Villas In Penrith

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Simon - Verified booking

  Very poor I’m afraid to report from both the owners and Sykes themselves.

  The apartment initially looked lovely, clean and modern in an isolated area but was met with a rather stern cleaning note on how to strip the beds at the end of the stay and how to tidy up after ourselves. The property looked lovely but we soon came to see the many downfalls. The lights in the bedrooms are simply too powerful and are motion sensitive, so every time you moved in the room the lights came on. Unfortunately we found this out during the middle of the night whilst popping to the loo. Also, the door going out of the property in the main bedroom requires a blind as the external lights will light up the room too. Sensitive sleepers be warned! I did find the shutters did not keep the room dark enough in the mornings either but that’s probably personal. The secret room was a joy and can in handy when a bat flew in (so definitely close to nature) as one member of the family could hide in there, whilst my daughter was delighted to see such a creature close up. The site the apartment is in contains a bar and restaurant, whilst the food is good, please book your table ahead of your stay as we were turned away one evening. Lessons learnt. The crazy golf was free and a great way to spend a wet afternoon Now the crux of the problem. We only booked this apartment on the basis it was served with a heated indoor pool but on arrival day, it was closed due to a leak. It remained closed all week whilst we stayed there, if I was made aware of the matter beforehand, I definitely would have picked somewhere else to stay. I raised a complaint via Sykes whilst away but they only contacted myself when I returned home. I complained about the pool to Sykes who passed it onto the owners, but neither Sykes nor the owners were willing to help out. I was offered a £100 compensation from the owners only if I stayed with them again, but I don’t feel like I would like to stay in the property again. Neither Sykes nor the owners were willing to help out (NB The receptionist at the pool did not offer an alternative either nor did the closed pool signs suggest alternative arrangements had been made). Sykes suggested a small claims but this isn’t something I’m willing to do due to unnecessary stress. I’m afraid due to the lack of understanding from the owner, I won’t be booking from Sykes in the future.

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• Gill - Verified booking

  The cottage was beautifully furnished, warm and comfortable but the lack of housekeeping stock and the ‘house rules’ did not give an overall welcoming feeling of relaxation or luxury holiday.

  For example - no detergent for the washing machine (in the countryside, wet muddy walks, in winter?), peppermill was empty, torch batteries flat or low, no spare toilet rolls, single small discs of packet soap in bathrooms with no refills, a single replacement bin liner only, outside shed bulb not working. As a pet friendly cottage, comments such as ‘Obviously dogs are not allowed upstairs or on the furniture’ and ‘there must be NO evidence of dogs left in the property on vacating’ feel quite disrespectful to guests and assumes the worst of them. The 9am checkout is early and difficult to rationalise particularly when the guest is expected to do most of the tidying. To be packed up, beds stripped, house ordered, had breakfast and on your way, under the threat of leaving not a single dog hair, by 9am on the final morning makes your last day a very early start and/or takes up much of the previous evening. Things like this detract from what could have been a really enjoyable and relaxing stay. Whilst we appreciate all prices have increased, the cost for ensuring usable items are well stocked and refilled should be a reasonable inclusion to the overall cost. The cottage is not cheap and for this tariff, we really would not expect to feel penny pinched and unfortunately it engenders a degree of dissatisfaction. Initial supply of logs is as stated in the description, but again, refills require a car journey to stock up and in our experience cottages of this cost and marketed as luxury would have extra logs on site and available. The village pub is excellent and well worth returning to, the location is good for local attractions, walking from the door is good if without wanting to let your dogs off lead but requires walking across a lot of sheep fields or the road to get to better dog suitable walks. Overall a very lovely property but not the luxury relaxed holiday ambience we were anticipating. Lots of positives but definitely some areas to reflect on to improve the user experience or expectations

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• Gill - Verified booking

  The cottage was beautifully furnished, warm and comfortable but the lack of housekeeping stock and the ‘house rules’ did not give an overall welcoming feeling of relaxation or luxury holiday.

