Holiday cottage owners - things I would like pls!

[EinsteinaGogo]

Hi everyone,

There have been a few posts from holiday cottage owners recently (which makes sense, due to situation).

I'm browsing holiday cottages / lodges in Suffolk for between Christmas and New Year, and I'm pondering my 'must haves'.

Obviously, everyone has their own 'must haves'. In our case, we only go out for a few hours a day. the rest of the time we spend In the cottage.
so my must haves are:

Excellent wifi
Good sized Smart TV with Netflix at a minimum, ideally Amazon and ability to have other apps
King sized bed

There are so few places that have smart TVs -
I'm actually thinking about bringing one! And so many places only have a double bed. My DH is 6'4". Double beds mean rubbish sleep for us.

Renters: what are your must haves?
And owners - can you get me smart tv and massive bed pls?!

The bed is a deal breaker. I'm not interested in anything which doesn't have a king size bed or better. Such a shame when there are so many lovely cottages in beautiful places.

I have rejected many cottages for bed size: must be kingsize. I don't want to sleep worse on holiday than I do at home.

I dislike leather sofas because they're hot and sticky in summer and cold and slippy in winter, plus, they can be hard if you dont have the squishy kind

I think you are confusing fake leather with real leather. Real leather sofas aren’t hot in summer and cold in winter.

When our kids were younger we did a lot of house swaps. The houses were so much better than holiday lets as the owners normally lived there, so pans, knives etc were all as you would want. As an extra bonus, there were usually decent board games, DVDs, garden swings, even bikes, and if abroad we swapped cars as well.

Is it offensive to say you don't like leather sofas now or something? Why do people feel they need to justify themselves and why are others arguing against.

I don't like leather sofas, head massages and cucumber. Are you going to tell me I'm wrong about head massages and cucumber too?

Leather sofa fans - stop being so precious!

I'm allergic to some types of leather (yes, really). Doesn't actually put me off holiday cottages with leather cottages though, I just take a throw to sit on.

I think you are confusing fake leather with real leather. Real leather sofas aren’t hot in summer and cold in winter.

Someone booking a cottage has no way of knowing whether the sofa is real or fake. It's completely different from choosing and buying your own where you can check what you're buying.

I think I'm doing ok here. We have no tat, art work that was bought for the property and a kitchen where guests are able to bake a birthday cake or cook a full xmas lunch
But we do have leather sofas
My justification for these currently is that in times of Covid we are able to wipe them down with leather wipes. I think that makes them more hygienic?
We're currently thinking though what to do to keep us all safe and were being recommended to supply laundry bags so guests on departing strip their own beds and seal the bags ready to be sent to laundry. Some guests already strip beds but it's not something we encourage bc it's a holiday! But how do mumsnetters feel about this measure?

Fine. Especially as it's a covid related measure. You aren't asking them to deep clean the whole building.

Consider doing the same for towels.

@Kazzyhoward

* Someone booking a cottage has no way of knowing whether the sofa is real or fake. *

I don’t like real or fake leather sofas
But to say it’s not obvious whether real or fake... it’s so obvious. Even good quality fake is obviously fake!

But to say it’s not obvious whether real or fake... it’s so obvious. Even good quality fake is obviously fake!

Not from a photo on a website which is all you have to go on when booking holiday homes. It may be obvious once you've got there, but then it's too late!

I need cleanliness, hot water, heating system and an open fire or log burner. I also need outside space and capacity for BBQ. I do not want to bring my own bed linen or towels.
I would like comfortable beds and ideally at least a king size.
A well equipped kitchen with plenty of crockery and glasses and a dish washer with some tablets. A washing machine, Wi-fi, a working TV ideally with choice of channels.
I always take a sharp knife, j cloth, tea towel, corkscrew, cold box, tea , salt, pepper, chilli flakes, a loo roll dish washer tablets .... it gives me peace of mind after many holidays making do.

Ah gotcha

I wouldn’t want to strip beds normally but would be happy to do it during Covid.

I’d like an owner who actually solves issues when you have them

When we had our honeymoon in a Norfolk cottage a few years ago the heating system wouldn’t heat the water hot enough to fill the bath.
It was one of the things I picked the cottage for as the bathroom wa a lovely with a big roll top bath.
We read through all the manuals left by the owners and each day would try something else to get it going and eventually cot acted the owner for help.
She was the least helpful person ever and we actually left early because all I wanted was a hot bath by that point and it was so disappointing.

