Dog Friendly Cottages In Norfolk

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Linda - Verified booking

  This is our fourth visit to Tilly's Retreat and it is our last.

  Firstly this house is lovely, the location is great and the garden perfect for our dog, however, after four years we are now fed up with the lack of maintenance. Following previous reviews, despite trying to deal with maintenance issues prior to the holiday with Sykes, we attended the house to find a hot water tap that could be rotated 360 degrees and tipped forward when used which was dangerous. We insisted a plumber fix it which they did 4 days later. This was classed as in "working order" and this is just the tip, fuses blowing when the oven is on, damp in the hall, big damp patch in the sunken bedroom when it rains, broken blind, spot lights out, tap leaking outside in the garden, no seal on the shower door, four drawers in freezer each had food in it from previous guest, trade bin completely full so we had to keep our rubbish in the house all week until the bin was collected on Friday (ie day before holiday ended), wi-fi dropping out, Netflix did not work as we needed log in details from owner and he only provided his password not the email address so we signed up for our own account having just got fed up with the constant problems, front of TV removed in a kids bedroom so fingers can be put in the speakers!!! When the fuses blow there are no stepladders to reach the fuse book so presumably this was why the toilet seat was hung off because people were having to climb on it to reach the fuse box, the plumber fixed the toilet seat but no doubt it will break again. Instead of repairing the fuse box I have been told by Sykes the owner has instructed them to notify tenants that the fuse box is in the downstairs bathroom and how to reset. No repairs in 4 years - we have had enough and booked elsewhere in Hunstanton with a local firm. Owner not interested in doing any maintenance - after speaking to him ourselves two years running he says "he will get around to it" but obviously he is not intending to. With vacating at 9.00 am and the next person not going in until 5.00 pm this is more than enough time to carry out a maintenance check and make any repairs even more so when the owner says he has a Property Manager, not Sykes who are the booking agents, to carry out the work. Such a shame.

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• Roy - Verified booking

  Good Family Property, located very close to Town & Beach Tilleys Retreat is a very good family size property within east reach of Town and Beach.

  Very well equipped with all appliance's and wood burner. Disappointing that there was no starter pack for the woodburner, which generally most properties with a wood burner supply. Also unusual not to receive a welcome pack, all properties we have rented in the past had supplied one, even during the later stages of the pandemic. Our arrival did not get off to a good start, arrived in the dark as arrival time had to be after 5pm (later than most holiday cottages), the entrance hall was in darkness as the LED light fitting was not working properly, so had to go upstairs with a torch to find a bedside lamp to move to the hall. In the first lamp I found in the main bedroom the bulb was dead, so had to located another. This lack of very basic maintenance we found with other items: none of the three outside lights were working, loose drawer and door knobs that seem to come off in your hands. One knob on the bedside cabinet in the first bedroom was missing and was found in a drawer, so quick bit of DIY re fixed it. The cloakroom on the top floor door would not latch close. When stripping the beds there were very noticeable staining to the quilts and one mattress had spring showing. We discovered the three saucepans in the kitchen had food left stuck to them, so checked all crockery etc carefully before using and was surprised at the number of items chipped and we sorted out and washed items before we used them. Despite there being bookshelves of DVD's there was no DVD player We left on the Friday due to being required to leave by 9am on the Saturday to allow for a leisurely departure. Cannot understand why Tilley's Retreat has an arrival time of 5pm and departure time of 9am. We used five holiday cottages during 2021 and all had arrival times of 3 pm or 4pm and departure time of 10am. The minor negative items are very easily and cheaply rectified and you would not expect in a property of this rental value. However they did not spoil our holiday in this lovely property which has a very efficient heating and hot water system. The property also benefits from a large family Garden.

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• Ian - Verified booking

  I would like to speak with a Sykes adviser about a refund!

