“Claife View Lodge - Ambleside 77
We stayed here for a weeks holiday in November
2018.”
This was booked through Sykes Cottages as the lodge is privately owned.
On arrival the lodge was freezing cold, the heating had not been on for days and it would have been nice and welcoming, to arrive to a warm lodge especially this time of year.
The lodge did not appear to be very clean. The basics were fine; clean bedding, clean toilet and shower, and main floor areas ok. We moved the coffee table to make more space for our little baby and noticed the rug was quite stained and the part of the rug under the coffee table had not been hoovered for a while! We attempted to hoover ourselves but the hoover was pretty useless.
The bathroom door handle was broken and we reported this 2 days after our arrival, and it was finally repaired the day before we went home. There wasn’t much storage in the kitchen as the cupboards were all full of kitchen equipment (not sure it was all necessary!) so we stored stuff on top of the kitchen cupboards only to discover it was thick of dust and very greasy. We noticed that the extractor fan wasn’t even connected to anything. Skirting boards were grubby especially near kitchen bin, so we cleaned this ourselves. (Who wants to clean while they are on holiday?!) There was lots of dirt and old sweets etc under both sofas. The shower screen leaked everytime you used the shower and the grout/sealant was mouldy in places. We found a hairball on top of bathroom cabinet and hairs/dust behind bathroom door. We found food smears on inside of curtains in living room, and inside of windows were covered in fingerprints. Decking area could do with a jet wash after the summer.
We reported these issues to Sykes Cottages when informing them of the broken door handle. The cleaning team did visit the following day and cleaned the floors, removed hairs from behind door and left fresh towels but did not action the other issues. However, it did make us feel a little more comfortable about staying there the rest of our holiday.
We had an ok holiday, the site is nice, clubhouse is canny, and the site is in a great location. However, this lodge needs a deep clean and a bit of TLC asap! Hopefully no one else will feel the way we felt while staying there, or have to do their own cleaning whilst on holiday, and that the owners of this lodge have dealt with all the issues we informed them of!
Lastly, the third bedroom is quite small, with no cupboard space and is definetly a bedroom for children. I don’t think the lodge is really suitable for 6 adults.