“We have stayed at Honicombe Manor previously in number 51 and we had had lovely stays so we were looking forward to another.”
Due to now being a larger party, we chose a larger property, this time being number 58 and we unfortunately felt our stay was not up to standards on many accounts which we are sad to say, took the shine off our holiday. Firstly, when we arrived, it was clear that the standards of cleanliness weren't up to what we would expect, or had from previous stays. Whilst it was clear the bare minimum had been done, other aspects had been left such as windowsills covered in dead flies, very dusty and sticky skirting boards and damp/mould signs on the bedroom ceilings. We overlooked this and settled in but as our two weeks went on, the difficulties we encountered Just seemed to mount up. We had a young child with us so were glad of the addition of the stair gate at the top of the stairs, however this was not securely fitted to the wall, making using it even more of a danger than not having it there at all, its clear its been attempted to be fixed in the past but has left gaping holes in the wall behind where it has ripped out of the wall. Furthermore, the balcony felt highly unsafe, there was an obvious slope downwards to it as you walk out and 3 of the slats in the balcony railings moved from side to side, not secured in which was another concern as we had a small child in our party. The hot tub, which is one of the highlights of the lodges we book at honicombe, unfortunately was clearly tired and many of the jets weren't working. The tired feel was obvious in the rest of the house where the freezer moved away from the units as you opened the door, towels provided (which is a bonus) were very hard and rough and one of the bedroom doors was hard to open and close. The lodge is advertised with two showers which we feel is important where the lodge can take up to 8 guests. That said however, the shower unit itself leaked and flooded the floor within seconds making it unusable and so we were restricted to sharing just the one shower. On inspection, it would only take a bit of silicone to fix the issue, and this issue (amongst others) have been mentioned many months prior so it was really disheartening to see this hadn't been bothered to be looked at. The shower was only used once as we noted it flooded, we cleaned it up and left it but then a week later noticed that this had then caused fungi to grow inside the house from the edge of the shower on the floor. The Internet was extremely slow but was changed half way through our stay which we were delighted about giving us a good connection. That said however, two days before our departure it then stopped working all together giving us nothing at all. Also, due to us staying for two weeks, the maids attended half way through our stay which whilst a nice touch, we had had no notice of this and were out at the time so we're unnerved to find that they had been in around all of our belongings without being made aware. Lastly, on previous visits, we had loved the manor pub, for the food and entertainment, frequenting it often during our stays. However we were gutted to find out that the entertainment was no longer on, the games room removed, the darts boards closed off entirely and food serving times restricted or closed entirely. It didn't have the same lively feel as it used to.
