“Fantastic Place to stay.”
This is a wonderful place for anyone to stay. I had found this place on TripAdvisor back in January. Even though it did not have many reviews, we took the chance and stayed here. I will tell you the good and bad about the place.
We arrived to tea and biscuits in our room, which was very nice. Tom the owner came along a short while after to see how everything was.
When I walked into the room I was a little nervous, because 2 of the rooms were up steep stairs. I have a 3 year old and I was very worried she would fall down them if she came up to us in the night. Thankfully we had no falls.
I loved it here because of all the animals on the property. There are donkeys, horses, sheep, goats and chickens. All of which you can pet. We would go and visit the donkeys which my 3 year old named Jackpot and Kiki. There are also numerous play areas around the property, including big and small trampolines. There is a swimming pool which you can rent out by the hour for £5. We did not get to use the pool. We did ask if it is heated and Tom mentioned that it is heated overnight, so the best time to go swimming is as soon as it opens at 9.00am, so that way it would still be warm for a couple of hours.
There are 2 washing machines and 2 dryers right next to the unit (The Smythy) where we stayed. They cost £1 each per hour, which is a great price. Lechlade is a lovely little town. Not too far away you have The Cotswold Wildlife Park. We did not go there this time, but I have been there numerous times before. That is a great day out.
Now for the few things I did not like about the unit. First of all there is no freezer in this unit. We stayed in The Smythy for 7 days, we travelled around for 2 weeks and then came back for 11 more nights. We really needed a freezer during our time there. There is a fridge, oven, microwave, toaster and kettle in the unit.
The next issue that was not really a big deal for me, but was for my husband and 17 year old daughter, was the shower, or lack of. It is only a hand held shower which I did know about, but you cannot hang it up like a regular shower. So you really cannot take a shower with it, but thankfully you have a bath.
My last complaint and this was the biggest problem for those of us that stayed upstairs in the loft areas, was how hot it was. We had some really nice hot days during our visit and the loft areas get really really hot. The room we stayed in had a tiny window. But the loft where my daughter stayed did not. We did ask Tom if he had any fans but he did not. One other problem with the lofts are there is no where to plug anything in. We were going to buy fans ourselves and then just give them to my mum and dad when we left, but there were no sockets to plug them into up in the loft areas. They need some sort of cooling system for the loft areas, as it was miserable a couple of nights because of how hot it was. If The Smythy had a freezer and a fan in the lofts I would have rated this 5 stars. Even though I had a couple of complaints about the room, I would stay there again in a heartbeat. I loved the area, and the owners are wonderful, they are there for you if you need them.