  For example - no detergent for the washing machine (in the countryside, wet muddy walks, in winter?), peppermill was empty, torch batteries flat or low, no spare toilet rolls, single small discs of packet soap in bathrooms with no refills, a single replacement bin liner only, outside shed bulb not working. As a pet friendly cottage, comments such as ‘Obviously dogs are not allowed upstairs or on the furniture’ and ‘there must be NO evidence of dogs left in the property on vacating’ feel quite disrespectful to guests and assumes the worst of them. The 9am checkout is early and difficult to rationalise particularly when the guest is expected to do most of the tidying. To be packed up, beds stripped, house ordered, had breakfast and on your way, under the threat of leaving not a single dog hair, by 9am on the final morning makes your last day a very early start and/or takes up much of the previous evening. Things like this detract from what could have been a really enjoyable and relaxing stay. Whilst we appreciate all prices have increased, the cost for ensuring usable items are well stocked and refilled should be a reasonable inclusion to the overall cost. The cottage is not cheap and for this tariff, we really would not expect to feel penny pinched and unfortunately it engenders a degree of dissatisfaction. Initial supply of logs is as stated in the description, but again, refills require a car journey to stock up and in our experience cottages of this cost and marketed as luxury would have extra logs on site and available. The village pub is excellent and well worth returning to, the location is good for local attractions, walking from the door is good if without wanting to let your dogs off lead but requires walking across a lot of sheep fields or the road to get to better dog suitable walks. Overall a very lovely property but not the luxury relaxed holiday ambience we were anticipating. Lots of positives but definitely some areas to reflect on to improve the user experience or expectations

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• Sarah - Verified booking

  The cottage is a little style over substance - it’s beautifully decorated and has some clever touches such as the boiling water tap, but lacks functionality and some basics you’d expect.

  As a fellow holiday cottage owner and holiday maker I expect the following to be in situ - a toaster, some baking trays, blinds at all windows (the double bedroom back door has glass panels and no blind), working TVs - there are three but some don’t have live TV consistently working on them) and welcome instructions regarding the site itself eg recycling, bins plus using the technology (the less tech minded may find this challenging). From a safety perspective there’s a step from the kitchen to lounge which is difficult to see. Another guest has kindly put silver tape on this to make it stand out and has flagged in the visitors book - this isn’t up to safety standards in my opinion. Finally the hall and bathroom lights are motion sensored. I have no issue with this except that if someone gets out of bed in the double bedroom the light in the open bath area comes on and wakes up the other person - there’s no way of turning this off. This should not be on a sensor as we had disrupted sleep each night. The site itself is lovely - very quiet given it was half term. The restaurant serves good quality food and the mini golf etc are well maintained. Only and quite big negative was the pool temperature - it’s very cold. Our five year old learns to swim in a cold pool but this took it to another level and she didn’t want to go in the main pool - which we didn’t blame her for as neither did we! If the pool temperature was rectified we’d love to stay on the site again but we wouldn’t stay at this property.

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• Fionnuala - Verified booking

  Beautifully decorated property with an emphasis on modern technology.

  Unfortunately however, the owner has confused a magazine worthy showroom with a holiday let. Not suitable for small children due the ridiculous amount of breakable ornaments. Every surface where I would want to put my own items, was covered in home bargains tat. Get rid of it all and you have a lovely property. Kitchen had the minimal amount if kitchenware. No toaster, no collinder, 3 broken mugs, no slotted or wooden spoons. Only 3 small pans. Not great if you enjoy cooking. No child friendly crockery, so bring your own. No instruction manual or advice on how to use the plethora of digital equipment. Even the oven told us it was on the WiFi. No info on recycling. No guide for the thermostat. Not sure what the purpose was of the huge blank books that took up space in the living area? Whitbarrow village itself is lovely though after a week of non stop rain, the play area and all grass areas were too muddy to enjoy. The pool and restaurant were lovely. We will return but not to this property.

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