Dolphins

A good week.

Good beach weather.Perfect location near the beach.Perfect beach for kids and paddle boarding .Perfect spacious accommodation. Excellent parking. Narrow lanes to the property but that adds to the fun .

After reading some reviews about Dolphins on the Sykes website I was apprehensive about what to expect.

However, our whole party thought it was perfect for a family gathering. The beds were comfortable, the rooms were clean and facilities good. The "broken plan" spacious layout had plenty of seating, there were two fridges and two ovens so great for self catering and with four bathrooms everyone was well catered for. South Sands beach is just a sort walk away, a couple of hills but easily negotiated by small children and grandparents! The views are superb and outside seating area and parking a real boon. It was lovely.

We have stayed here for quite a few times over the years it has a lovely setting close to South Sands beach ideal for the children to play and paddle board.

The property itself is generally ok . The only criticism I can make is that the mattresses need replacing they are very uncomfortable on all the single beds . There is a new bed in one room which is fine.The cleaners haven’t swept under sofa as we dropped some puzzle and looked there was quite dirty . All in all an enjoyable week with good weather.

It maybe a bit old round the edges (like me!

) but Dolphins is a lovely, charming and very homely place to have a holiday. It has everything you need and more with a quiet terrace to enjoy a coffee or drink in peace. We have been coming to Salcombe for many years and thought we would try Dolphins at South Sands - and for us this has been the best holiday house by far. If you want Surrey by the Sea in the hub of Salcombe then go to Allenheyes, Devon, Coronation etc. If you want somewhere quieter, charming and homely then book Dolphins. We can’t recommend it too highly.

Lovely location, great views, good sized house, well equipped.

Few minor gripes: Beds were a little uncomfortable and all but one room had single beds - including in the master bedroom. Garden very overgrown - we were warned about this after booking, but it obviously hasn't been tended to for some time now which meant it wasn't accessible for our children to play in. There was also an infestation of fruit flies throughout the house - not sure if there's anything you can do about that, but it was a bit unpleasant. None of this detracted hugely from a nice week, but given the price of the property, should perhaps be addressed.

We absolutely loved the house, the views are spectacular and for a family with 4 16 year olds and 2 older( not so) children in their early 20's, the bedrooms and bathrooms are perfect.

Our issue is with the agent, Sykes, and not for the first time. Following a fairly significant mouse issue, we continually chased Sykes for action, to discover none had been taken until over 3 hours later, when we asked to move out. The pest control company were unable to come by the time anyone contacted them, and we were offered several very sub standard properties, without the view or proximity to the sea, which was what we went away for, or the bed set up for our party, yet Sykes ( see James' response on Trustpilot) still insist they offered us 'several alternatives'. In all the review responses, Sykes very unhelpfully point out that they are merely the agent. We are well aware of that. Our issue is not with the owner, as we feel were we able to deal with them directly, we could have had a proper conversation rather than call centres in Chester, and infuriating scripts. Having said that, the issue is clearly well known to the owner, as there were traps with dead mice under the kitchen cupboards and the dishwasher cable was chewed through causing a substantial leak in a kitchen cupboard, leading to further loss of food. The fact mice were getting into the kitchen cupboards and had eaten our bread, was really not pleasant, and shows there must be quite a significant problem, and the house should not have been available for a holiday let in that state. In short, with a more robust solution to the mouse problem, we would love to stay there again, but not while Sykes are the agent. We will never use them again. Once spoken to, the owner has offered a refund for the stress and inconvinience the incident caused. I hope the owner is now challenging Sykes' appalling lack of action and robot-like service, as I feel confident they are charging them a fortune. We felt they would happily have left us waiting for someone to come out, without any reassurance of when, any ability to escalate issues away from people who can only quote scripts, and anyone who cares enough to take timely action to resolve an issue. This was our holiday, we don't go away a lot and this was a treat for my husband's 50th. It's amazing what a difference good or bad customer service can make and Sykes have a long way to go to address their customer service.

We absolutely loved our stay- really comfy, plenty of space and great views!

Also the little cove was great for paddle boarding and catching the ferry.

FYI.

One of the “rocking” chairs is breaking and 2 of the handles on the kitchen cupboards are not secure

After 7yrs of the Dolphins being our home from home I didn’t think I would be writing a review like the below but I feel after the way our complaints have been handled its a justified one to inform future all customers.

