Whitby Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Naomi - Verified booking

  Nice cottage in a great central location.

  Unloading the car can be tricky in peak times as the cobbled street can get extremely busy and is for pedestrian use only unless for access. But this is advertised, just be aware especially if you’re arriving at a weekend. It’s much less busy after 5 when the shops start to close. The stairs inside can be tricky to navigate especially if you are coming with a toddler! We had to be very careful and block them off with a suitcase during our stay. But it’s to be expected in a period property, just worth noting if you have young children. The cottage itself would be perfect if the housekeepers paid a little more attention to detail. It hadn’t been cleaned when we arrived at 3, so delayed us by 2.5 hours. Not ideal with a toddler and a dog after a long drive. The owner of the property was very apologetic and did offer to pay for our dinner that evening as an apology which was much appreciated. I have since seen another review where this has happened before, so hopefully the housekeepers are more organised in the future. The cottage itself is nice, modern kitchen and bathroom, but still quirky and in keeping with the age. The only downfall was the cleanliness in parts, toothpaste splashes were left on the hand wash from the people who were staying before us, quite a lot of dust and other peoples socks, dice etc behind the sofas. And the duvet, pillows and mattress to the double bed on the second floor were terribly filthy and stained. Which wasn’t pleasant to see when stripping the beds upon our departure. They need to be replaced ASAP as it’s not at all hygienic. I did notify the owner of this straight away, and she has assured me that she is contacting the housekeeper’s, so hopefully this has been resolved now. Because honestly, just replacing the duvet, mattress, and pillows and giving the place a thorough clean it would be PERFECT! I can’t fault the owner as she was so easy to reach and responded straight away and thanked me for letting her know. Whitby is gorgeous and overall we really enjoyed our stay. And we would stay at this cottage again if the above has been resolved.

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• Josephine - Verified booking

  Kiwi Cottage looked perfect on the photo's on the website.

  In reality it wasn't. Firstly,both double mattresses in the property need replacing. The one in the main bedroom isn't fit for purpose ( when you sit on the bed,you instantly feel the slats of the bed) and the other one was only passable when we put a duvet on top of it. The bedroom window upstairs was painted shut and I had to go round it with a knife to open it. ( If there had been a fire downstairs,we would of been trapped).When I had opened it,there was nothing to keep it open,so we had to put a rolled up towel there. The window in the lounge is super difficult to open too. The floor lamp in the lounge doesn't work. The light in the fire doesn't work. No tea towels in the kitchen. Hooks and drawing pins in lounge fireplace/beams from Christmas decorations? We found dry dog food on the kitchen floor and a plastic bottle lid in the bedroom. There are 7 old fashioned style bins outside of Kiwi Cottage,right near the lounge window. A resident of the Yard regularly comes out to put a single item into the bins (in one afternoon in the space of 3 hours,11 times) and he looks straight into the lounge of Kiwi cottage which as you can imagine isn't acceptable,so the only option is to pull the dark blue roller blind down to a point that blocks his view, only that left us with hardly any day light. There also isn't anything up at the kitchen window, so you are completely on show in there. The gate to the Yard needs fixing too,it scrapes on the floor and as it's regularly used,the sound becomes really annoying. We actually left a day early as we were sick of waking up with aches from the mattress and sitting in the lounge with hardly any day light. Sykes did offer to get the owners to come and look at the dangerous windows ,but I declined that offer as I was so fed up with the property I didn't want to come face to face with the owner. In all the years I've been holidaying in cottage's,I have never felt so fed up and stressed and so thankful to be at home.

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• Tracey - Verified booking

  It takes a lot to impress my hubby, but as we walked into the quaint low ceiling beamed cottage, my hubby said wow as I did!

  It’s wonderful, and the little added touches like the tray of plum bread and chocolate chip cookies along with the tea, coffee and milk was an added extra lovely. The cottage was clean, warm and comfortable all with little themed Kiwi furnishings throughout. The kitchen is small but was more than sufficient for our stay, with modern fixture and fittings including a microwave, and induction hob. We took the top of the house room where my mum and dad took the large triple room on the lower floor. I loved the crisp white sheets and comfortable pillows, We brought our own but they ended up being thrown on the floor as we favored the house pillows. The only little thing I would raise, if you struggle with stairs this isn’t the cottage for you as they have a lovely winding staircase to the top of the house. Parking is across the bridge, it’s only a 10 minute walk. Don’t worry you can park outside the alley where the cottage is to unload and reload. I worried at first, but who wouldn’t want to have a stroll through Whitby. We loved every minute and will definitely be coming back.

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• Maureen - Verified booking

  I think you should put more directions on the position of the cottage and parking.

  I know the booking said that we would only be able to drop the luggage then park elsewhere but it was not clear that the house was up an entry off a very busy pedestrian area. When we arrived on the Saturday it was a complete nightmare, I was convinced my husband was going to knock someone over and on the way up the hill the name of the yard was not visible, it would have helped to have a Church Street number that the entry was next too and that there was a turning circle up the hill where we could turn around to return down the hill. The parking was also misleading, when I booked it said free parking a short distance away, the closest we got was 3000 steps away down and back up steep cobbled roads, not what I call a short distance. All in all it was a lovely cottage in a lovely town but the lack of closer parking spoilt it for me, because we were out and about in Yorkshire during the day we were stressed each time we were coming home searching for car parking.

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• Joanna - Verified booking

  Arden house is a great property for a holiday in the North Yorks Moors.

  We had a fab week staying with friends. The beds are really comfy and surrounding area quiet. The lounge has a great log burner and the owner left us some logs for the first couple of nights. It has 2 bathrooms (1 downstairs) so no queuing for showers. It’s 2 mins walk from Sleights train station so handy if u didn’t want to drive into Whitby. There is also a bus stop to Whitby 100m away. There is a quirky pub/hotel 5mins walk away. We didn’t eat there but had a drink. There are lots of lovely walks although some very muddy (lots of rain recently) however the Cinder track wasn’t too muddy and great to walk to Robin Hoods Bay. The Coastal path (Cleveland way) has amazing views but once again very muddy due to all the rain. Would be fab in drier weather. Highly recommend Arden House and the surrounding area for a holiday. Barbara left a lovely welcome back with local goodies which were lovely.

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