Neighbourfriendneighbour

As this thread is about holidays and tourism, let's just say that, if thousands of visitors all flocked at once to a beautiful small island in the Bristol Channel on a warm bank holiday, you would probably describe it as 'busy Lundy'

I'm not a particular fan of leather sofas, but I presume that choosing to have them instead of fabric ones would cause any vegan and/or Hindu visitors to instantly strike you off their shortlist of cottages, when, like with any business, you're really wanting to maximise your potential pool of customers.

This is an insightful thread!

I think our lovely budget cottage in the Cotswolds ticks most boxes that it can.

We really love seeing our guests wowed, so we try to go the extra mile.
We leave ingredients for breakfast the first morning, plus all the tea/coffee/ loo rolls/ etc that they'll need for the week.

Plus an honesty gin bar, tonic, ice, limes etc

When it's Easter we hide eggs for a egg hunt (whether kids or not). These touches as well as our special bath are the things our guests seem to like the most :)

PutYourBackIntoit

Your place sounds lovely and so thoughtfully run. I agree with you that it's much better to delight people rather than leave them just content enough not to bother complaining.

You'd think it would be basic common sense to aim for repeat and recommendation custom rather than constantly chasing new 'once-and-never-again' (or even 'that-was-OK-but-shall-we-try-somewhere-else-next-time') bookings, but it's a simple lesson that even so many huge corporations just cannot grasp.

We do provide a bottle steriliser and a toddler step for the bathroom! We don't provide surf boards though. Cheaper ones break and more expensive ones would not get the respect they deserve.

Sounds good to me - toddler steps only cost a few quid, but are so bulky in a car packed with holiday luggage.

Yes, the surf boards might be a slightly more niche thing. I was thinking more of the children's toy sort - serious surfers will obviously want to bring their own, and usually have camper vans with loads of room in the back anyway!

Lots of these things are pretty stupid ideas though.
WiFi, but no WiFi
Huge beds, but many beds
Cutlery to be stolen by guests
Fabric sofas, to be washed every week?
Every possible kitchen tool under the sun. But also cupboard space.
Neutral decor, but also not boring.
Loads of crap to entertain my kid. But no tat.
Several side tables (?!) and countless lamps.

Christ. Just stay at home. Why even bother.

A king size bed is nice, but I can’t imagine only considering somewhere that has a superking How do people need so much space to sleep?!

One thing I will say is that if your cottage is dog friendly, make it very clear about what that means. I don’t expect to book somewhere described as dog friendly and then when I arrive it turns out that dogs aren’t allowed upstairs/in the bedrooms. Fine if you want to do it that way, but make it clear on the listing so I can not book it.

Definitely decent size, decent comfort beds - we have stayed at far too many places with double beds (we have king size at home), that must have cheap 'guest' mattresses that are not sufficient for being slept on regularly lumpy and ping when you roll over. Surely that us false economy, as the can't last that long and put people off returning??

We stay as a big family group and decent pull out sofa beds are always much better than loads of sets of bunk beds - would much rather the kids shared a pull out double than went in bunks, and it means that adults can also use them

Dishwasher

Garden furniture /bbq

Don't fix the heat /hot water to certain times

Good selection of crockery/cutlery/cookware

Normal size wine glasses, why oh why do people insist on putting thimble size wine glasses in these places?!!

Practically everything above and just a small plea... holiday cottage owners / agents... please check your tin opener. They are not expensive but oh how a decent tin opener improves things. No one wants to start their day hacking thier way into a tin .

Oh and just because you leave brasso and windoline under the sink don't be surprised when your guest don't use them

I don't want much, just the basics:

Comfortable bed
Blackout curtains
Coat hooks
Shelf & hooks in bathroom
Empty shelves/cupboards/tables so we can put stuff down

Mainly I find holiday cottages are 'higher spec' than our home (eg we don't have a dishwasher) but miss out on some of the basics above.

A plea from me....please sign the guest book! It's great to read the lovely reviews on Airbnb website but I like to read them in the book too, as do other guests!