Isles of Scilly Holiday Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Davina - Verified booking

  A lot of the previous feedback regarding this cottage is quite accurate.

  I'll start with the positives - it was very clean on arrival, the beds are very comfy, there is a lot of space in the house, the kitchen is well equipped and the location is good for access to the town. The upstairs bathroom is dated, but was clean and perfectly usable. The garden is smaller than appears in the picture but secure and well maintained. There is on street parking and we did manage to park, but had the last space in the street for the time that we were there. It was a busy week (whit week) but if we had been a group travelling with more than one car we might have struggled. All of the surrounding streets were busy too. The garage was not big enough to accommodate our car. I was expecting a cute row of cottages from the pictures, but the property is a terraced house situated in a network of residential streets. The negatives - despite being clean the house smells overwhelmingly damp and musty. There are damp patches on the kitchen wall where plaster has flaked and it is clear that black mould spores are coming through from the brickwork. Inside the kitchen cupboards smell damp and musty and even through everything was clean, it needed to be washed before use as the items felt like that had a layer of moisture on them. The downstairs toilet was damp. The upstairs back bedroom (where my children were sleeping) had several damp patches on the wall with paper lifting and peeling, moisture running down the inside of the wall and black mould on the skirting boards and all over the back of the curtain. I can only assume that whoever maintains the property is aware of this problem as there was a dehumidifier fan running in the bedroom on our arrival and a damp trap next to the wall. Myself and my daughter started to suffer respiratory problems and we had to leave after only 3 nights of a 7 night stay for our own health. My daughter had been sleeping about a foot away from the damp and mould. Sykes were notified the morning that we left and have been very slow to action our complaint or contact the owner. I am very confused as to the more recent reviews not mentioning this problem as the smell is throughout the whole of the downstairs of the house. There is a review from 2023 that mentions damp and mould in the kitchen cupboard and back bedroom that the owners stated had been resolved by the handyman but it seems that the problem is probably structural rather than something that can be solved with some decorating. We are very disappointed at both the situation that we found ourselves in (having to find alternative accommodation on a b/hol Monday with two children and a dog) but also the lack of response to my complaint.

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• Gordon - Verified booking

  "Well it’s advertised as having a small garden ,but all you get is the space under the fire escape which to use you would have to duck under the metal bar that’s fixed there.

  " The inside is very damp downstairs where the bedrooms and bathroom are located, the bathroom is very mouldy and needs completely gutting to fix the problems, and needs a large extractor fan and a deeper drain to enable the shower to drain away as the water just soaks the floor. The disabled lift is really old and outdated and is starting to rust, it’s also the only way to move between the levels inside, without having to go outside and use the fire escape to go up or down, so the property could definitely use an internal staircase . The property is situated within the beer garden of the pub, which is not ideal when customers are gathered there while using the pub. We did have one meal purchased from the pub which was very nice and the owners were friendly, and the nice little touches were the cream tea that was waiting for us on arrival and the fact that there were dishwasher tablets and washing up liquid and also some tea and coffee items available. Reviewed by Robert Aug 2020 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above as can be seen is dated Aug 2020. Now in June 2023 it has not had any improvements and certain items within the property have deteriated even further. On arrival there were customers at the tables drinking etc and made no effort to enable us to walk pass with all our luggage and belongings. Many a evening we could not have the door or windows open due to the pub customers being noisy using unpleasant language The external staircase is very rusty in places with bird droppings on the handrail. The description of the property on the website is a candidate for Trade discription. The pictures are far from accurate as they show the 2 bedrooms and bathroom very light where in fact they are dismal and quite dark even in daylight. Reference is made about the shower above and after we used it the first time the water took ages to drain. We contacted the owner who managed to clear the drain, obviously this had not been done for months as it was virtually blocked. With all the bad points it is clearly not inspected by the agents. Cannot understand some of the feedback claiming that it is a desirable property.

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• Gill - Verified booking

  We very much enjoyed our stay in Penzance and Mazey Cottage has many positives with just a couple of areas to address.

  The house is spacious and comfortable and the town is just a short walk away. The neighbours are very friendly, parking was available and it was a quiet area. A lovely cream tea was left as a welcome gift which was very much appreciated. The garden however was not as depicted in the listing, not overgrown just tired and a little muddy (although I understand the previous week was rainy which will have impacted the condition of the lawn). There is a definite slug problem - we removed 68 slugs from the lawn one morning before letting our puppy out! Sadly it was not the pleasant, relaxing space as envisaged. As per previous reviews, there is obviously a damp problem in the house which the owner is clearly trying to address with some success. The main issue being that the mitigants put in place have not been adequately maintained and so kitchen cupboards smelt damp and the dehumidifier in the second bedroom had not been emptied and there were no instructions on how to to do this. Unfortunately the beds in the second bedroom had not been made up as a double as requested via Sykes - the cleaner had not been requested to do so and she had no king sized quilt available to rectify. After the first night we realised that one of the single duvets smelt quite unpleasant (possibly a dog sleeping on the bed?) however given this was a bank holiday weekend we purchased a quilt and cover to address this. I am sure that if we had got in touch with the owner she would have dealt with this. This was obviously an issue which the cleaner had not picked up, however we must say that she was excellent in every other way, even going into town to pick up a tin opener just in case we needed one during our stay! As you can see the review is balanced, however the issues can easily be addressed and once dealt with should not detract from the enjoyment of the cottage in future.

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• Jadine - Verified booking

  Cottage in good location for exploring Cornwall.

  Cottage well equipped, even though can opener broke the first night, was visible rusty, as well as the scissors. Had to buy both items to be able to have them for the duration of the holiday. Felt that these items should be checked by the cleaners as do not expect rusty kitchen utensils. Felt the overall cleanliness of the cottage was poor. The shutter style door for the pantry where the mugs was stored was filthy. There was crumbs in the utensils drawer. The chopping board was stained. The 'fan' mode on the oven doesnt work, arriving on the first night after a very long journey and waiting half hour for the oven to warm up before realising the fan oven must be broken. One of the bar stools was so noisy when sitting down on it, couldnt believe no one had reported this. Had to buy WD40 to sort it as couldnt bear listening to it when it was sat on. More than 1 tea towel would be helpful. The bathroom let the cottage down, mould on tiles, felt I needed to clean it before I used shower. The shower hose broke. Offered for maintenance to come to the property while we were there to change but no one did. The snug room door was very stiff, my son couldn't get out of the room and worryingly the window wouldnt open. I had to throw my weight at the door to get it to open.

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• Andrew - Verified booking

  Can't really say that "Pengullyn" had the wow factor, other reviewers have indicated this.

  It does, however, have virtually everything you're likely to need for a week or two in Cornwall, except egg cups. The most important thing for us was that the property has its own parking space. Which in Cornwall is a Godsend, given that we once had our legitimately parked car wrecked by a Cornish bin lorry. We were a little disappointed to find that the shower, reported has broken in August, had not been repaired. Needless to say showering proved rather challenging as a result. By the way, where was our cream tea that other previous visitors to "Pengullyn" arrived to find? Lol. Thank you for the milk nevertheless. A little tip. If you want to go into town and want to avoid the treacherous traffic on Chywoone Hill then turn right outside the side door, go down the short hill, turn right at the bottom and go through the covered arch. Immediately turn left and keep going. This will take you to the Strand and into town. A far safer route believe me! All in all we had a nice stay at "Pengullyn", and it provided a sound base to explore a beautiful part of our beloved Cornwall. Kernow Bys Vyken!

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