  I have used your properties before but have never found one like this. The arrival process was fine and at first everything seemed okay until!!! One of the double bedroom's is directly off of a twin room. It is accessed by a short flight of stairs but there is no door to provide privacy from the occupants of the twin bedded room. Also you have to go through that room in order to reach the double room. This is only acceptable for a family but is still poor and not mentioned in the property listing. The third floor room is cold and the radiator only gets warm at the bottom. We bled it and it improved a little but not enough for the occupant to feel warm and nothing like the temperature of the lower room radiators. Both of the shower doors leak. Water from the upstairs shower drains through the ceiling via the ceiling light unit and drops into the toilet area below. The downstairs unit leaks onto the wooden step, the inner edge of which has rotted due to repeatedly being wet. Door latches required adjusting so that the doors would latch and stay closed. The light above the cooker had failed and we had to change it in order to see while we were cooking. Pans, bowls etc were stored randomly in the cupboards and and take up nearly all of the space. As a result there is very limited space to store food! The oven only has one shelf and the tray beneath it was covered in foil to hide the burned on food remains that were beneath it. It took half an hour of rubbing with a Brillo pad and a spell in the dishwasher to make it usable. The largest frying pan was rusty on the inside. Add to this the fact that locking the front door was very difficult and I think you can perhaps understand why I wonder how this property came to be listed by you. The final insult was the cleaner arriving at 9.00am and insisting that we should have left by then. Your listing states a departure time of 10.00 am. I look forward to receiving your reply

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• Burton - Verified booking

  Safety issues: The doorknob on the door to the Children's room was not screwed to the door.

  It fell off along with the spindle and left the Children trapped inside. The adults heard screaming from downstairs and rushed up. The doorknob and spindle were inside the room leaving the Children trapped. with no way of being able to gain access the youngest of the 3 Children was now panicking and crying. With no tools available, I rushed downstairs, grabbed a pair of scissors and managed to insert them into the hole where the spindle should be and turned. Lucky I was able to get it the room to our 3 traumatised Children. Our youngest one was panic stricken and very frightened and left us all traumatised. This bedroom was on the second floor with fixed pane windows with a small opening at the top only. If there was a fire there would be no means of escape! This has left our youngest very distressed and has had issues after this event with nightmares and panics if his bedroom door is closed. The other two trapped inside with him have found the whole experience very troubling and has definitely had an effect on them. Other issues: Used tissues left in the woodburning stove. badly stained mattress in the lower bunkbed , upper mattress on the bunkbed extremely uncomfortable with sparse surface padding. Toilet on the top floor had nails sticking out of a collapsed sewage pipe cover and had a smell of urine. No DVD player as stated in property description and in instruction folder in the property. No batteries in two of the tv remote controls. No Netflix as stated in property description. Dirty placemats. Coffee machine tray dirty. General Standard of cleanliness low. On a lesser note: no welcome pack (pint of milk etc) Unusually late arrival times 5pm and surprisingly early departure times 9am. I am willing to send photos and to elaborate on all of the above if necessary. I will await your response to my complaints within 14 days of receipt. Sincerely Mr B Keating

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• Shelley - Verified booking

  We were very disappointed with this holiday let.

  We have been renting cottages / houses for over twenty years with different companies and this has to be one of the most disappointing! Every other rental we have had provided a welcome pack, even if it was just a pint of milk in the fridge but there was nothing here. The main reason for booking this house is the wood burning stove, again, every other rental has provided a basket of logs to start you off but no logs, no newspapers, not even a companion set to use with the fire so heaven knows how we were meant to use it or clean it out ! Please don't advertise a wood burner / fire if the owners don't want to encourage the use of it! Considering we had to check in late due to the "extra cleaning" required due to Covid we found the house to be dusty, not cleaned properly and the cutlery had been put back in the drawers with food stuck to it. The bedside lamp in the main bedroom had no bulb so we had to find one elsewhere and the general standard of hygiene left a lot to be desired. The instructions said that there were spare keys just inside the door but these didn't exist and the shed where we had to initially collect the key from (in the safe) was filthy and bin bags full of rubbish left in there. Instructions said to leave the bedding in the laundry basket provided but these didn't exist either - I must say if we had known the state of the bedding before stripping it on our departure we definitely would not have used it, stained pillows and duvets, not what I would expect from a house that demands such a high price for a stay. In fact we were so disappointed with the overall lack of cleanliness, use of the fire and the general feeling we got that we packed up our belongings on Tuesday morning and came home, cutting our stay short by 4 nights. Would I recommend Tilly's Retreat? No. Would I recommend Sykes Holiday Cottages? Not based on this experience!

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