Holiday Apartments in Wales

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Trevor - Verified booking

  The instructions given by Sykes to gain entry to the apartment are confusing.

  The address given for The Old Cornhill is No 6 (which is actually the number for the whole building. However, the Old Cornhill door has a Number 2 on it. But there are also two doors with Number 2 on them - OC and Cornhill Courtyard, which are sometimes let together as a single unit. You need to use the door at the back of the building, along the dank, rubbish strewn short alley way. There is however. a much easier way of locating the correct door. You are told to enter the courtyard and the OC entrance is round the back. Once in the courtyard, there are very clear nameplates next to each door, that identify The Old Cornhill and Cornhill Courtyard - that's what the location instructions should say. There are two key boxes – use the one on the left of the front door. And the 5 digit code you are given is incorrect as the key box has only 4 digits. You need to omit the 0 at the end of the number you are given. It seems to us that the apartment was renovated for holiday lets about 15 years ago and has been left to fall into decline ever since. The two sofas are saggy, shabby and uncomfortable and the cushion covers are stained. The mattress falls away at its edges as the edge springs have failed. There is a lot of black mould on the grout in the shower. The bathroom sink plug hole does not fit and your bowl of water will seep away whilst you are using it. The kitchen sink tap drips when on full cold. The front door is not very secure and better locks would be advisable. The windows are draughty and the wind whistles through them. The electrical items display stickers that state the last electrical test was in November 2022. There is an iron with a ‘failed – do not use’ sticker on it. There is an airer that has a broken catch so you have to lean it up against something otherwise it falls over. The oven door doesn’t close properly. The detergent drawer of the washing machine was full of black mould. The freezer is heavily frosted up and, as a result, we could only open one of the three drawers. The cooker hood filters smell strongly of grease. The kitchen is fairly well equipped but there are only 2 teaspoons and 2 mugs and a pair of tongs would be useful. One of the wine glasses was cracked. Many of the glasses have dishwasher burn. We could hear every footstep made by the users of the apartment above us and, from our bathroom, we could hear nearly every word said by the users of the apartment alongside. The listing says there is a patio or outdoor seating area. This takes the form of a few pieces of broken and dirty garden furniture against the wall in the courtyard where residents park and the bins are stored. The bins were overflowing and there was rubbish on the ground in the courtyard. One bin, in particular, was overflowing when we arrived and was only emptied a fortnight later just as we were leaving. The gateway to the courtyard is very narrow and the courtyard has room for 2 cars if they are parked well. The spaces outside the building, on the road, were always taken and so we parked in one of the 20 or so free-to-park spaces outside the Tafarn Pencei pub 50 yards along the road. We managed to get a space there every time we needed one. The listing states the apartment has a TV. Being 15 years old, it is not a smart TV and only offers the freeview channels, rather than what current day expectations of a TV would be. The remote control for the TV does not work (we changed the batteries and it still did not work) so you have to use the channel and sound buttons on the back of the TV to turn on, change channel and sound. The USB port on the side of the TV does not work. There is a blu-ray player but it and the TV do not ‘talk to one another’ and so the blu-ray player is useless. We reported this to Sykes Cottages AKA Menai Holidays by phone on our second day (when they called us to reset the router as the lady downstairs had a problem with wi-fi) and did not receive a response for 5 days. They sent round a ‘technician’ in our absence to fix another problem with downstairs' access, as well as ours, but our problems were not even looked at, let alone fixed. The downstairs issue was "fixed" by the expedient of taping a card to one of the plug switches saying "do not turn off" - which card could only be read if it was lifted up - it was not placed so you could easily read the instruction. We reported this to Sykes/Menai via the portal as it was a weekend and the phone lines were closed, but never heard from them again. It seems they were only interested in appeasing the complaints from the tenant in Cornhill Courtyard, rather than the problems we were experiencing. They even closed our call before we got back from our day out and could receive my feedback as to whether the issue had been resolved or not. As it was a Saturday, phoning hte office resulted in a "we are closed" message, hence notifying them via the official channel of the Portal.

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• Victoria - Verified booking

  Location location location!

