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Original poster

Please share your completely impossible holiday cottage complicated normal equipment stories..

87 replies

bbcessex · 20/10/2018 19:56

Hello all 😎

We are spending half term in a really nice, quite pricey Hence lots of facilities - UK.-by-the-Sea holiday cottage.

Generally, place is really nice, but we arrived yesterday and have a list of niggles.

1: massive garden, as expected for dog, and yet not a single outside light. Arrived last night at 7.30pm and couldn’t tell if dog would be safe to toilet outside or not. Had to find the keysafe with torch on phones.
2: Three - THREE - remote controls to get the single telly to work. Guide book to walk through configuration. Have teenage daughter, so that and good WiFi is mandatory requirement. Despite numerous instructions, still unable to work it out.
3: Range oven - completely unintuitive . tried to use hob today... turned various dial options on to not avail. On googling, seems oven model needs to have pan on ring to ‘sense’ before it gets hot.

FFS - don’t even get me started on the Hive heating. Have just opened all windows to cool house down (i work in IT - am quite analytic - am
Flummoxed with their settings).

Will be on to rental companies on Monday. Anyone care to share their experiences in the meantime?

OP posts:
LIZS · 20/10/2018 19:58

Turn the temp down! Press the centre button on the controller, if heating is on use the dial to turn the target temperature down.

Nakedavenger74 · 20/10/2018 20:02

A Nespresso before they were ubiquitous. No instructions. Despite not being luddites and pressing the various combinations of (the only two) buttons we had no idea how to make it work.
No wifi and no mobile phone signal. Had to drive about 4 miles to get signal to google the instructions.

TokyoKyoto · 20/10/2018 20:03

TV remotes/those weird channel boxes in holiday homes are the devil's work. I've never managed to get one to work two days in a row!

Interested in this thread?

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Holidays
Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:04

LIZS - this is the unit - there is nothing on the display whatever you press or turn?

Please share your completely impossible holiday cottage complicated normal equipment stories..
OP posts:
NoParticularPattern · 20/10/2018 20:04

I once stayed in a holiday cottage/house where it had one of those wanky handle-less kitchens. Nothing in the “book of how to do all the things” to tell you how they work and it wasn’t obvious at all. Tried just opening them and pushing them if they were sprung but no. Had to call agent and they explained how we had to go into the utility (not handle-less!!) and get the magnet (!!) to open them with. I did ask them why they didn’t think this might be appropriate information to include in the book and they couldn’t explain it to me. I often wonder how many people stayed in that place and never used a single item of crockery, cutlery or kitchen equipment?! Maybe that was the whole idea?! Hmm

BlackeyedGruesome · 20/10/2018 20:06

microwave in a cupboard, but if you left the cupboard open while microwaving it cut the galley kitchen in half.

one we went to had no working smoke alarms, the wind blew the boiler fumes back into the kitchen if in a certain direction, the plate in the microwave did not go round so every minute or so you had to open the door to reposition the food, and the roof leaked onto the carpet.

LIZS · 20/10/2018 20:09

Press the button in and a display will appear, turn the dial to change temp and press the green tick if needs be.

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:13

Thanks LIZS - tried that before but just taken the unit off and swapped out 2 of the batteries from 2 loose in a kitchen drawer - now Have indicators to turn down from 28!

OP posts:
legocardsagain · 20/10/2018 20:14

Creaky floorboard and 6 week old baby. Could not find the off switch for creaking or crying.

Microwave did not stop when the timer ding'd. Wtf. Melted steriliser, midnight, rural location over Christmas week. Needed either exactly the same steriliser, or a new one with new sets of bottles. Impossible to fathom any kind of ordered thinking around this problem with a hungry baby and all bottles being held hostage by the melted steriliser.

I have no other recollection of that holiday.

hmmwhatatodo · 20/10/2018 20:14

Yep. Weird heating systems, one was an air conditioning unit that would blast icy cold air out at 7 am every morning despite me switching it off and trying to stop it, was also a pain to try and get it to give out heat. Tv ... usually seem to have to install the thing and then can only pick up a few channels. Weird door locking systems.

