Group Accommodation Cottages in Wales

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Debbie - Verified booking

  Honest opinion on a arrival we was the first family to arrive and the property was absolutely freezing.

  Having a 10 month baby after recovering from being unwell was our priority to get this on to find the first thermostat we came across being located on the first floor does not work. I had to call the owner to ask how we got the heating on because of this which he explained, what he did not explain is that the heating system does not work correctly! We had to go around turning radiators on and bleeding air( for those that had thermostatic valves) to get heat into the place. Heating very hit and miss, some communal radiators never heated up at all for the week we was there, some radiators would only work when others was turned off! A brief look around before unloading our car and our first thoughts was " oh my god " and we happen to use the entrance off the ramp rather than the main entrance at the time to be greeted by a room of bunkbeds with mattresses being stored on the floor underneath the beds! Bearing in mind the property had been cleaned!!! The property was filthy, and at this point we was only downstairs having a look around. Our 10 month old son was desperate to get down on the floor but it was not clean enough, the lounge area rug I could not honestly say when it was last vacuumed and the owners response to this was for him to roll it up and remove it! the Sofas haven't been vacuumed or moped under for some time or surfaces wet wiped and black cob webs visible all over the place including the kitchen! Utility room located in the basement was dirty, the dryer still having towels and somebody's clothing inside which we had to remove before use. One of the two washing machines leak to the point it flooded the room and an area of the games room. The kitchen - disgusting! Oven - filthy, worktops, floors, cutlery, mugs, glasses, bowls plates etc. By this point majority of our party had arrived and nobody had unloaded their vehicles. We decided that the property just wasn't clean enough for our stay so a member of the group called the owner to express our concerns and that it needed to be cleaned that evening. The owner agreed to come back, on his arrival wasn't pleased to be there and his face and actions showed this and excuses started to come out aiming it at the cleaning company he uses for the cleaning services and that they are on a probationary period etc which if this is the case he is responsible to check their works before the next planned stay in the property. He asked what the issues was and then started to do the bare essential cleaning of downstairs with his daughter but by this point we had done the majority. Myself personally had to vacuum the downstairs areas due to the state of the floors with there still being food on the floor from a previous party before I could let my 10 month old baby on the floor yet still was not comfortable with this throughout the stay. All cutlery, plates, mugs and glasses had to be dishwashed before use and even then we had to make an area of cupboard save to store the clean items. IN BETWEEN ALL OF THIS MY WIFE WAS SWORE AT INFRONT OF MY THREE CHILDREN AND MEMBERS OF OUR PARTY because my wife had questioned him about something and rightly so. The more you looked around the list went on.... been various leaks in the past or what we thought was the past until we started to use our bathrooms! This did not finish here.... bedding was like it hadn't been changed on certain beds to objects that was found within the beds, myself and my wife's bed plus the childrens the mattresses was stained heavily and did not have a mattress protector on and we had to ask for this and others had requested to be told there was non available. All beds was stripped and remade, however they was hunting around for lack of replacements.... they ask for beds not to be stripped on departure.... why ? Everywhere we are asked to strip the linen. Bathrooms, shower cubicles hadn't been cleaned since the last stay... Still shampoo and conditioner on the tiles, shower tray dirty, plug areas DISGUSTING. Loose or broken toilet seats, sinks not draining and backfilling to over flowing heights, towels that was included in our stay seemed clean but stained. Bedroom blinds not working due to broken mechanism, wardrobe hanging frames broken and snapped, plug socket hanging out the wall in one bedroom. Lamps that was provided I think one or two worked out of the four taking into account we had young children. Our bedroom door closure closed that fast it made a hell of a bang every time we entered or left the room whilst trying to settle a 10 month old baby.... this was eventually replaced 4 days into our stay. We appreciate we arrived on a bank holiday so getting cleaners, maintenance people out was going to be difficult but the place on arrival should be clean and fit for purpose when your spending well over £3000 and you have a maintenance chap in three days of it working through the list of problems just to get you by on a day to day basis. We had a leak in a bedroom above the kitchen and had water pouring through the ceiling into the fire alarm system causing the system to detect a fault.... reported and was told " obviously do not use that shower " and silence the buzzer.... that's fine but when the alarm itself is silenced that's not acceptable and puts the household at risk but nobody seemed interested. Overall owner not very helpful or doesn't seem bothered about the property. We had to keep smiling and not let the property spoil our yearly tradition. Hawker family

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• Max - Verified booking

  Squires rest is a beautiful home set in the hills of mid-wales.

  It's remote enough to feel like you have your own slice of the countryside, but not too far from shops, pubs, takeaways and other activities nearby. The group of 13 friends I went with had plenty of space in the property, between it's sizeable kitchen, large dining/seating area, warm and comfy sitting room, and our favourite area - the cosy basement sitting room. The bedrooms were all large and well-equipped, many of them with en-suites. During our stay, the Annexe was unfortunately uninhabitable due to the heating not working, making it very cold in December. Our contact for the property did respond quickly, but unfortunately a new part had to be ordered that would not get it fixed whilst we were there. We managed to get everyone in the main house. The fella who came around multiple times to show us how everything works, sort out the hot tub etc, was quick to respond and friendly. The hot tub was a very welcome feature of the property, we had a bit of trouble with the electrics to that outside area of the home, probably due to a severe storm that had hit wales the day we arrived, but for the most part it worked, albeit with lights flickering in the main house! The games room was great, a very large spacious area that could be kept warm enough to enjoy, with a full size snooker table and darts board, comfy sofas and a TV. Both the TVs remotes required us to supply new batteries as they were both flat, unfortunately. Even in mid December, the large house was exceptionally warm, the kitchen was stocked with everything we needed for cooking, the two dishwashers came in handy, and elsewhere the property had plenty of amenities. The wifi was down for the first 2 days - again, likely due to the storm. The house was relatively clean, a bit dusty and cobwebby in places but otherwise in good condition. We noticed a slightly leaky oil pipe, and one of the en-suites in the top floor rooms had a leaky toilet, we had to empty the tupperware underneath to keep it overflowing. We felt the place could benefit from some information leaflet on how things in the property worked, like the hot tub, the heating, the rayburn cooker, what goes in what colour bins, etc. Ultimately it's tough to find a nice property of this size for a group of friends to stay, and whilst it had some negatives, I think we all thoroughly enjoyed staying at Squires Rest, it has a very homely feel, plenty of space, warmth and a bit of charm.