Our most recent stay this year confirmed in our view that the prices have risen but the standards have fallen. On previous years we have politely informed Coast and Country that the small fridge in the kitchen was not closing properly, and therefore not keeping temp and that there were no shelves due to them presumably being broken. This was again not rectified and to make matters worse the additional fridge in the pantry also had shelves missing / broken. Not a deal breaker but when a party of 7 are staying it doesn’t leave much option for the storage of open milk etc. A review of this issues was left by us back in 2020! Our main issue however was the condition of one of the en suite bathrooms. On arrival I noticed that grout was missing around a number of tiles on the floor and one of the tiles had cracked in many places & was sticking up, upon walking on the floor there was excessive movement on the floor and mould behind the toilet. From a health and safety point of view and with young children we chose not to use this bathroom during our stay. During the day when we were out of the house and we returned, walking into the bedroom there was a strong smell of ammonia, much like walking into a public urinal. This in my view is unacceptable and should have been picked up on the clean along with the subsiding floor, with Coast and Country informing me before our stay with a plan on how it was to be resolved. We took the decision to wait until our departure day before informing Coast and Country as we had a lot planned for the week and with young children didn’t want to be hanging around the property waiting on someone coming to inspect. In our view the bathroom floor needs replacing and this would not be a five min job whilst the house had occupants. There were other issues that I can concur with on the below reviews, cleanliness is not great, the bottom room is completely out of bounds due to smelling so bad, bins not being emptied on arrival. Today we received an update from Sykes/coast & country on our complaint, I am FUMING with the response and utterly gobsmacked in the lack of customer service. I paid the £2700 for a week and I expect a lot more. To be told that nothing will be done because we didn’t inform them to the issues during our stay is a joke. No phone call reply to discuss, just a couple of paragraphs basically sweeping it under the carpet. It’s not for me or the other members of our party to keep Coast and Country etc informed of maintenance issues, this job sits with Coast and Country and not the customer and reading most of the below reviews it seems all customers are being dealt with the same treatment, nothing being done! This will be our last time staying at this property, it’s a shame as we have enjoyed our times over the years. If only those who take your money took onboard the feedback below we would be going again next year! Another note to the owner .. You pay a fee to coast and country to clean your property between stays. This clearly isn’t happening with all the reviews stating the same, maybe don’t pay them? And for our inconveniences, refund customers a small amount?? I barely ever complain & I wouldn’t be writing this review if you actually took the complaint seriously. The toilet was complained about previously back in Feb 2022 & nothing been done???

We were very disappointed.

Our first choice was turned down as unsduitable for children. In our opinion this property this property was most unsuitable. The garden was at 45 degrees so they could not use it. The games room was inaccessable despite being advertised and we broke a key trying to access Our main concern was access by car. Approaching from South Sands it was difficult/impossible to turn into the drive without wheel spin. We had to drive further up the road,reverse and approach from Coombe side. We also found the property grubby. Not our best holiday

Too much dog hair on sofas rugs and blankets.

Seems a contradiction when it is described as not allowing pets. Mattresses really in need of being changed.

This is an excellent property with a fabulous location and is an extremely spacious well appointed holiday let The only downside is the accessibility of the house If you approach the house via south sands you cannot make the sharp right turn up to the house in one go and in reality need to go up the hill towards sharpitor turn and go down the hill and access that way Once at the house you cannot make a left turn up the extremely steep driveway and again need to go beyond the driveway turn and come in that way The steps to the property are extremely steep and narrow and unloading food and bags is difficult The easy way to access the property is via the small lane road through Rew and Marlborough This house is fabulous once you are in but is totally unsuitable for young children older adults and anyone with access issues If you are looking for a holiday where you don’t want to move once settled this is a fantastic house

4 couples on a walking weekend arrived on the Friday and found the property was in a wonderful location with fantastic views.

It seemed well equipped with plenty of crockery, glassware, cutlery etc. On unpacking we found the cleanliness to be well under par for this type of property, i have worked in hospitality for over 20 years and there are many simple things that can be done to improve this property, the wall behind the toilet in one room was mouldy and the mattress protectors and quilts were stained and in fact smelt musty. The general cleanliness was far from acceptable, i could have rung and complained however then having to wait around for someone to come would have taken up too much of our time. Things like crumbs in the cutlery drawers, oven trays unclean etc is just not acceptable. Sending people in to check after a complaint means nothing, this should be checked before people are due in. Another of my issues was the fact that there was no recycling, we had to take our own bottles with us and had this been mentioned in the website i would have been prepared for this but to arrrive and find a notice telling us it would cost £50 if we left it behind just didnt sit well. As for the games room the less said the better, we opened the door and it smelt so bad we locked it up and never used it. For the price of this property things should be perfect and unfortunately they were not. It was such a shame however we had an enjoyable weekend walking but it felt like we were not supposed to.

