Christmas Cottages In The Isle Of Wight

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Dave - Verified booking

  We had a lovely week in this great & well equipped house.

  We particularly enjoyed the lovely garden, comfortable lounge, the fabulous kitchen and the cool garden room. Thanks to the owners for the milk, biscuits & starter pack that we found waiting for us on arrival - all very helpful! We visited lots of great places including… The Garlic Farm, Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin and Shanklin Chine, Monkey Haven, Osborne House, West Wight Alpacas (Walk an Alpaca), Alum Bay and Chair Lift, The Needles, Tolland Bay and Yarmouth. All these places are recommended! We also enjoyed great meals at the Red Lion (Steak & Ale pie especially good), delicious fish n chips from Rainbow Chippy (both of these places are within walking distance of Avalon). A few things to be aware of if staying at Avalon. Parking The drive is steep (c 12 degrees uphill towards the house) you will need a reliable handbrake and a smallish car to be able to park on it safely. Our Captur just fitted - it is c 1.8m wide by just over 4.1m long. Anything longer than this would stick out onto the pavement. Larger cars will need to be parked elsewhere. Rubbish and Recycling You may want to check with owners for latest position but here’s our understanding following a conversation with the owner in July 2023. A cleaning company collects rubbish from the black wheelie bin only. Although you may find a green wheelie bin marked ‘recycling’ next to it, please ignore it and use only the black bin for all waste including anything potentially recycleable. To recycle anything such as glass, plastics, tins etc, you will need to find public facilities at supermarkets, car parks etc. Stairs These are quite steep and the treads are quite shallow. If like me, you are over 6ft, you’ll probably need to duck to come down the stairs without hitting your head. These 3 points are here really to help manage your expectations/planning. Avalon is lovely and quiet, well equipped and convenient in its location. Freshwater has a nice feel and there are some very interesting local shops. We would be happy to stay here again ourselves. We can recommend Avalon as a splendid place to stay for your holiday!

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• Janet - Verified booking

  The major problem was the steepness of the driveway, and having to reverse in ( owner's suggestion).

  As the cottage is just behind the village centre, the limited space on the road was often occupied by shoppers, and on a couple of occasions, we could not even acces the cottage driveway and had to park away from the cottage in an adjoining side street. We did observe that adjoing properties had near level driveways !. The cottage did have everything we needed, but as the only toilet was upstairs, i would certainly think it was not suitable for those with limited mobility. In addition, upper level access was not easy due to differing stair levelsand bathroom access during the night was not easy . A small nightlight with motion sensor would be a good idea as this would be cheaper to run than leaving the hall light on all night. Plus, it could be switched off during the day. Another suggestion would be a child stair gate at the top of the stairs for sfaety reasons when families with younger children stay. A minor niggle - on reading the comments from other visitors to the cottage, we noticed mention of a Welcome Pack - there was none!.We did have an issue with the bathroom ( minor and not reported ). I would mention that on our return home, i had received an email from the cottage owners, actually mentioning that a) the driveway had been widened, and b) the bathroom fan did not work and was awaiting repair. It would have been helpful if a note had been attached to the bathroom door mentioning this fact.

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• Denise - Verified booking

  We stayed in 2022 but just found out we could review.

  This is a lovely cottage but it is described as having an enclosed garden. What it doesn't say is that it is shared access so neighbours walk through the garden to access their property, making it an unsecured space for children or dogs to be in even for a second without close supervision. You would have to go out in the garden first before letting out a child or dog in case the gate is left open. Whilst our dog would never be unsupervised I would normally go out with her at the same time, not have to check the garden is secure before going out. Also to keep watch in case the neighbours came through the gate. The garden was a very small dungeon like space and not really pleasant and our dog had no space to be safely off lead at all for the week. There are issues with parking as the shared access neighbour parks across both spaces. Also there is an old peoples' home across the road so visitors park all up the road. We found it difficult to park in the road on a few occasions. However, it's a beautiful character cottage and the Smart TV was a bonus. The location is fabulous providing access to all the places we wanted to see. Nice touches were providing paw towels and dog bowls for canine guests.

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• Sara - Verified booking

  Good: really nice touch to have the dog stuff, but it would have been good to know in advance so I didn't bring the same with me, in an already packed car!

  Nicely equipped kitchen and the house was really comfy for us. Just a shame there is not more outside space! Needs improvement: had requested both beds to be unzipped, as requested, but one was not, which meant I had to sleep in a bunk bed all week. There was no bathmat in the main bathroom, which meant we had to use a towel. Please make sure there is one as it was a bit tricky for my elderly mother to use the bath without a non-slip mat. The parking was difficult. In addition to the cars for no.6, someone from the flats opposite regularly parked their 20 reg blue Renault Captur outside Church House. They told me it was none of my business when I queried why they couldn't park in the flats' car parking!

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• Carole - Verified booking

  The cottage is lovely, really chamring and well-thought out - very well- equipped and clean, the garden pleasant and well-kept and a boon for us, who are older and have recently both been ill.

  The great drawback for us - which, after a couple of days coping with it, actually limited our willingness to drive out, was the very steep and quite narrow driveway. This debouched onto a two-way traffic road, with a stream of traffic coming in from the one way system at the top of the the road. Level roadside parking was impossible because there were never spaces and there was a car parked outside the cottage, never moving, for the entirety of our stay, its wheels on the white lines marking the driveway entrance, further reducing visibility when backing out. We didn't appreciate its steepness from the photo and it was not mentioned in the description. Perhaps it should be?

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