Beach Cottages in Dorset

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Austin - Verified booking

  Generally, a good place to stay for a week, more so for a couple than a family, since the stairs are quite steep and could be a risky for smaller folk.

  The Master bedroom: The Queen size bed ( 6ft wide) is very comfortable and while firm, does yield for a good night's sleep but does not restrict movement around the room - very nice. Taller folk will soon be aware of the sloping thatched roof. It has to be noted that the floorboards move a lot and this means a lot of squeaking whenever you move around in this room - this can be heard right across the ground floor so at night, it can be noticeable to the point of annoyance. I feel that the neighbours must be able to hear this given our own experiences: The second bedroom does not suffer from this at all. It must also be noted that the toilet of the adjoining property backs onto the wall of the headboard - folk in the master bed will unfortunately hear quite a lot of flushing and other actitivies including much door closing ( slamming) late at night / early morning. Light sleepers will find this disconcerting. The Lounge is airy, the sofas are decent and the TV is a very good size. The many windows allow good light although you are visible to neighbours approaching their property. The car port is right next to the cottage roof / next door's kitchen window and reversing out, one needs to take note of the overhang and the small patio which tyakes a day or so to learn - larger SUVs will notice this and it might be worth mentioning to avoid disappointment. The instructions for finding the property do need to be updated and improved. The pub / Stable Bar are long gone (sadly) so it should be removed as a landmark from the documentation. Coming from Preston / Weymouth, the first drive past Church Lane is the drive for East Farm itself, by the old telephone booth - and this too has a sign on the wall for 'East Farm' which will catch the latecomer out on a dark night. A better instruction is that immediately past Chapel Lane, look for the slate sign for 'East Farm Cottages' on the right side and note it is a sharp turn back off the road which can catch the driver out if not prepared. Coming from Poxwell, Craig's Farm Dairy is the marker for slowing down and looking for the East Farm Cottages sign on the lhe left which will appear very quickly after the farm shop entrance. Leaving the driveway to go east can be tricky in peak times, as the bend to the left is nearly blind; a confident and swift departure when the road appears clear is recommended. The owner may wish to know that a neighbour allowed their small dog to excrete without collecting. On the day of our departure we had a deposit directly in the path from the front door to the drivers' side of our car and undder the eaves of the property; only luck and sharp eyesight prevented an unwelcome incident. Whether this was carelessness or even deliberate I cannot say but the location was in such a strategic place that the dog must have either been off the leash and un-monitored, or else walked round the property to the car port and allowed to act - it was well off the route out of the driveway... It was not cat or fox faeces.Worth noting in case of a repeat performance. We really enjoyed our stay - you are one wall away from the Farm Dairy so you will hear and smell the cows as they are milked. I grew up with this, but city-dwellers may find this novelty interesting!

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• John - Verified booking

  Apple Tree cottage is in a lovely picturesque village of Burton Bradstock, two doors away from a fantastic pub The Three Horse Shoes.

  We had a week in this cottage in August, on entering the cottage it reeked of stale dog, I appreciate this is a dog friendly cottage but this smell was awful, we also found dog hairs on the lower shelves in the kitchen where the pans were kept. There was no Information pack, giving information such as how to use the washing machine and where the fuse board was for the electricity which would have been useful as we had a power cut on the Sunday morning. The shower was scalding hot and couldn’t be controlled, it was either scalding hot or freezing cold, the bath tap was also trickling water all the time. On the Monday we complained to the agents about the problems and to be fair he did call in that afternoon he brought with him the information book, cleaned the dog hairs off the shelving and he adjusted the shower but the tap was still leaking, we were out at the time. I use the word adjusted as this problem had been reported to the Dream cottages on two previous occasions in April and July see reviews and by mid week the shower problem had returned. The cleaning of the cottage was not up to standard especially during a Covid Pandemic, as the week progressed more issues came to light. We had to brush the carpet due to stones from outside, the dust pan was full of dog hairs and as well as stones the shower curtain on the inside was covered with mould along the bottom, the base of the toilet pan had stale urine and hairs stuck to it. Stale food found down between the cushion on the settees and cob webs hanging from the wall lights. I would have thought that with the present Covid situation, cleanliness should have been on the top of the priority list but that does not appear to be the case with this cottage. I have since complained to the agents and they do not appear to be interested in our findings, no apology or any offer of a small amount of compensation, Sykes Cottages were on the BBC TV on The Great Staycation series recently and had large amount of cleanliness complaints, so ours wasn’t just the one off. We still had a good time but we paid a lot of money for that week, only to find that someone is not doing their job properly whether it be the cleaners or the agents.. Sent from my iPhone

