This is not meant in any mean way, and i'm sorry for any loss of business this may have caused.
There's a few things that need to be clarified, as I feel the owner has commented just to save face, but we clearly were not welcomed.
No correspondence has been forwarded to us to let us know of their concerns for our happiness, nor have we heard of any requests to hear about what they could do to get us back.
The review that I wrote was written the day we got home (the follow up by the owner was written several months later without clarity of what actually happened).
We called at 12 noon, and I believe about 12:45 (as was requested when I called earlier to ask for an early check-in as the documentation suggests) and was told to call back again at 1pm to find out for sure; We couldn't do this due to poor cell reception in the area, but we did arrive at about 1:30pm and saw people at the cottage doing some work, cleaning etc... so we decided to continue on to the nearby Holy Cow for some late lunch, and came back at 2:30pm (as previously mentioned).
We did not arrive early, were not there at 1:20pm and was actually very polite about them being there. It also can't have been all that surprising that we did not call back as we were told that the cell reception near the area was bad.
We felt that considering our check-in was confirmed to be no later than 2pm and that we entered at 2:30pm, we would be OK and not get interrupted, i'm guessing the lack of a follow up made it OK to walk in.
When we heard people walking around and talking outside, and realizing that people were there that shouldn't be, we looked out the windows to see someone walking around outside showing people around. We decided to open the main doors to find out who they were and what they were doing there. When we done so we were confronted by who I believe is the owner and 2 GUESTS that she was showing around, telling them about the cottage.
She had no cleaning/bathroom items with her, did not mention anything about refilling shampoo, and was not with workers. A polite "Oh i'm sorry, I'm just here to fill up the shampoo" would have gone a long way to making us feel more comfortable, but instead she walked off and moaned about us to the other couple saying things like "They're not supposed to be here, they are early" and some other stuff that we didn't hear very well as she walked off.
When someone says something is "private" in relation to a property, that typically means that it is secluded, hidden, not easily accessible by the general public... Not that you have sole use of the property but can be easily seen using it by any random person. Reiterating that something is private over and over like the documentation and web-site does, makes you think that it really is "private" as per my definition... otherwise what is the point in stating it? my balcony is "private" in the owners sense of the word, but i'd not be caught sitting out there in next to nothing because the entire apartment complex can see me, therefore it is not "private".
The window in the "Heron" next door, which towers over the cottage we stayed in might well be a stained glass window, but from where you are you cannot see that, and you can see light coming out of the window at night and shadows inside when people are walking around, which leads you to believe that they can see out if they wanted to - in addition to this, it can be opened (and was), as the guests would close it in the night whilst we were outside - presumably they didn't like hearing us talking from the hot tub.
If there was some mention of this window and that it was not possible to see out of it, that would have increased our comfort levels a little bit, but this was clearly a lie to try and cover up this fact.
The "fully fitted" kitchen had 2 electric hobs, a microwave, a toaster, a coffee maker, a large glass casserole dish and some spatulas and spoons.... However without a frying pan, sauce pan or oven, what was available was almost completely unusable, so we ended up eating out for EVERY meal.
The outside gas hob (aka bbq) cannot be used for baking, or conventional roasting, it is used for grilling and is a lame excuse for not having what is advertised in the provided documentation.
Putting any kind of oven-bake items in the microwave would be pretty much impossible due to the lack of correct size dishes and size. There might NOW be frying pans and sauce pans (because of our comments) but there certainly was not when we were there.
The free WIFI which is advertised and commented on by others, is so weak that we could not use it. I spent too much time walking around in and outside the cottage trying to get just 1 bar of signal from it, only for it to time-out again. So we ended up going to the Holy Cow to use their free WIFI instead.
We welcome any suggestions / discounts that may be offered to us, but I doubt you can offer us anything good enough to make us want to come back. read more