  And that is why we chose to stay here. It was wonderful gazing at the castle through the windows on a daily basis. The town centre was easily accessible from here as well. There was some occasional noise through the night on weekends. And cars illegally parked directly outside the bedroom window on week days. This is mainly down to the location. There's a nightclub nearby, and a shop serving takeaway breakfast. The central location near to the castle, and with stunning views of both the castle and harbour, is bound to come with a few setbacks, so we didn't mind this. It is exactly as pictured, so you know exactly what you are getting beforehand. The style is quite Scandinavian and minimalist which I liked as it felt fresh, clean and uncluttered. It also made packing easier when we headed home. A bit more clothing storage in the bedroom would have been good, but otherwise we subscribed to the 'less is more' decor. However less is definitely not more when it comes to information. We were surprised to find that there was no information booklet. We've stayed in at least 20 rental properties in the UK and this is the only one without any written information. As such we didn't know how anything worked: the oven, the heating, the TV. None of them were straightforward. We would never have worked out how to find and access the washer, which is shared between the rental properties and numerous shops. There's a total of 4 different coded gates/doors in this property and you're only provided with the code for key safe which cannot be used elsewhere. It feels like the owners want to say there's a washer but don't really want you to use it, seen as they don't tell you where it is or how to access it. There needs to be some written information provided so that guests don't need to ask the caretaker at every turn. Thankfully, he is lovely, and very patient. But I shouldn't have needed to contact him as much as I did. Be warned about the 'adjacent car park'. I could not find any pricing information online in advance. It is a phenomenal £14 for 18 hours. There's no 24 hour option or weekly option. This car park will cost you a further £125 a week on top of the rental price. What's particularly frustrating is that it's owned by the same company as the property. So it feels like an excuse to extort further funds from paying guests. We only parked here once, the rest of the time we parked elsewhere. But the truth is, that's incredibly inconvenient when you have suitcases/shopping. Particularly infuriating when there's a large open space directly in front of the property and a car park next door that the property owners also own. A deeper clean of the bathroom also needs to be considered. All other rooms were immaculately clean but on first use, the bathroom sink failed to drain due to the plug being full of hair/fluff. I freed this up but shouldn't have needed to. Also, the shower head was visibly mouldy on arrival, so I cleaned this too before use. But it still needs a proper clean as I had no cleaning materials with me. And it needs cleaning every week. The hand-wash was empty and had evidently been empty for quite some time. If it is not going to be filled up every week, remove it. We weren't able to open the windows and this is obviously a known problem as evidenced by the air fresheners in every room. The doors were weighted fire doors, so it wasn't possible to simply leave them open. The lounge in particular smelled of wet dog when we arrived, so we propped open this door with a chair for the duration of our stay. Also I am 5 foot 4. Thankfully I travelled with someone who is 6 foot 2, so we were able to use the bedroom blind. But I would have had no chance, the cord for this was way above my head and I could only just touch it even at full reach. Again, this would have been another call to the caretaker every time I wanted the blind pulling on or off. The blinds are great quality and very stylish but they need to be made more practical! Overall I felt that the property had been renovated extremely well and it was very stylish. The quality of the furnishings was very good. But it was let down by little things which had evidently been overlooked. All of these little things could be easily rectified should the owners decide to take on board the feedback from various guests. Frustratingly, almost everything I have said has already been raised by other paying guests, so why have they not been rectified?

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• Judy - Verified booking

  I have had an enjoyable weeks stay in Cornhill Courtyard which is a studio apartment.

  The location of the apartment is superb. It is situated in the old historic area of Porthmadog Harbour and has a wonderful view straight out over the beautiful harbour which you couldn’t better! I also really liked the fact that the large main room is so light, bright and spacious. The kitchen and bathroom facilities were also fine. Once the sofa bed was up with the topper on top it was very comfortable . However, I did have some issues with the sofa bed. I was staying in the property on my own and as a 75-year-old woman with an arthritic hip, I did find it quite a struggle at times getting the bed up and putting it away. On one occasion the fabric loops got trapped inside and it then became impossible to get it out or put it up on my own. However the owner was extremely responsive and arranged within a couple of hours for the cleaning company to come and sort it out which they did. It needed two men to lift out the mattress extension in order to release the fabric flaps. I had felt concerned about the parking situation in August. However, in the event I was able to park right outside the apartment on three occasions and very close by on the other four days. From 4:30 pm onwards Porthmadog gradually quieten down and plenty of free parking then becomes available. Security of the property is very good as there is a padlocked gate into a small courtyard. Despite the issues with the sofa bed I am very glad I stayed in the property, as I had a very enjoyable weeks holiday. It was lovely to revisit Porthmadog, which I had visited a lot as a teenager and young person, when my parents had a caravan in the area.

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• Shelley - Verified booking

  We were delighted with the Nantlle and in a perfect setting.

  Each of the rooms are beautifully decorated and well equipped, especially the kitchen. There was even a cheese grater with zester!!! Waking up in the morning to peace and quiet we walked the dog around Caernarfon and that was a treat. The fact you walk out the front door and are greeted by the Castle, harbour and mountains is wonderful. We welcomed having the fan in the bedroom as the property does get rather warm. It's a shame that you can't open a window for ventilation, but appreciate why, due to being on the ground floor. As the property has fire doors on each room it was hard to get air circulating especially the kitchen. It gets a lot of sun on that room so at times it was a tad warm (not usual weather I know) to combat this we simply had the front door open for a few moments to get some air through. The front sitting room is super cosy and a delightful space to have a sit down after a day out. It was also nice to see the property have some local crafts and artwork upon the walls. We loved sitting at the table staring out at the Castle during mealtimes each time you look you spot something new. It's the perfect back drop whilst enjoying a glass of fizz. Parking so close was great. We highly enjoyed our stay and it was nice to be greeted by the caretaker who was extremely helpful. Would definitely go again.

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• Wendy - Verified booking

  Had the best week away to this amazing apartment, set in the harbour area a minutes stroll to the castle and all amenities.

  The apartment is decorated to a high standard and is well equipped and comfortable. A short stroll around the castle are lots of pubs to sit out and admire the views. The only downside is the parking situation, when we arrive we found out from the caretaker that the harbour trust had installed new meters and a new tariff as the apartment does not include parking (even though there is a massive area directly outside the apartment that is council owned but has bollards all around to stop cars getting on) the tariff at the car park was £18 for 18 hours (no 24hr option) the caretaker told us a alterative parking spot which was £4 for 4hrs or £5 for over 4hrs where we parked for the first night. we were unsure abut this because on the ticket it said it was only up to midnight. after a bit of research we downloaded a app called Horizon parking and found we could pay for parking at the local Asda store that was a 5 mins walk from the apartment from Sunday to the following Saturday for £12 this was great as we ha booked a few steam train trips so didn't need the car. Felt so much better than paying over £120 for parking. loved the whole week with great views and a fab place to people watch.

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