Suffolkhideaways Avis 5

We stayed in Granary Cottage near Southwold and had a lovely week. The cottage was well equipped, very comfortable and full of character and charm. We enjoyed the location, very quiet with uninterrupted views, and only a 10 minute drive to Southwold.
Suffolk Hideaways were easy to deal with and all went smoothly.

Suffolk Hideaways booking ref. 235724
Holiday cottage: Stone Hall, Suffolk

Of gravest concern was our discovery of several animal traps, found within the garden. Two of them were located at the rear of the patio - armed and ready to cause significant injury to our Welsh Springer spaniel had she stepped onto one of them or pushed her nose in to smell.

On arrival the property was full of gnats and flies. Though there were plenty of dead ones on the window seals the vast majority were very much alive and hungry. It took us best part of three days to remove most of them. Given the location on the edge of the forest this eventuality should have been foreseeable and prevented.

Contrary to Suffolk Hideaways description the welcome pack was very bare indeed - no milk, bread or anything else for the first evening or first breakfast.

The kitchen patio doors were out of use & insecure. They were well and truly rotten & basic routine maintenance would have avoided this and also prevented the plague of Ladybirds that beset us midweek as they searched for somewhere warm to hibernate.

On our first night we decided to sleep in the larger of the two downstairs bedrooms. However, we soon realised that the single electric radiator in that room was not working. We relocated to the other smaller downstairs bedroom only to find that in the late hours it was just too noisy to sleep as every hour or so a loud roaring noise, like a motor or drainage pump, emanating from the adjacent scullery, sounded several times a matter of seconds apart.

The modern shower room underfloor heating didn't work.

The lounge sofas and chairs are to be blunt completely knackered. We both ended the holiday with bad backs and in our opinion this is unacceptable given the hotel prices paid to stay here.
The tv set-up is a samsung plus tv where you can access on demand tv only if you have your own subscriptions otherwise there is supposedly the option of a free-sat box for normal terrestrial tv channels but that only connected on one of the 10 days we were there.

We notified Suffolk Hideaways immediately concerning the animal traps and we submitted a formal complaint to them concerning all issues. After receiving an initial apology our subsequent emails were ignored.

This is a difficult one to judge. The accommodation was mostly OK, seemed expensive, but we had a good stay. But I was pestered by FEEFO to leave a review, which I did, mostly good but also points that potential stayers should be aware of.
- After many weeks no sign of the review being published, and I note the reviews that are there are all brief and praising. So because they use feefo for reviews I feel I have to mark them down.
EDIT-My review was eventually added.

My booking for Chantry Cottage in Blythburgh was cancelled. Suffolk Hideaways said this is because the owner is not letting it any more after March 2023 but the same cottage is now available on AirBnB for bookings after that date. It looks like the real reason for cancellation is that the advertised price when I booked through Suffolk Hideaways was too cheap compared to what the owner can get elsewhere. Beware - especially if booking well in advance.

Booked a short break online and paid for the trip in full. Had full confirmation via email. Had a call the next day to say their booking system was not working properly and we had been double booked someone had booked the cottage 40 mins before we had and sorry they had to cancel our booking. They tried to find us somewhere else but couldn’t. To add to this I had asked them a question the night before via email about the lake near the cottage and they answered with the information after cancelling us. They said it could take 5 working days for us to get the money back!! Luckily it was only a couple of days and I had enough limit on my card to book elsewhere. Very disappointing they need to sort their website.