Powells do not deserve any stars! We booked a cottage through their st ives office. We arrived (picked up keys from office en route) to find the cottage was occupied. After a 7 hour journey with a 3 month old baby and two 8 year olds this was not ideal! We called the office and got told they'd call back. This was about 4.30pm on a saturday. Half an hour passed with no contact so we had to call them, we also had to move the car to a pay and display car park. The girl in the office moaned sulkily that she was 'trying her best'. Finally we got a call from the saundersfoot head office telling us our only option was a caravan in redruth!! I explained that we were in st ives for a family gathering before my sister went back to Australia, this had been planned for months, we'd just had an incredibly stressful journey and I was not prepared to get the kids back in the car to drive another howver many miles to a caravan in a place we didn't know. She was far from understanding. Eventually she agreed to put us up in a hotel 'if you can find one'. We quickly headed to their office before the staff tried to leg it for the weekend. They were clearly not happy about having to 'work' over. It took the girl forever to find a hotel which she said was near to where my sister was staying and where our original property was. We agreed because the kids were tired and hungry and the baby was crying. It turned out to be the otherside of town and an absolute dive. We had to have separate rooms, it was horribly hot and it was smelly. (The staff were lovely though.) After a hideous weekend I went back down to the office on monday demanding a cottage. They offered a flat out of town and a couple of places without parking. None of these were suitable or equivalent to what we had booked. I was exhausted but was told to go and find my own cottage and they will refund and pay the difference. I eventually found a house with parking but it was a £150 more than our original cottage, not by the beach, up a hill and not what I would have booked but we were desparate. They agreed that if I wrote to the head office they would refund the difference. In my exhausted state I agreed. Upon our return from one of the worst holidays ever I wrote to head office lsiting all incurred costs and heard nothing. I have sent another copy of the letter and still heard nothing. I understand that mistakes can be made with booking etc but it was the way they responded to that mistake that made the situation so much worse. I will never book with powells again and the holiday was so awful I don't think I'll ever take my family to St Ives again. read more
