The cottage location is beautiful, very remote and very hilly. People with disabilities will probably struggle in this location.
Some lovely local pubs but these are a good 10/15 min drive away, worth the drive!
We also visited Edinburgh quite a bit during our stay and this took around 25/30 minutes each way. The castle is well worth a visit. We also visited Midlothian dry ski slope which was good and attempted various cycle rides with our children, some very challenging.
In terms of the cottage, it is very quaint and much smaller than we anticipated. It is attached to another so you are asked to keep noise to a minimum.
After expecting so much more, we encountered issues with the heat, a broken sofa and mixed messages directly and on marketing material regarding pets and this sadly this put a bit of a dampener on our stay.
We did raise the cold with the owner and she brought extra heaters which worked on day 3 onwards but we felt our complaint wasn’t well received. We stayed in December and the temperate was around 3 degrees so very cold.
We have copied below our improvement:
Make it clear which cottage it is that guests are staying in. We tried 3 doors upon check in and apparently there are 3 cottages available to rent which we weren’t aware of.
Our suggestion would be to not generalise upon your marketing. Lots of mixed messages by doing it this way. Marketing and websites suggests pet friendly and refer specifically to cottage 3 but then when you arrive we were told cottage no3 wasn’t pet friendly. We were even asked our dog name before we arrived on email, so it’s very contradictory. The marketing in the cottage, the website and the visit Scotland website also both suggest pets are welcome.
Provide extra storage / hanging space.
We were surprised as for 4 guests we had only one chest of drawer for all of us and our clothing
Ensure all cottages are warm for guest arrival especially during winter months
Ensure heaters are available at all times. We were dissatisfied that the owners provided only a few logs and the heating wasn’t on, it was very very cold. We were advised to buy our own logs after spending over £2000 for one week!! The owner however did provide for a second when we complained about the heat in the cottage. Once the walls warmed through and with use of additional heaters it became much more cosy and liveable with kids.
The owner suggested a thorough deep clean occurred between each viewing; however the cottage was dusty suggesting that a thorough deep clean hadn’t been the case prior to our arrival. There was no check sheet available regards the cleaning schedule carried out before our arrival and as suggested upon the website. Also would suggest ensuring a hoover is available at all times as we had to ask for one.
Re covid, the cottage didn’t fully comply as their were no ‘bag the linen’ black bags left to put our bedding into. Bedding wasn’t left in plastic covers as suggested, it was under the beds with no cover. There were no individually wrapped soaps and only 1 cloth available for use the entire week. The pillows inside the window seat were however in a sealed cover but when we took out they were very damp and we did not use (this was on our last evening).
Maintenance when visited to check the heating, boiler pressure and a second visit when the sofa collapsed on one side. No gloves or foot coverings we’re worn as indicated upon the website. Masks however were worn.
Overall a nice cottage, however we felt the price did not reflect the property. It’s nice and in a beautiful location but it isn’t luxury as suggested.
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