Chiff Chaff

Excellent facilities and lovely location.

Chiffchaff - general comments.

First the positives: 1. The staff that we met were friendly and helpful & the cottage was clean 2. The complimentary tea & coffee bags, hot chocolate and bottle of wine were very welcome. However: 1. The web information implies that this is a cottage in a village. More accurately, it is part of a large complex of purpose-built holiday properties more closely resembling a gated community. We failed to find the village shop mentioned in the brochure and a web-search indicated that it closed down some time ago. 2. The information in the cottage was poor. There was no book with tips from previous holiday makers, and the guides to the equipment comprised a tatty collection of manufacturers' booklets. A simple summary to controls was required for each item. For example, we had to phone the service engineer to find out how to switch the oven on. There was no way that we could see the on/off switch without his tip of shining a phone torch at the screen (he placed a sticker over the spot the following day). 3. Kitchen equipment was rudimentary including a small, shallow, non-stick (allegedly - it was so scratched) frying pan. Working knives were blunt with only a steel to "sharpen" them - not the best item for stainless steel implements. 4. This cottage is one of three which we assumed were converted stables. Unfortunately the common stud-partition walls were so thin that you could hear your neighbours talking. Worse still, the plumbing was incredibly noisy (you can tolerate this if you are up and about). Thus, if you are trying to sleep, you are constantly woken by your neighbours' plumbing. Traffic noise also penetrated. Summary: we were disappointed & would not return. I have already responded to this request, when you sent the questionnaire soon after we returned, so I am not sure what happened to that.

Its only a few small things and overall we had a great time but the phone numbers about taxis in the welcome pack no longer exists and when we finally tracked down a cab firm they wanted £25 to drive to Bamburgh 4 miles away !

!!!!! , and the second thing is the racket the pipes make when you have a shower ! also the kitchen tap came on buy itself when showering ? like I said small things and overall we had a great time thanks for having us hope to come back next year .