We stayed at Dolphins as a group of 7 ladies on a friend's group walking weekend in October.

Not many properties of this size have 7 separate beds so this was a bonus for us and the house suited our needs perfectly. The kitchen was well equipped with everything we needed, there was enough seating for everyone and the newly fitted bathrooms were very clean and spacious. The views from the lounge and most bedrooms were really stunning. We could drink our morning coffee watching boats and paddle boarders. The view of South Sands beach and surrounding estuary made it easy to relax and unwind. We highly recommend The South Sands ferry to Salcombe (which was still running every 30 minutes in October when we visited), coastal path walks to the village of Outer Hope (an 11 mile round route), Hotel cocktails on the beach and water sport activities. The previous reviews mentioned cleanliness was an issue so we were a little apprehensive on arrival but we experienced a very clean house with recycling facilities now in place and had no concerns with this aspect at all. The games room below was not in use and the bedrooms are a little dated but having double duvets on the single beds helped us get a comfortable nights sleep in this beautiful location. Thank you for helping us having a very chilled weekend away.

stained bedding toilet brushes covered in faeces

The house could do with some upgrade not.

a lot but the cutlery cou be better organised and chairs outside upgrading but we enjoyed our time at the house

Dolphins is in the most wonderful location which cannot be recommended more highly.

Stunning views. The house is a little dated but was more than adequate. Cleanliness wasn’t the best but didn’t warrant making a fuss. Disappointed not to have a mid stay clean or sheet change. The garden was obviously once much loved but could do with a some tlc. It was disappointing that the building works nearby were continuing and woke us early every morning - despite having been assured that the works were complete by the owner beforehand. We did have problems with electrics and it took a day to remedy this. However this was resolved by the owner.

Had an issue with duvet & this was replaced the next day, but a couple of the other duvets need looking at - rather lumpy!

We had to clean food off oven shelves, oven needed a deep clean. General cleanliness was v good. Other issues were dealt with promptly and courteously - excellent agents

Dolphins is situated in a great position near the beach for the children.

It has been improved since my last visit with nice new showers and toilets , new carpets in all bedrooms. The only thing I think they could improve is now to upgrade the beds and bedroom furniture,they are ok but would finish it off perfectly. We had a problem with the built in fridge it wouldn’t work either there is a problem with the door no shutting properly or else there is a fault on it. However , we have rebooked for next year as we love it and the area .

The House was in a Beautiful location, I expected the house to be cleaner than it was due to Covid.

The basic cleanliness Bathrooms, Kitchen, were clean however there were lots of cobwebs around and the baking trays and oven were very dirty with food debri still on them. The soft furnishings were tired and all of the mattress protectors on the beds were stained as were a lot of the pillows( we know this as we had to strip all the beds on departing) the bedding did not feel fresh like they had been freshly laundered and in fact 1 of the single beds appeared to have sand in it .!!!!!The Games room was totally unusable we opened the door and the smell of damp was unbelievable you could not stand in there for more than a few minutes this was only any good for storing purposes so if you were relying on this space you would have been very disappointed, this is a big issue that I feel the owners need to address. The Barbecue was very dirty we had to clean it before using it. If the owners address the problems as it is an expensive property to rent I would stay there again.

The cleanliness of the property left a lot to be desired.

There needs to be recycling bins - it is unbelievable that in todays world there are no recycling bins/bags at the property. The additional room downstairs - is very damp and not usable for anything other than a storage area.

The house was great the view beautiful and the whole set up is very good .

unfortunately the fridge which was part of fridge freezer did not work at all.I object to the threat to charge you if you don’t remove the bottles and newspaper the local authorities should provide a service for recycling.

Good

Fantastic house with stunning view. Will probably rent again at some time and would certainly recommend it to friends

A glorious stay in a beautiful, secluded location with everything we needed.

The house is spacious, clean and airy, with a huge living room area with gorgeous views over South Sands. The beds are comfortable. We noted some comments from recent guests and we thought we should add our update, having very recently stayed for a week: • A tile on the bathroom floor in the ensuite off the back bedroom was cracked and was being repaired. • While there were a couple of accessories that need to be replaced, the fridges were sparkling clean and had plenty of storage for a party of 8. • The patio area offers plenty of space for living and outside eating. • Parking space is more than adequate • We found the house very clean and cosy.