“We have been using Sykes cottages for several years now, since we sold our motorhome & we have never had to contact Sykes regarding any issues with their properties, until now.”
We arranged this holiday as part of my wife’s 60th birthday celebrations & the read up for the Hidden cottage sounded perfect for our needs, as we like to make the most of the day, with walking & exploring with our dogs, a bit of pub grub & then settle down in the evening with a nice meal, a drink or two & watch some TV, whether that be live TV or a DVD?
We also like an enclosed garden for privacy & to allow our dogs a space to play, in fact the enclosed garden is a deal breaker when we book a cottage.
So, although the Hidden cottage is basic, it appeared to have all of the amenities that we required, an oven, microwave & hob for cooking, a fridge & icebox to keep our food fresh & our drinks cold & lastly, a TV with a DVD player.
Having stayed in some cottages, we have learnt that sometimes, the TV reception can be a little poor so we always take with us several DVD’s to watch just in case?
Now, the saga begins. We arrived at the Hidden cottage just after 4pm on Monday the 23rd of September 2024, we unloaded the car, got the cottage keys out of the key safe & let ourselves in.
At first everything seemed as it was described by Sykes, that was until we saw the fridge which appeared to have a miniature iceberg extruding from the icebox which would not allow the refrigerator door to close. Then following the welcome information pack that every cottage supplies, I attempted to put the TV on, which (yes you guessed it) did not work due to no signal.
It is now approximately 4:30pm, so I called the phone number supplied in the welcome pack & got no answer, I then called Sykes & I got a voice message saying that they were closed until 9am tomorrow.
Ok, so the TV problem can wait but what about the fridge? I thought that maybe defrosting it may solve the problem but I wanted someone in authority to know about the problem before I attempted anything. So as a last chance, we called the only other phone number that was available to us which was the cleaning company who were obviously employed to do the cleaning following a holiday let.
We spoke to a very nice lady named Sue & told her about our problems, Sue told me to try to defrost the fridge & that she will come to see us. Sue & Ben then arrived at the cottage within 15 minutes & whilst I was defrosting the fridge, Ben was attempting to get the TV working. After sometime, Ben admitted defeat & said that the satellite box was not working but he showed me how to use the TV using the internet so that we could watch things such as YouTube & Amazon prime.
That evening following a few drinks in a local pub & a bite to eat, we settled down to watch some TV, which due to the lack of choice of programmes & the programmes intermittently stopping (probably due to the internet) we decided to watch a DVD.
So, I thought, not a problem as we’ve got several DVD’s that we can watch? No, we couldn’t because (yes, here we go again) the DVD player did not work!
The following morning at approximately 9:30, I telephoned Sykes & spoke to Jennifer, I explained the problems that we had encountered & that this holiday was part of my wife’s 60th birthday celebrations. Jenifer apologised & told me that she would get someone from maintenance to the cottage to sort out the problems. She told me to leave the keys to the cottage in the key safe & to carry on with our holiday.
Following our day out exploring the local areas, we arrived back at the cottage around 7pm, only to find that no one had been to solve the issues. Obviously, it was no use calling anyone as it was too late.
So, the following morning, I telephoned Sykes again & again I spoke to Jennifer. I told her what had or hadn’t happened yesterday regarding the TV & DVD player but also that the fridge was not working correctly at all. Jennifer again apologised & I told her that we are now half through our holiday & that I feel as though we have not been supplied with what we had expected when I booked the cottage & if things are not sorted out, I will be expecting compensation? Jennifer told me that she will get someone to me that day & to my surprise, that afternoon Ben (from the cleaning company) turned up.
Jenifer had asked Ben to see if he could rectify the DVD problem, after a while, Ben told me that the DVD player did not work but credit to Ben, he went & got us another DVD player that did work.
So, with half of our holiday over, we finally have a working DVD player & a partially working TV. The refrigerator was by now struggling to maintain a constantly cool temperature & was dripping water.
What else could possibly go wrong?
Well, there we are relaxing with a drink on Thursday afternoon with the door to the cottage open when all of a sudden, a total stranger walks into the enclosed garden to empty rubbish into the wheelie bins. This could have been a catastrophe for the person if our dogs were aggressive to intruders? There was no mention in any of the literature of the fact that the wheelie bins were also to be used by another cottage?
On Friday, a lady who was friends with the owner of the cottage arrived to check out the fridge etc, she was very understanding regarding our plight. She admitted that the cottage required some TLC, she apologised for what we had endured & said that she will be passing the information back to the owner.
We loved Aldeburgh, the weather was half decent, the locals are very friendly, we would recommend that you should visit but don’t stay at the Hidden cottage until the issues above are rectified.
We feel as though we have paid for something that we have not received & to add insult to injury, my wife is 60 only once!
- Stephen, September 2024
