Large Cottages in Hampshire

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Raymond - Verified booking

  Pros, The annex is really great, well set up.

  The house is very clean and bright, the beds are very comfortable, and the kitchen is well-equipped. cons, One of the two bedrooms upstairs has no wardrobe and no hanging space for clothes, plenty of draws to put things in, I had to hang my clothes in someone else's wardrobe in another room, which is not good. the main bathroom toilet is hard to flush, you need both hands to push the button, no blinds over the window, and cannot use the shower over the bath as there isn't a shower curtain. the other bedroom upstairs has to use the downstairs shower, which has no slip mat, and the floor is very slippery with the tiled floor. The lounge could do with curtains or blinds as the sun shines right into your face through the large windows/ doors, you really needed the option to pull some blinds or curtains over. Parking for 3 cars, well I drove in forward, and when I came out I had to do about a 6-point turn to get out to the road. The road has one side parking only so as you come out onto the street there are cars parked on either side of the drive and you cannot see what is coming down the Road. When our daughter and her husband joined us, having 2 cars in the garden side by side made it even more tricky getting out, and when we went out one day and returned to find a skip in the front garden, it wasn't very helpful, we had no warning that a skip might arrive, we left one car outside. I really don't like leaving reviews like this but I felt that I should point out these things. Oh, and there are Rats in the garden running around with apples in their mouths. Sorry for this part on negative feedback.

  Read more less >

• Amy - Verified booking

  This is a lovely property, ideally situated for exploring Dorset and the New Forest.

  Our boys and dog thoroughly enjoyed the spacious house and garden, in particular. The house was very comfortable & there was everything we needed & more in the kitchen. On our first day we found that the television in the snug didn’t work. It switched off intermittently & the next morning unfortunately did the same. The contact number given by Sykes was for a company that looks after the property on behalf of the owners. My husband left a message, but didn’t hear back so had to chase them up later in the day. We were told someone would go round to look at the television the following day. Having returned to the house we were unable to tell whether anyone had been in, so again rung that company. They said they spoke to the maintenance person who thought the tv probably needed replacing. They’d also spoken to the owners, who said they’d been there the previous week & it was working ok then. We were asked to video what happens to the television, which we did & this was emailed to that company again. We never heard back from them or the owners, so felt the duty of care was lacking. Having a second television wasn’t the end of the world, but it meant one room in the house couldn’t be used, as intended. Our biggest disappointment was in having to spend part of our holiday chasing up an issue & not getting it resolved. It would also have been nice to have heard from the owners at some point, even if only to apologise for the inconvenience. We understand that they aren’t local, so you lose an element of personal touch but at least this issue wasn’t anything major.

  Read more less >

• Alison - Verified booking

  The lodge is very nice, it was very clean and comfortable and we really did enjoy our stay there and we would return.

  The directions are very poor, needs to be more specific we arrived from Lymington but the directions did not get us there. It needs to be more clear about the restrictions on the park and you are not attached to the main one, it’s very clear when you arrive and laid out in a folder, this would have been useful advice when booking. This did not affect our holiday as we like the quiet nature of the retreat, but feel others maybe not happy, it needs to be clear when booking. The fridge and cupboards were all full of left over items, which meant we had no where to store our things. It felt like we were sharing with other people, rather than this was our home for the week. We catered for the whole week of food and had to leave items on the side as there was no space cupboards. The maintenance team were excellent, we had a problem with hot water, nothing anybody could have foreseen, this was fixed within half an hour with the most excellent customer service. The lodge is lovely as said at the beginning, the area is lovely, we only traveled half an hour a day, sometimes less to visit some excellent places. We had a fantastic holiday, the little bits would have made it superb.

  Read more less >

• Judith - Verified booking

  The photography gave a misleading impression of the size of the property and garden it was smaller than we anticipated although we appreciated the extension.

  Bedroom 2 with double bed was wedged against the wall, so no space to get out that side. There was not enough room to store bicycles as stated the garage was locked. The combination locks for the side gate and bike shed had seized and needed lubricating with WD40 and were still stiff to roll. The keysafe was difficult to operate and there were no instructions on how to close it once the key had been removed. The letter box kept falling off and although we tried screwing the nuts back on it repeatedly fell off. The non stick coating on the pans was badly worn and we didn't use them. The chrome lavatory brush handle had rusted. There was a shelf unit/cupboard in the bathroom which had broken and was incomplete. The shelves in the white cupboard in the bathroom had fallen down and needed fixing back in. Some pictures were loose in their frames. The bath was slippery because it didn't have a non slip base we bought a non slip mat. The dining room table was too high and the chairs too low. There was no instruction manual to reset the hot water, so some of us had cold showers. There was a loud drilling noise at night of unknown origin which could be heard in the 2nd bedroom and front lounge.

  Read more less >

• Paul - Verified booking

  Overall, we were very pleased with the accommodation and had an enjoyable week.

  Just a few minor issues: 1. The instructions to open the main gate could have been a bit more detailed as we spent a few minutes working out how to use the fob. 2. The cupboard in one of the twin bedrooms was full of spare bedding so there was no room to hang any clothes. 3. There was no recycling bin in the lodge. 4. Not an issue with the accommodation, but we were disappointed to find out that we had to pay for a pass just to use the on-site restaurant (we didn't want to use any of the other facilities). Is this something that can be taken up with the site authorities? 5. Sykes advertises two lodges on the site: Seahorse Lodge and Amethyst Lodge. In relation to Amethyst Lodge, there is a note about the site facilities being 5 minutes walk away and that driving is not advised. It probably wouldn't have made much difference, but we chose Seahorse as this note wasn't included in the accommodation details and we assumed this didn't apply to Seahorse. Perhaps Sykes could be consistent in their information on this. 6. Also in relation to Amethyst, there is a note about on-site passes being available at half price. Does this also apply to Seahorse?

  Read more less >