We booked a cottage at Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire for one week. It smelt: it was dark and musty. There was garbage piled outside beside the kitchen. The cottage was dreary by mid-day and it was too dark to even read in the evening. The kitchen was badly built – there was no insulation in the wall that separated the kitchen from the flowing water just on the other side (the cottage was once a working mill). That made this pokey kitchen damp and draughty. Some drawers didn’t have handles and the kitchen was badly equipped. We rented a cottage because we wanted a kitchen so this was a let-down. No one had stayed in the cottage recently and the air was stale and the old furniture dusty. I opened the windows but the latches didn’t work and they wouldn’t stay open. We found a squirrel in the cottage and that was when we found that there was no one on duty. Office hours at Owlpen are business hours Monday through Friday. Their restaurant was open and the first person I spoke to said “well it is country living out here you know.” Country living didn’t stop them from charging 560 pounds for a week. After too long someone came and got the squirrel out.

There was nothing welcoming at Owlpen. No one to greet us – just someone staring at us from a window as we collected our key, nothing in the fridge, no paper or working pens or pencils, not even a guest book. There was a list of instructions including that children should be quiet when outside and the suggestion that if there are any difficulties one should talk them over rather than letting them fester. That struck me as odd however as it turned out I would have appreciated it had the owner made herself available for a talk.

What an unfortunate experience! Was this one of the British Trust rentals? The cottages in their catalog look so charming. I am curious as to your source of finding this place. we have booked a number of nights in different Cotswold locations through smoothhound and are hoping for the best. But an entire week in such a place is dreadful.

No - Owlpen Cottages have absolutely nothing to do w/ the National Trust. It is a fairly well known manor house with holiday cottages between Bristol and Gloucester.

Sorry you seem to have had a bad experience - but I am a bit curious. Since you have never posted to Fodors before, are you simply cruising travel sites to post this? It seems odd (to me) for someone to take the trouble to register and post this sort of critque his first/only visit.

If your story is true, perhaps you should e-mail your complaints to the owners.

Janis,

Why can't this be true even if it IS his first visit?

I'm not saying it isn't true - just that John has never been on Fodors before. Nothing wrong w/ that - we all had a first time. But we sometimes get these posters w/ axes to grind who just hit every web site they can find and post some horror story and then never come back. Sort of fishy to me.

Sure it might be true - the details do sound like something of the sort happened - or it could be someone who just had some sort of dispute w/ Owlpen and just wants to give them bad PR. . . . . . . .

Or it could be someone who posts here regularly under another name and didn't want to get a reputation for being crabby or for not anticipating the conditions of their accommodations better. Or for being afraid of squirrels.

Look on the brightside, John_Peter, there wasn't a finger in the fridge. Was there?

What movie was it when Betty Davis said "what a dump!"?

Sounds like a vacation to h*ll.

"I'm not saying it isn't true -"

Yes you are, so come off it. If he had said that he loved it, would you be questioning his opinion. Somehow, I doubt it.

Metellus, I know I will regret jumping into this, but I'm just pointing out that if a person comes here for the first time and his only post is a ringing endorsement of a place, people accuse him of advertising. We are equal opportunity skeptics here.

"Metellus, I know I will regret jumping into this, but I'm just pointing out that if a person comes here for the first time and his only post is a ringing endorsement of a place, people accuse him of advertising. We are equal opportunity skeptics here."

In other words, first time posters can only say that something is mediocre?

It's usually easy to tell the real posts from the phony. The real posts give specific details and reasons for their opinions. Just like John_Peter did.

See, I knew I would regret jumping in. My point was just that you were wrong to doubt that someone would question the poster's opinion if he said he loved the place. People question everything. I imagine if there were a post saying a place was mediocre, the poster would be criticized for that opinion as well.

You would be doing other travelers a favor if you would post a review on the slowtrav.com web site. It's the site (I think) that most people look at for reviews of vacation rentals. Be sure to list the good stuff about the place (if there was anything) in addition to your complaints.