Big Cottages & Group Accommodation in Elterwater

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Nicola - Verified booking

  Had a truly memorable family holiday didn’t hear.

  Fantastic weather too!! It was a Stunning property, in a most Beautiful area of the Lakes. A massive place with plenty of elaborate bedrooms & bathrooms, enough to sleep at least 12 people, however the shared rooms (kitchen & front room combined) would be best suited for 8/9 at the most. We loved the covered porch area, with seating to take our walking boots off, which was a real sun trap in the morning, a lovely place to sit with a cuppa at the start of the day. We also enjoyed the movie room downstairs in the basement, where there was also a very warm Boiler/Utility room, where we could get our dirty clothes washed & dried very easily during our stay, very well kitted out. . Many fantastic walks starting from Elterwater, we walked to Grasmere, Ambleside, Skelwith Bridge & Little Langdale, so no need to drive anywhere if you don’t want to. But if you fancy a shopping day out in Ambleside there is a regular bus service, reasonably priced we used that a lot, where there’s lots of interesting shops, specialist walking stores, cafes & pubs galore plus Hayes a little walk out of town, the largest garden centre I’ve ever been to. If you’re up to walking a little further, then head down to Watershead where you can get a boat & cruise Lake Windermere for the day, stopping off at Bowness on Windermere & Lakeside. Lakeland’s store is worth a visit too, if you like cooking & kitchen gadgets. Elterwater has a great pub; The Britannia Inn, on its doorstep which does good food, but plenty of other pubs within walking distance; Eltermere Inn plus Wainwright’s which is a short walk to Chapel Stile, where you also find a convenience store & Brambles Cafe. There is even a Cocktail Bar which does food on the hill close by. It’s just a Fantastic & Interesting place to stay. The only complaints being the shower in Best’s bedroom ran too hot so couldn’t get an ideal temperature. And we also were a little disappointed that there was no welcome pack when we arrived. We had travelled from East Anglia, so had a long long nightmare of a journey & by the time we arrived which was late, there was no milk or complimentary tea/coffee/sugar, so had to wait until we had unpacked everything out the car in order to make ourselves a well needed drink. Other places we have stayed at leave a complimentary arrival pack, which includes a loaf of bread, butter, jam, tea/coffee, milk & sometimes a cake & wine, usually providing locally produced items. We also had a suggestion due to the double fridge freezer being in the hallway behind a door that’s used a lot. You need to put some port hole windows in that door, plus the one to the kitchen too, so you can see whose behind it, so no one try’s to open the door when someone is in the fridge or getting something out the cooker. Anyway it was a fantastic holiday & would definitely return.

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• Janice - Verified booking

  The exterior aesthetic of the cottage is truly beautiful and it is perfectly located with lovely walks from the door and a short drive to Ambleside & Hawkshead.

  The garden is lovely, although it's use was restricted due to lack of funiture (4 old plastic chairs). The linen was clean, water hot, heating adequate & kitchen well-equipped (although no order to storage & not everything was clean). Unfortunately, the negatives far outweighed the positives including large areas of black mould on the window frames throughout the cottage, on the shower room walls & the utility room walls & doors; ingrained dirt in the grouting in the shower room; thd lounge windows were difficult to close & the secondary glazing trims kept falling off; filthy floor, sink & resources (mops, sweeping brushes, hoovers) in the utility room; 2 hoovers available but both dirty and don't pick up dirt so unusable; cupboard interiors dirty; cobwebs around ceilings; broken hinge on kitchen cabinet above the sink - BEWARE if you don't hold it open, it falls down on you; 2 broken dining chairs; water stain & large crack on the bedroom ceiling; electric socket hanging off the wall & 5 of 8 lights not working in lounge; broken kitchen bin; red marks in the bath; dirty laundry in the laundry basket; info folder has incorrect info about bin day (so bin doesn't get emptied because no-one knows to put it out on Wednesday, not Thursday); no key to 'games' cupboard or door from utility room into garage. The maintenance team sorted the lights & socket, removed the broken chairs & banged the windows to close them. The cleaners did a re-clean (it felt very reluctant) but we still had to buy cleaning materials & clean the shower room, bath & utility room ourselves to make them useable. Sadly, the cottage is in dire need of some maintenance work & a thorough deep clean. So many issues have been raised in previous reviews; a shame no-one appears to be responding. Such a shame because it has the potential to be stunning. We left feeling massively disappointed & needless to say, wont be returning.

