“The cottage is lovely, beautifully decorated and well equipped.”
It boasts a lovely location in a quiet residential street, and is perfect for visiting this beautiful part of Dorset.
However the listing on your website suggests there is off street parking, which is simply not the case. While the smallest of small cars (eg a Smart car or a Fiat 500) could possibly park on the hard standing in front of the cottage, a regular family sized car would never be able to, most especially when there is a car parked on the roadside opposite. Interestingly, speaking to the local neighbours, they all commented how difficult parking would be and that all guests have to park in the road. It is clearly a source of frustration for them as well, especially for one lady whose car was stuck at the garage for 3 weeks having been hit by one of the Fiddlesticks guests. Personally, I think you would be better to describe the cottage as not having parking, as it sets the expectation for a potential guest, more accurately.
The cleanliness of the property could perhaps be improved as well. We were left with no bathroom cleaning equipment which was disappointing, so had to go out to purchase this, including a strong limescale cleaner which my mother spent some time cleaning the bathroom basin, to remove the built up limescale residue. I should say that the property was not dirty, but perhaps not as clean as it could have been. A steam clean of the floors would be beneficial, as would the nooks and krannies. The bin in the kitchen would also benefit from a deep steam clean especially around the press button opening mechanism.
Likewise, we were only left with 5 dishwasher tablets. As we were staying for 7 days, we had to go and purchase more tablets, which we have left at the cottage for other guests. Also, there were insufficient bin bags. It’s not a big issue but rather an annoyance especially as we had to buy other cleaning products. In other cottages we have stayed in, there has always been a plentiful supply of these sorts of items.
Unfortunately there were a number of defective lightbulbs in the kitchen, with no spares available to replace them. Of the 7 lights in the kitchen, only 3 were working. I suspect the cleaning team have not noticed the issue as they don’t need to turn the lights on, but perhaps they could include this in their checks and replace where necessary, in future.
None of the items are big issues in isolation and certainly did not stop us enjoying our holiday very much. Perhaps a little attention to detail on the finer points could help make ours (and others) stay, even better.
***Owners Response*** Thank you for taking the time to complete your feedback following your recent stay at Fiddlesticks Cottage. We’ve spoken with the owners about your comments and they have asked we respond with the following: Although we agree the parking area is fairly small we do mention this in the property description on line to ensure guests are made aware that the parking space is more suited for a smaller car. We are not able to confirm if 1 of our visitors caused damage to our neighbours car, it's not something we have been notified of by her. Thank you for letting us know about the limescale in the bathroom, yours is the first report of any potential problem and we will ensure it is investigated. As a self catering property we do only provide enough household supplies to start your holiday off. The kitchen spot lights are LED and work on 2 switches, 1 of which works 4 spots and the other 3, all were working fine after our recent stay, we wonder if you had possibly not located both switches? Despite the issues raised, overall we are pleased you enjoyed your holiday