Dog Friendly Thetford Holiday Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Deborah - Verified booking

  PROS: The barn is a beautiful old house, with tons of rustic charm and character and the central atrium entrance is particularly stunning.

  It is quite large so plenty of space and we liked that the bedrooms were at opposite ends of the building ensuring privacy from the in laws who visited and stayed with us for 4 of our 7 night stay. The beds were super king and the bedding was really soft and comfortable. The private secured little garden is great for the dogs and there were a further 2 really lovely areas where the dogs could play. The kitchen was well equipped and the sofa and TV area very comfortable. The owner was helpful when we needed a fan in one of the rooms and she was also helpful in recommending some pubs and places to visit. There is a utility area with a ton of tourist information flyers and maps, which I found useful when planning days out. CONS: We found dog hair (not ours) all over the sofas and cobwebs in the ceilings on the wooden beams. Whilst we appreciate this is a old barn, this could have been easily rectified with a deeper clean between guests. The front door double height glass entrance had dozens of dead flies stuck to the glass :-(. The front entrance was also tired with weeds and piles of leaves which again could have been swept up and tidied between guests. My husband also didn't appreciate being 'told off' by the owner for using the wrong hoover to clean up sand from the back seat of our car :-(. The owner did in fact tell me that they weren't able to afford the rates of local cleaners so they have taken to cleaning the property themselves. The property is located in a quiet residential road but there is nothing else nearby other than residential properties. The nearest pub was several miles away, and there were no shops within walking distance. This means we needed to drive everywhere with quite considerable distances and times involved, i.e. a day trip to the north Norfolk coast was a 3 hour round trip! This was a big issue for us as we spent so much of our time driving but we do appreciate this was mostly our fault as we didn't sufficiently note the distances involved and we didn't quite appreciate how large Norfolk was (so not a criticism of The Barn or Sykes).

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• David - Verified booking

  Any upstairs property is likely to be a bit uncomfortable in hot weather as the best can be done is to have lots of fans!

  Realistically it was a bit like being in a caravan with some space restrictions. Get the impression it used to be more popular some time ago, for the owners, whilst friendly, are perhaps a little amateur despite being in this business for a long time. Have to be confident remembering the last passing place as you travel the single-track lanes 2miles from Necton where there is a good Co-op shop and filling station. Only real problems on site were the kettle tripping the whole power system until it was replaced as there were no spare plug fuses. You need to make toast with the door open or the fire alarm goes off. Wi-Fi was perfectly OK - it just needs a quick mention in the cottage information sheets. The siting is only disappointing if you want to walk a lot as the restrictions on where you can walk because of private properties make it very difficult to work out from the maps provided in the information sheets. Endless hot water should you want it but offset by silly things: only one loo roll supplied and minimal quantities of sugar/tea/coffee like a hotel room. Comfy bed, decent shower. Compared with many Sykes Cottages we have visited, this was well down the scale, though not a disaster.

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• Michael - Verified booking

  The property was clean and well maintained.

  In a nice setting in a rural location but access to well stocked Coop, fuel and Costa close by. We used it as a base to travel from and as such racked up some miles as there is not too much close by, but it suited us. It has character, but also a well equiped modern kitchen for eating in. I found the settee comfortable for evenings in, but the bed somewhat firm and not very comfortable for my liking. The breakfast bar isn't great if you are the person on the right under the sloping ceiling. Be prepared to accept that you will almost certainly crack your head against the ceiling a few times during your stay as you go into the bedroom! Final point is that the WiFi really is painfully slow. I mean pre bradband dial up slow! It regulalrly cuts out making research and booking visits & events, or even just keeping up with emails very difficult and infuriating. This really needs sorting as in the modern world it does detract from the visitor experience. Most would rather pay a little more for good broadband and the ability to stream to phone, TV etc. DVD's no longer cut it!

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• Anthony - Verified booking

  Sadly, we had to leave the cottage early.

  We found the general site lacking in attention. The stairs to the cottage were open tread, and in need of some repairs. We were led to believe that our dog would have plenty of space to run, but this was not the case, we were instructed to keep him on a lead whenever we were outside. Outside needed some care and attention, broken flower pots at the entrance to the cottage, just one small example. The cottage was very small, this was not a problem in itself, but the shower was only about two feet square, i couldn't even bend down to wash my feet, (no, my wife and I are not overweight, I am 12 stone my wife 11! It is not somewhere we would recommend. We left early, partly for domestic reasons, and partly because of our dis-satisfaction with the cottage, such a shame. Tony Tomkinson

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• Philip - Verified booking

  A lovely quiet location and an ideal place to bring the dogs.

  We had everything we needed and our wives really enjoyed the hot tub. The supermarket at Watton was just a few minutes drive away and was easy to get to. We were left alone to enjoy our holiday but Karen the owner lived on site and was always on hand if we had any problems or needed advice on the local area. We were met by Karen on arrival and shown around the premises and the outside dog walking areas. Karen went through all the rules and explained everything very clearly. Key collection and drop off was easy with Karen living on site. All in all a very pleasant short break and a venue I'm sure we will return to in the future.

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