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• Sally - Verified booking

  I guess for us the problems were that you are charging "top" money (£900+ for a weeks stay).

  ., and for that, you expect something without any issues and there was one major issue... The property looked tired..., and needs some money spent on it... The grouting and sealant around the bath is a mess and looks like it was done by a chimp, in fact, that may be doing a chimp down.. The dishwasher doesn't work, and whilst it "works" nothing is cleaned..., it is ancient and needs replacing... I did like the layout and size of the property, it just needs some money spent on it if you are asking this massive amount for a weeks stay.., and I note that others have made this comment before, so I am not alone.. The one massive thing for us, was the noise outside at 03:50 every morning that woke us both up.. This would then go on a few more times up to 08:00, I counted one day being woken up no less that four times before 08:00.. This seems to be due to a whopping great diesel van delivering the newspapers for the next door Post Office.., I have no idea what all the other engine noises that woke us up were, but it is totally unacceptable.. I again note that others have pointed this out before.. My guess is that this is beyond the control of the owner of the property, but that is no excuse for not pointing this out to people before they book it, or even taking matters in to their own hands and getting double glazed units fitted to all the front facing windows.. I came away from the holiday wrecked as I had not had a proper nights sleep for five days... Not good enough for this sort of money, and no excuse when the property is turning over such a large income...

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• Rebecca - Verified booking

  The listing stated that the garden was enclosed.

  It is enclosed, but only just (there is a bin blocking a gap in the boundary with the pub garden) and it should be made clear that it isn't secure for dogs. Not the end of the world, but part of the reason we chose this cottage was that we wanted to be able to the let the dog out without having to watch her the whole time. We received a phone call on the morning of our arrival to say that the Wi-Fi was not working but would be fixed by Tuesday at the latest. In fact it didn't work for the duaration of our stay (one week) and nobody contacted us to inform us of the situation or check if everything was ok. As my phone reception (EE) was very poor in the cottage, this was an inconvenience. It may also be worth stating in the listing that the cottage isn't suited to small children. The stairs are very steep and open sided - although it does state this in the listing - and the sunken bath is a hazard. Also the very thin walls meant that as soon as either our toddler or baby woke up, they woke the entire house (and probably the neighbours!). The above aside, the village is a great base for exploring Dorset and the two pubs serve excellent food and ale. Our toddler also loved the well equipped park which is a couple of minutes walk from the cottage.

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• Elizabeth - Verified booking

  Lovely little cottage.

  Comfortable stay. The listing was misleading though. Did not know the garden would be joined onto the back of the post office with a window looking through onto the garden. Didn't mind too much as we were out most of the day. What did worry us was when the adjoining cottage gate was open onto our garden and someone from the parish council was found in our garden unannounced to clean leaves off the post office roof without any warning to us. Left gate open, our dogs could have got out and into the road abd the gate the other end was not closed either as we checked so risk to our dogs and children which was very alarming. We did not know who he was so my husband went out to confront him. This felt uncomfortable when we thought our garden was private with the rental of the cottage. He told us the row of cottages had a public alleyway through their gardens which the parish council could use for maintenance. This was not even put in the guest information folder to inform us so from that respect we feel that was misleading information, our dogs could have been harmed if they had got out of the gate that was left open and an invasion on our privacy

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