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:14

2 out of 4 batteries... didn’t think to bring spares with us!

OP posts:
redsummershoes · 20/10/2018 20:18

cabin in the woods in sweden.
bathroom was in a separate cabin a few meters from main cabin.
to use it you had to switch it on inside the main cabin. it was a timed switch (10 min) so if you took too long in the shower it would turn ice cold if time ran out. and light off if you needed the loo in the middle of the night.

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:19

Tks for your stories, folks. Makes me feel less of an idiot that other quite sensible people have fallen prey to the holiday cottage Krpton Factor Challenge ..

OP posts:
bigbluebus · 20/10/2018 20:19

Not a holiday cottage but we were staying with friends recently for a weekend. They have recently had their kitchen refitted. DH got up and dressed on the 1st morning (as he thought everyone was getting up reasonable early to go out for the day). He went downstairs but no one was up and about. He tried to make himself a cup of coffee but couldn't figure out the coffee machine. There wasn't even a kettle to make a cup of tea as they have a boiling water tap - which DH couldn't figure out how to work. It was at least 1 1/2 hrs before anyone else got up! We all laughed when we realised he had been sitting there for so long unable to make a drink!

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:24

Poor man, bigbluebus - how annoying for him!

RedSummer - I feel the same, letting the dog out into the abyss!

OP posts:
TheCbeebiesYellowBlobs · 20/10/2018 20:28

No sockets in bedrooms - the kids have a gro clock but it's plugged in in the kitchen (nearest socket) and they can see it through their open door. In order for the cable to reach, it has to go through the sink. Electricity and water, what could go wrong?

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:31

Cbeebies 😱😱😱 blimey - think you might win (sorry about that 😱)

OP posts:
Nakedavenger74 · 20/10/2018 20:33

Not holiday home but campsite.
Shower block. Go in cubicle, get undressed. Switch on shower. No water. Stand there naked looking confused. get dressed again. Go outside. See coin box and realise it's bloody coin operated. Gather all things up and go back to tent. DH has no change. Have to go begging to camping neighbours for 50c pieces.
Return to shower block and triumphantly drop in coins. A digital legend tells me I now have 3 minutes to shower. The next 3 minutes is 2 minutes of me removing clothes in a panicked way and 1 minute of 'showering' in water that was hotter than the sun (no time to fiddle with controls) leaving me with half my body unwashed and conditioner in my hair and a scalded back.

EggysMom · 20/10/2018 20:37

Let's just say that induction hobs and me don't get on ....

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:43

NakedAvenger. - a coin operated shower? What fresh hell is that .... 😡😡😱

OP posts:
Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 20:44

lego OMG.. think your microwave sounded like could have set fire to whole cottage..

OP posts:
Kewqueue · 20/10/2018 20:49

On googling, seems oven model needs to have pan on ring to ‘sense’ before it gets hot. Had this problem in the summer too. Weirdly they had instructions for absolutely everything but not the supercomplicated hob!

BackIntoTheSun · 20/10/2018 20:56

We could not get the oven in our cottage to work to make dinner. No instruction manual, tried all the knobs etc. Very hungry. Couldn't go out as baby needed to go to bed. We felt so stupid fetching the owner, who luckily lived onsite, to tell us how to operate an oven (It was something to do with the timer)

Original poster
bbcessex · 20/10/2018 21:00

Kew / backinthesun - I wonder if the owners added instructions after you had to call them out?

OP posts:
DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 20/10/2018 21:01

Our climbing clubhouse had coin operated showers. They ran on 10p pieces, which newbies were not told about. Eventually, the committee took off the cashboxes, so the coins just went round and round, about 2-3 to each shower. Then a hire group nicked them, and the next club meet had to pass two 10p bits round 15 people, all reeking of sweat and sheep shit.

We don't have coin operated showers anymore.