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• Lynn - Verified booking

  We had a great family long weekend at The Ship Inn, but sadly were very very disappointed with the cleanliness and maintenance of the property.

  On arrival the cleaners were still there, we were informed the previous guests had left it in an absolute mess. The place was dirty and grubby. Spoke to Ceri (housekeeping) who explained there should have been 3 cleaners but there was only 2. She was very apologetic and going to come the following day and hoover throughout the building, and sort out the areas that needed attention. (I actually cancelled the following day as all 29 of us were going to be in the house, so would have been very difficult to clean around us.) The staircase has obviously not been cleaned for quite some time, thick with dust. Surfaces in rooms tacky. All the cockery needed washing before using. None of the furniture had been moved for cleaning, filthy under sofas in lounge. There was a very strong smell of cannabis in one of the bedrooms, obviously not the owners fault, however the window is painted closed so could not be opened to air the room. The laundry room was full of dirty laundry, some in bags, some dirty towels strewn across the top of the washer and dryer. Ceri contacted the laundry person. The dirty laundry was removed sometime on our 2nd day. The furniture in the lounge is all old, uncomfortable, in poor condition and generally not fit for purpose, all needs replacing. The garage where the ping ping table is located is damp and musty smelling. The freezers both need defrosting. The house needs decorating and updating. The kitchen and dining area are great, spacious and well equipped. The number of bathroom/toilets is great. (Drainage issue in one bathroom). The bedrooms on the whole are fine, (drawers all broken in one room) The larger rooms, including the en suite and the dormitory, other than cleanliness, are fabulous. The furniture in the small upstairs lounge comfortable and pleasant to look at. The entertainment aspect of the house is brilliant, made the holiday. The whole family were able to be involved, and all were in constant use. Pool table, shuffleboard (had to request "sand" which was delivered on our 2nd day), ping ping-pong table, all added to our family fun. The location could not be better. Parking a godsend. Outside space small but pleasant. All in all we had a great time, it is a fabulous house but needs to be better cared for.

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• Barrie - Verified booking

  The major disappointment for us was that the property has only 5 bedrooms, not 6 as the ad says.

  The “single room” is actually a single bed in a corner of the games room - you couldn’t possibly have someone sleeping there and also use the table tennis or pool tables or the piano at the same time. We had planned the single room to be for a young child who’d be asleep while the adults played table tennis and pool. Once you take that into account, it’s a very adequate house. The kitchen was well equipped apart from having only a small cafetiere and not enough mugs and glasses for a lot of people (even with those we asked for and were given), and it could do with more teaspoons (think yogurt for pudding or breakfast) and small sharp knives. The public rooms were spacious and attractive, with grapes growing over your head in the downstairs sitting room, and a great view from the upstairs one. There was enough comfortable seating in each. The bedrooms could have done with better blackout blinds for children sleeping there (some windows have them while others in the same room don’t). The hot tub always seemed to work for us even though the spanner symbol was there (others have complained about this). The barbecue is big and there are decent BBQ tools. Care is needed not to lose food through the grating. The wifi worked only sporadically. We found the owner helpful and responsive. This sounds like a lot of complaints but, apart from the number of bedrooms, they’re really just niggles. The accommodation was good for us (10 adults and 2 small children) and we had a great time there. The games room was great, though if you have your own cue / bats you may prefer them to some that are there. The house has a huge variety of board games and jigsaws so no need to bring those apart from your must-have favourites.

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• Chloe - Verified booking

  For the price paid the amount of issues we encountered were ridiculous.

  -Used sanitary towel found in one of the rooms ( when the cleaner arrived they picked it up in a bag and didn’t clean the area with anything ) -Top floor hall light didn’t work - Most showers weren’t draining properly - Broken glass coffee pot on arrival - Fleas in a few of the sofas - Dirty floors on arrival - Dust in the rooms. ( 4 poster bedroom has a thick dust blanket under the bed as well as a filthy headboard ) - Unsealed jacuzzi tub leading to a huge water leak coming through the electrics and lights in the kitchen dining area. This also lead to no lights working in the house downstairs for the entire last evening - Broken toilet flushers - Beds were singles pushed together with uncomfortable middle zipper - Oven would take a long to light and didn’t stay on for long enough so it had to be relit multiple times to be able to feed people. A simple meal that should take roughly 30 minutes ending up taking over 1 hour. - Leaking roofs and damp walls - ‘ Ping Pong room ‘ was un noticeable until found on the last couple of days. Once found it was absolutely disgusting with bugs, dirty chairs, broken walls , wood and rubbish on the floor. - Many windows painted shut not allowing ventilation , some cracked and have tape covering the cracks. - The 2nd living room upstairs has a large window that is easily opened with a sofa directly underneath it. Even with parental guidance this is incredibly dangerous. - fire escape was blocked by stacked chairs so only 1 exit from the ground floor. - No welcome pack with written emergency details - Small bath towels are provided but are more suitable as hand towels or hose towels so be sure to take your own. If not be sure to clean the towels first.

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