy using unpleasant language The external staircase is very rusty in places with bird droppings on the handrail. The description of the property on the website is a candidate for Trade discription. The pictures are far from accurate as they show the 2 bedrooms and bathroom very light where in fact they are dismal and quite dark even in daylight. Reference is made about the shower above and after we used it the first time the water took ages to drain. We contacted the owner who managed to clear the drain, obviously this had not been done for months as it was virtually blocked. With all the bad points it is clearly not inspected by the agents. Cannot understand some of the feedback claiming that it is a desirable property.

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• E - Verified booking

  Lovely Cottage, really well equipped except for the fridge which was far too small for a family of 4 who wanted to self cater!

  The lounge was really comfy and cosy, some really nice touches such as the blankets. Loved the big corner sofa. Bedrooms were lovely and big and beautifully simply decorated with some great finishing touches. This cottage has lots of thoughtful touches such as the storage unit in the bathroom, the basket of board games, the pile of DVD's and the gorgeous scones and clotted cream on arrival. The only slight downside is Kenegie Manor itself, it's all a bit run down, the shop opens erratic hours as does the restaurant. The one night we went to use it they had stopped serving food early as they were too busy..... They did helpfully supply us with numbers of takeaways that delivered to the Manor though!! Amazing area to visit would highly recommend Mermaid pleasure boats - we went out and saw seals and dolphins. Also the Minnack Theatre had a great children's show - fabulous fun for everyone. Would also recommend Tremenhere Landscape Gardens just minutes from Kenegie Manor, we had a lovely lunch there and beautiful and interesting gardens.

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• Robert - Verified booking

  Well it’s advertised as having a small garden ,but all you get is the space under the fire escape which to use you would have to duck under the metal bar that’s fixed there.

  The inside is very damp downstairs where the bedrooms and bathroom are located,the bathroom is very mouldy and needs completely gutting to fix the problems, and needs a large extractor fan and a deeper drain to enable the shower to drain away as the water just soaks the floor. The disabled lift is really old and outdated and is starting to rust, it’s also the only way to move between the levels inside, without having to go outside and use the fire escape to go up or down, so the property could definitely use an internal staircase . The property is situated within the beer garden of the pub,which is not ideal when customers are gathered there while using the pub. We did have one meal purchased from the pub which was very nice and the owners were friendly, and the nice little touches were the cream tea that was waiting for us on arrival and the fact that there were dishwasher tablets and washing up liquid and also some tea and coffee items available.

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• John - Verified booking

  We understood that Bell Cottage was situated within a Holiday Park and that the property was in a terrace, what was not made clear was that this cottage although privately owned was one of a considerable number of similar cottages.

  I doubt we would have made the booking had we realized this. There was no privacy to sit outside and the garden furniture needs replacing. We noted your advice to park thoughtfully - it was a shame other residents did not and on a number of occasions when returning after a meal out we had to park in the main car park. A big advantage was that the cottage was cool in the living room and the sofa was very comfortable and was throughout very clean. It was a nice touch to have flowers and the biscuits and fruit juice. We lost WiFi on the Thursday and the owners were really kind and helpful and arranged for an engineer to visit which we really appreciated. The downside for us was the location, parking and we felt the price was somewhat steep. However this was Cornwall following a pandemic and in the height of season but we do feel your description of the cottage is not truly reflective.

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