School Holidays 2017 Cottages In Newton Stewart

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Helen - Verified booking

  We had a thoroughly enjoyable stay at Borgan cottage.

  It was very comfortable and the layout of the house well suited the large group that we were. It is in quite a remote location but we knew that before booking and there are some lovely forestry walks/towns to visit a relatively short drive away. We all had a great time- thank you! The only things I’d suggest in terms of improvements/amendments to the listing are related to accessibility/cleanliness. The stairs to the top floor are steep, quite slippy and tricky for the elderly people in our group to navigate- they would have struggled if they’d had to sleep upstairs. It was also quite difficult for our 2 year old to manage them. The angled roof in the bathroom upstairs is also problematic in terms of usability for older people- I wonder if it might be worth noting that on the listing, so that larger bookings are able to assess the suitability of the house for their groups? In terms of cleanliness, the kitchen, bedrooms and downstairs bathroom were spotless, which was fantastic. Unfortunately, the group before us must have had a/multiple dogs and the living room was covered in dog hair. It was all over the sofas, rugs and floors. Our clothes were covered in dog hair every day. We even found a hoover upstairs and hoovered everywhere ourselves to try and remove it all. Finally, there is an issue with some mould/damp in the upstairs bathroom. There were very visible lines of brown water running down the ceiling in that room, that were there from when we arrived. It would be good to have that sorted. Overall, however, we really did have a brilliant stay. The beds were all very comfortable and the kitchen well stocked. We loved watching the birds at all the bird feeders in the garden. I would strongly recommend the house to others wanting to stay in that area. If it was perfectly clean, we would have given it 5 stars.

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• Easta - Verified booking

  Finding a holiday property that could accommodate our expanding family had proven difficult until I spotted Marl House.

  The price was refreshing sensible and the amount of space inside and out was wonderful. The garden was as huge as it appears in the photos, then we found 3 further large lawns off to one side. We could have had football, cricket, croquet and badminton taking place in each lawned area at the same time! The house itself had large bedrooms, plenty of bathrooms, dining rooms, games and table tennis rooms as well as a sitting room. Lots of areas to quietly read a book or chat. The kitchen was huge with a massive utility room attached. In total there were 3 large fridge freezers, two washing machines and two tumble dryers, all of which were well used. We cooked and shared meals together each day and baked biscuits and a cheesecake. All the equipment you needed was in the kitchen and generously supplied. There was no local food delivery to the house from supermarkets and the nearest shops were small. We had brought first meals and staples with us and shopped at Newton Stewart on the journey to the house for fresh produce. We also had 2 successful Amazon deliveries to the house during the week. On Wednesday tea time the mobile fish and chip van visits Garlieston, 10 minutes up the coast. The bay there is sheltered and shallow, you can walk out quite far and the water is still knee deep, the children spent hours in the sea and played on the beach. Other highlights were feeding the red deer in Galloway National Park and visiting the Otter Pools on the Ranger road, also travelling to the most southern point in Scotland, the Mull of Galloway and going up the lighthouse. The adults also enjoyed the whisky distillery tour and the gin tasting.

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• Michael - Verified booking

  We really liked the cottage's location and the surrounding area.

  The cottage is a good base to explore from, with many attractions & things to do being within close proximity or not too far of a journey to get to. We also enjoyed seeing all the different types of wildlife in the garden, fields & surrounding woodland. This was definitely a highlight. However, our stay was sadly affected by a few things. For example, there were issues with cleanliness. On arriving, there were dog hairs all over the living room furniture and in one of the downstairs bedrooms, with the smell from the bedroom being particularly bad. So we had to hoover the furniture & use air fresheners to try & remove the smell. We accept this cottage allows dogs, but this still isn't something we should have to do. There were also quite a few cobwebs around the house which we had to hoover up, which had been there for a long time as they were quite thick. Other issues besides this were that the velux windows in the top bedroom had holes in the surrounds and leak when it rains. The additional fridge in the outbuilding had lots of dead flies in it, even though the door was closed? A lot of the pans in the kitchen are way past their best & could do with replacing. However, the worst point is regarding the midge infestation in the top floor of the house, which led to my wife & I having to sleep in the living room. The midges were everywhere and we had no windows open at all. We had lots of bites & they just kept appearing. It was awful, very stressful and soured the whole stay. We accept midges outside as we have been to Scotland quite a few times, but we shouldn't have this issue inside the cottage.

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• Sue - Verified booking

  We absolutely loved the house.

  There were a couple of quite minor things - internet was problematic in room next to table tennis room. The wifi boosters did not work for much of the week - may have been linked to the router in above room. Given there was no phone signal at the property it did make it difficult for some of our party who needed to do remote work whilst away. - hairdryers - could not find one in the whole house - not a big deal for our group but may be for other groups - mattresses - these were pretty soft - but we understand that mattresses are very much a personal thing and whilst firm mattresses suit us, that may not be everyone's choice. - the downstairs toilet and cupboard next to aga smelt very strongly of oil. - table tennis room - lock did not work (looked to be the wrong sized barrel for the door). We could secure the property with an internal door so was not a big deal.

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• John - Verified booking

  Marl House is a wonderful place to stay.

  We had a family gathering with Granny and Grandad, three sons and families together - all told eight adults and seven children ranging from 14 years to 4 months. The kitchen is superbly equipped plus two dish washers, two washing machines and two spin driers - brilliant for managing meals and all of the things that young families need. The gardens are excellent for family sports and the range of games in the house (for all ages) has something for everyone. There is plenty of room in the house for people to find their own spot - or to be together. Local beaches (and kayaks at the Isle of Whithorn boat club) give great scope for seaside activities. Harvest was under way while we were there. The area is quiet and rural. If you want a holiday haven for yourselves, comfortable, well equipped and full of opportunities for your own activities, Marl House is hard to beat.

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