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• Nicola - Verified booking

  The heating was pre-set and we were unable to control the temperature in the house.

  it was 19 degrees outside and the heating was on with no way of turning down or off. We contacted Heart of the Lakes and we were told somebody would look into this for us. Nobody came back to us. we had to put up with it and on an evening it was horrendous. The whole time we had builders working next door and each day they would start chasing the walls from 8am. You have the videos so you know what I am talking about. At one point the builder actually came through the adjoining wall. The kids were not able to sleep past 8am and the dog was terrified. We had no privacy as builders were wondering into our garden, we have teenage girls so this was completely unacceptable. At one point when we were sitting out in the front one of the builders went behind rather than into the portaloo to urinate right in front of us. I reported some of this to your company and sent pictures and videos. Again somebody was supposed to do something about this but nothing was done and nobody got back to us. Our holiday was completely compromised by the intrusive building work. We could tell by the comments left in the visitor book that we were not the only customers that were very dissatisfied and upset that they were not made aware of building works. This email is a formal complaint. I would like somebody to come back to me to let me know if my complaint has been received and is being reviewed / processed. I appreciate you can’t be responsible for the actions of the builders but I do believe we should have been made aware that there was building work taking place over the duration of our stay and this was you companies responsibility to do so. Please note other than the heating issue (that must be resolved) there is no blame on the owner of this property. My issue is with the company that manage the property. Heating issue aside the property was good.

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• Janis - Verified booking

  First the good: the location of the cottage and the cottage itself are wonderful.

  We loved how quiet and remote the area is. The age of the cottage is OK, as long as the amenities, cleaning, and other items are kept up to date, it is clear it is not a priority The bad: it was clear the cottage had not been cleaned. This is similar to other reviews we read in the guest book and online. If this is up to the management company then fire them and hire someone else. There were dirty dishes in the dishwasher, an old tea bag in the teapot, cobwebs in every corner, really quite disappointing. We needed to wash all dishes, we would have anyway but with the state of the cottage it made it even more necessary. The mop is DISGUSTING - we are happy to clean up after ourselves, and we know we left the cottage cleaner than when we arrived, but for heaven's sake - provide tools for your tenants to use! The alarm in the kitchen was ridiculous, we tried every which way to prevent that alarm from sounding, I think we were successful 1 day, and this was just with regular toast preparation, nothing was burned, nothing was smoking, and the alarm still sounded, highly recommend changing the location or finding a solution. When using the upstairs shower it leaks down onto the teapot area The key for the cabinet was no where to be found The refrigerator is a bit small, for a group of 5 (or 6 as advertised) it was crammed full. The directions for trash disposal need updating, one said Wednesday, another said Thursday Would we stay there again, most likely not, in the area yes, at the cottage, no

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• Ben - Verified booking

  Good points: - Great location - Easy parking - Nice big bedrooms (apart from one) Bad points: - Kitchen is nowhere near big enough for that many guests.

  Similar work surface / storage to a 1 bed flat. - Main bedroom suite shown as having a kitchenette on website photos but on arrival had been removed. This exasperated the above issue and was a let down. - property has 6 rooms all with double beds. We phoned prior to booking to confirm these could be separated into twins in the kids’ rooms. We would not have booked it otherwise. This was not actioned and we were told the conversation did not take place. It caused stress on arrival but eventually it was rectified. But the property isn’t suitable for children sharing a room for this reason. - 1 bedroom is tiny - Microwave did not work - someone came out to show us how to use it but it didn’t actually warm food up. It was also at floor level bit odd and inconvenient. - Kitchen door opens into oven area. Poor workflow design and made cooking awkward. - Oven had missing instructions and was impossible to figure out so hard to use. - Property info book mentioned a deal with local leisure facility. After much phoning around and asking, there was no recognition of this as stated which caused frustration / a waste of time. - balustrades are made of threaded bar, not a conventional building finish, and some were loose and fell out leaving a gap that a small child could fall through. Building regs specifies 10cm max gap. Had to refit some of these. Not suitable for toddlers. We had a good holiday but for what it costs, these issues shouldn’t have happened. The main issue is the size of the kitchen.

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