Dog Friendly Cottages in the Lake District

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• 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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• Deena - Verified booking

  Firstly the cottage has not been cleaned on arrival.

  With two children and after a 4 hour drive we had to them sit in a local pub for 2 hours whilst it was cleaned. (Sykes did give us some compensation however 6 days later have still not received). On arrival back at the cottage it was still not cleaned to a suitable standard. There was hair stuck to the carpets upstairs and fat splatted at the back of the cooker. The hob has residue left on it and the bathroom has marks on the floor. The parking situation outside of the cottage caused havoc. The advert stated roadside parking opposite the cottage. This is not true. There are double white lines painted therefor you cannot park opposite them, which when we were loading and unloading we were told by numerous ‘locals’ who would go out of their way to tell us we can’t park. There is also a parking warden issuing £35 fines. To find somewhere to park in a village of this size with no parking available was an absolute nightmare. I was baffled on arrival at the front patio which is actually the door step… you would also never want to sit out there on a main road through the village? To watch tv we tried using the sky box which asked us to insert our viewing card. Firstly it’s 2023, who still has these type of devices and secondly, if we did, why would we bring the viewing card on holiday?? Wifi is chargeable, we had to buy this daily at quite a significant cost. There are no instructions for the cottage left out we had to search cupboards but this was minimal. As there is no garden, there was also no access to an outside bin so the kitchen bin became very full and we had to start taking rubbish out with us to find a bin? The welcome we received was the most unwelcome I have had in any cottage I have stayed in over the years. There wasn’t as much as half a toilet roll in the bathroom… The whole experience left us baffled, frustrated and put off from ever staying with Sykes again. It was an inaccurate listing of a property. That said, the village itself had 2 nice pubs with very friendly staff.

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• Sean - Verified booking

  Please refer to email sent directly to holiday park - the accommodation was absolutely brilliant, a credit to the owners and very comfortable.

  Everything we needed for the week and more was available., very clean and in top quality condition. The site was staffed with incompetent “teenagers” that could not or did not want to help. - shop was so poor and badly staffed we purchased all daily essentials from shell garage locally. Shop had no stock of milk or bread and staff standard answer to “when will you have some in”was “don’t know!!” Bins were absolutely heaving with detritus spilling out onto roadway overnight every night, (rat heaven) and wooden fencing around the bins was splintered and damaged - dangerous condition. Contractors on site did not adhere to speed limit on site especially 32 tonne lorries and large transit size vans, which arrived each day around 07:45! - an accident waiting to happen. Lots of dogs on site which is great……. Try emptying the waste bin adjacent to the lake more than once a week….. absolutely heaving with excrement all week from when we arrived and the smell was delightful in the heat of summer especially in an area where families gather. - finally emptied (as it was overflowing) on the Friday. Roadway (one way system) was blocked by contractors vehicles three times during our stay and we were forced to reverse against the incoming park traffic at the entrance against the one way system. Also the entrance barriers blocked on one side (two way road) all week by tractor and two mobile homes forcing incoming and outgoing traffic head to head through barriers. Not managed by the park. Safety of guests seems to be quite an afterthought. Accuracy, cleanliness, comfort ,facilities/maintenance stars and how likely are you to recommend refers only to the holiday home NOT the park in general as standards are a world apart. Please do publish this but I suspect you will not!! Thankfully we went out daily and got away from these issues. Please do feel free to call me to discuss any of the above issues. I’m sure with my health and safety background I could offer some quick fixes!!

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• Karen - Verified booking

  The property was falsely advertised.

  Photos made the appearance of the property spacious, however, dangerously cluttered with furniture making it very difficult to move around. The WiFi did not work and no card for the sky box. There were food bits and chewed gum on the floor and couches. Surfaces very dusty. The photos showed outdoor space with garden. There were lawn chairs in the house and no place to set them.outside. The mattresses were extremely hard and uncomfortable. There was a pair of boy's underwear under the duvet of the twin bed and stains on the duvet. I talked with a representative on Friday who told me to respond via email. This is my second complaint and I have had no response from Sykes. I have rented via your company many times, I am very disappointed that there has been no follow-up on your behalf, poor business practice in my opinion and very hesitant to further rent a property listed with Sykes. I await your feedback and some resolution to the absence of advertised amenities.

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