Large Dog Friendly Cottages in Newcastle Upon Tyne

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Christine - Verified booking

  The caravan is lovely, the setting is wonderful, the views fantastic.

  Unfortunately we had a few problems. We arrived on the 12th Nov, on visiting the Park Dean office the following day, we discovered the site was closing down on the 13th until March next year. So most of the facilities we believed to be included in the price had now been taken away from us. No swimming pool, no restaurant, no shop. We consider this misrepresentation. Also, maintenance work was taking place on the site, particularly on the caravan pitch next to ours. Noisy machines at 8.30am. tractors parked at the front of the caravan, blocking the view. On one occasion the road to the caravan was completly blocked by a cement mixer. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon. Monday we had been out all day, returning at 4pm. The heating was on, everything was fine. But by 6pm we noticed it was getting cold. The boiler was out. By process of elimination we discovered BOTH gas bottles were empty. The only contact number we had was Sykes Office in Chester, which obviously was closed by now. We did not have a contact number for the owner or the ParkDean Office, which was also closed. What do we do? We thought of a hotel for the night, but we had a dog with us, not many hotels take dogs. So we hunkered down and made the best of it with extra clothes and duvets. BUT IT WAS COLD! Early the following morning we found, close by, a Premier Inn which had a Cookhouse Restaurant attached to it. The Restaurant accepted dogs, although Premier Inn didn't. But we were able to get warm and enjoy a full breakfast. Whilst spending hours on the phone to Sykes. It became apparent that Skyes were unable to contact the owner. We drove back to the caravan with the intention of packing up and going home. But, we called in at the Park Dean Office to see what they could do. They refused my offer of money for a gas bottle, said they would install one straight away but would contact the owner. By the time I arrived back at the caravan, the owner was on the phone, asking if everything had been sorted out. I explained it was in the process but did ask why BOTH gas bottles were empty. She saId it was a breakdown in communication and offered me compensation. This has not been forthcoming. But why hadn't Sykes been able to contact her previously? We stayed and contined to have a wonderful holiday, but all the above was really unnecessary and could have been sorted out in minutes if not hours. Conclusion Sykes have serious communication promlems and are unable to quickly resolve a problem. Park Dean were wonderful and couldn't have done better.

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• Clare - Verified booking

  We are still awaiting feedback from the property manager as he promised to get back to us following our stay at the Fullerton in Belsay 4-7 August.

  We fed this all back to him at the venue but not had any contact since our departure. It is hard to know where to start: Generally Unclean - asked 3 times for cobwebs and dead flies/spiders to be removed from kitchen - this wasn't done. Badly stained furniture; Walls with obvious recent flood damage streaks down kitchen, living room and hallway walls; Wallpaper hanging off and flapping on all 3 bedroom walls ; Extremely hot upstairs due to radiators on full blast and unable to switch off (visited during hot summer period and made it very uncomfortable to sleep; Bedrooms smelt of wet plaster at night; Hot tub not working properly and was unusable for first 24 hours after our arrival until engineers came to review it then only partly worked; Boiler broke down so we had to have cold shower on one evening and had a 'maintenance' engineer visit following morning and still unable to fix the problem resulting in 2 hours delay to our day and having to shower in another property; Rug being removed from living room due to appalling filthy state and suspected fleas; No instruction or welcome pack to show where to go or what to do on the property Noise from the office which was adjacent room to the cottage (felt like it was in the same room) as kitchen/ living area; No mirrors or cupboards / hanging space in main bedroom; Automatic lights in en-suites & corridors flicking on and off all night. All in all very disappointing as this was meant to be a break away to relax. Sadly it did not meet expectation or reflect the price we paid. I'm still wanting to speak about how this can be rectified. Fyi we have never complained about anywhere else we've ever stayed but this property was not anywhere near satisfactory.

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• Julie - Verified booking

  I will write separately to the owner / general manager as the stay did not live up to my expectations or the price tag for two nights.

  Had booked the cottage as a treat for my 60th birthday. The location and estate were beautiful. Although the cottage was clean and the bedding and towels were lovely, it needed a great deal of maintenance and tlc. Big stains on the walls (looked like bottles of bubbly had been popped and had splashed all over the walls). There were stains on the soft furnishings and settees. The other key things that were disappointing were: - turning up at 3.15 and the property was not ready for us and the staff weren’t aware that we were booked in as it was “not on the office calendar” - no guest information or welcome pack - the only instructions we were given were on how to use the steam room (never managed to get the hammam option to work). - no hot water on Sunday evening or Monday morning - so unable to shower etc - hot tub did not warm up on Saturday evening and Sunday morning so we could not use it. The hot tub was one of the main reasons we booked the property so really disappointing. Did text the GM at 8 on Sunday morning but no one turned up until 10.30 - just before we were leaving the property - the hot tub needed updating- many of the controls didn’t work, the LED kept showing error. - the garden needed lighting and some tlc eg removal of old chairs / cushions

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• Graeme - Verified booking

  Awful. Total disappointment.

  We booked a 5 day break at extra cost because we really wanted to enjoy an outside hot tub, but it didn’t work. It heated up but the motor didn’t put any hydro-bubbles into the hot-tub, so we basically we had an outdoor bath but no hot-tub. All were reported to Sykes and the manager during the holiday, but still no engineer was called by the manager who attempted to fix it himself but to no avail. The downstairs heating didn’t work, so with temperatures of at least -2 in January the evenings were freezing. The upstairs heating worked so we just went to bed early. Missing cutlery on arrival, so one of us had to eat an evening meal without a fork, this was rectified two days later but so annoying as we were in the middle of nowhere and not easy to just go and buy one. No welcome pack on arrival, no instructions as to how anything worked, not that it mattered because generally most things didn’t work. I have had over 18 holidays with Sykes and enjoyed them all, but this one wasn’t just bad, it was terrible. Avoid. Graeme.

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• Jill - Verified booking

  A location plan of the caravan site would have been really helpful, it's a big area and though we tried to find the caravan, we had to ask Security for help in the end.

  Though the caravan was comfortable, we could see areas that needed looking at for example a new door mat; a mat or similar at the patio door would help to protect the carpet when stepping in to the living area from outside; there were already marks on the carpet in the living area; we found an opened pot of garlic dip stuck between the settee cushions plus cornflake crumbs and dirt/dog hairs at the side of the fridge/freezer. The owner may not be aware of these cleanliness issues and that's why we feel it needs feeding back. Despite this, we did appreciate the bottle of wine on arrival, the views over the estuary/sea were lovely, having two toilets was an advantage and all the staff on the site but particularly Claire in Reception, couldn't have been more helpful. The location of the caravan to the rear of the site was ideal because it is not overlooked on the decking. All in all we did have a lovely time.

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