Holiday Cottages In Ambleside

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Helen - Verified booking

  There were 3 problems on arrival at Wainwright Cottage on 12 April: The boiler was not working and the house was freezing.

  It took well over an hour to get through to the appropriate person on the phone. The property did not have WiFi. On the basis of these issues I made a decision to book a different property and am very grateful for the kindness of Leah in Customer Service who assisted me to do this. It seemed to me the only way to ensure a good quality break for my son and I. Clearly this has resulted in an extremely expensive holiday. I understand that the heating in Wainwright Cottage was repaired later that evening. I still consider that for such a short break, the length of time spent on hold before getting through, and the delay in having any heating would have significantly affected the quality of our stay. The increased customer demand due to change in travel rules, and potential for problems in properties which had previously been empty, should have been anticipated and additional staff made available. Regarding the lack of WiFi, I understand that this was an error on our part that we did not recognise this on booking. However, in the context of a pandemic, with no public WiFi options (eg local cafe), and for a town property (which was not cheap), where it is clear that an off grid rural retreat is not being sought, I firmly believe that it would have been more reasonable to explicitly mention in the property details that WiFi was not provided. If this is standard practice for the holiday cottage industry in 2021, I feel it is lagging behind modern life, where WiFi has become a virtually essential utility, particularly in a pandemic. I am sure we are not the only customers to have made such an error, and will be interested to seek the views of consumer organisations. I fully understand that the second property was booked in the knowledge that there would be no refund for the first. However there seemed no other reasonable option after an 8 hr journey. As a busy NHS worker, holiday time is precious, and it was vital to salvage a good holiday experience with my teenage son. As a loyal Lakelovers customer of many years, who has previously written only positive reviews, I am extremely disappointed with this overall experience and hope it is not representative of the move to Sykes. I would appreciate further consideration of the issues raised. See also response to COR-205969-CF sent 14/04/21 and review of 2 Rothay Holme Cottages.

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• Maggy - Verified booking

  The house was clean and tidy but the outside (the terrace and the tiny yard off the kitchen) was dirty and full of fallen leaves.

  I rang Lakelovers straight away and was told that the it was outside the cleaners' remit to clean the furniture outside and that the maintenance team cleaned these areas every few weeks. When I asked how this could be when we had paid nearly £1000 to have a week's holiday in somewhere that had undergone a deep clean, I again was told that the cleaners didn't clean outside even though they were there on the property and could see it was dirty and that the maintenance had to come and do it. They arrived on Tuesday (I was told next day) and did a good job, but I had to clean the chairs and table on the terrace before they came as, obviously, we wanted to sit outside overlooking the fells. This was posted on the website in May “The small outside area outside the back door needs some maintenance, it hasn't been swept forever, there's dried leaves everywhere and weeds, also the upstairs outside terrace is the same, I had to clean the table and chairs myself to sit on, they were covered in bird poo and filthy!” This in July 22 “Stylish” Roof terrace could do with a spruce up/weed. The leather sitting room furniture was in a shocking state and partly been covered by a throw to hide the scratches and wrinkles. This was posted in April Overall the cottage inside is tired and would benefit from some comfortable chairs/sofas. SO NOTHING HAD BEEN DONE TO ENSURE A CLEAN OUTSIDE AREA FOR EVERY INCOMING VISITOR AND THE OLD FURNITURE HAD NOT BEN UPGRADED. The over-mirror light in the shower room and one of the under-cupboard lights in the kitchen were not working.

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• Samuel - Verified booking

  Beautiful house, location was brilliant just outside Ambleside.

  The private car parking was a huge plus too, can be tricky to find in the lakes. Kitchen was great, beds were all comfy as was the living room (lots of space in living room too). It looked as though it hadn't been used for a week or two, and had therefore not been cleaned immediately before our stay (lots of obvious cobwebs in more than one room). Couple maintenance issues that need addressing, the upstairs sink was leaking, the downstairs en suite shower drain was partially blocked, and the kitchen lights kept flickering if we turned them up (worked fine when on the lowest setting so not a huge issue). Also I would say one drawback about the layout of the house is the downstairs toilet is very cramped. Still an enjoyable stay overall, have been before and probably would stay again if those maintenance issues were sorted.

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• Keith - Verified booking

  We visited Wainwrights Cottage at Xmas, & only problem was hob ignition not working & had to be lit manually.

  We have just visited again in October & hob still not mended also upon arrival found a pan & bowl under Boiler catching leaking water. We thought this must have been reported as cleaners must have seen this, so we expected someone to come & repair it. 3 days later it was still the same, awhich stopped us having shower as the water pressure wasn't reaching second floor due to problem with Boiler & water was cold in shower aswell as shower head full of limescale and blocked. We tried to have bath which was on first floor, but the plug for bath was too small, which meant water just escaped & it wasn't until day 4 when we were leaving that we found a larger plug on floor under bath! Not happy with our visit as feel it's expensive for what we experienced, so will not book Wainwrights Cottage again.

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• Ashleigh - Verified booking

  Prime location for Cottage, the cottage is lovely , would I go back?

  possibly just not through Lake lovers. raised my concerns a few months in advance about the previous comments I had seen on this cottage -all about how clean the place was or wasn't in this case, I was reassured that Lake Lovers had a new cleaning company and this place would be spotless (deep cleaned) if you listen to the call, well if that's what a 'cleaning company' call a Deep clean I really do not know how they are still running, I wanted to swap/change cottages because of this and a past booking I had also with Lake Lovers but they would not allow it and promised me it would be deep cleaned for me, in my response I stated should it not be deep cleaned for every new customer? Ill not be using this company again......

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