Grrr! Holiday let oven!

I wouldn’t worry about it and just enjoy the local dining scene. You’re on holiday... live a little. Also if you’re demanding a level of comfort you feel entitled too maybe you should spend your money on a hotel or resort.

Sorry I don't agree Glamma if the cottage was advertised as having a working oven then the oven should work. Perhaps people don't want to go out to eat. If you are paying for something then it should be right, whether you are renting a cottage or staying in a hotel.

Having stayed in a few self catering cottages I can say the quality of furnishings has been different every time, some brilliant, like the one we are in now and some, abysmal.

Has it occurred to you that it could have been a previous guest who wrote out the ovens instructions? Maybe they didn’t want to complain but wanted to warn any future guests.

I usually give a review, good or bad, on Tripadvisor, but only after we have received back any deposit paid re damages etc. I am always worried if they saw a bad review, we would be blamed for any damage we reported.

We once went to stay in a ‘luxury’ cottage in Scotland. It was an upside down house with two on suite bedrooms downstairs. One had a lovely big jacuzzi bath with a shower above in a cupboard. Yes, I did say cupboard and there was no floor area around the bath. You had to open the cupboard door, go up a small step and get in at the sloping end of the bath! Needless to say, we never used that one.

The second bedroom had another on suite, that was that small, if you sat on the loo you could burn your leg on the radiator if you weren’t careful, but you could have cleaned your teeth as the basin was so near. The shower cubicle was so small I could not wash my hair.

We ended up leaving on the Wednesday because I was desperate to wash my hair and be in a ‘normal’ kind of building. We spent the last two nights of our holiday at a lovely hotel!

Needless to say, the review wasn’t one of the ‘good’ ones I have written!

Update! Reply from owners to dh's politely worded email did admit that it was high time they bought a new oven!

Apparently it was necessary to set the timer before the oven would come on - something I've never come across before - plus it was not in the instructions! and the numbers on the electronic timer weren't legible anyway.

We moved on to cottage no. 2, also booked by my sister from the USA for roughly the same money - there was not only an Aga, but also a standard working oven and a microwave.

As for whoever said we should just dine out, we did that most nights, but that particular evening we were back late, sweaty and messy, and just wanted that pizza, shower and bed.

I must say I'm surprised - though maybe I shouldn't be - at the attitude of some GNers, i.e. that you should just put up with anything substandard in accommodation you've paid serious money for, and even find it 'fun'!

Witzend, glad to hear that you got a reply to your DH's email. BUT! did they offer a refund for the non-working oven and the hassle it has caused you? I would have been so furious, and definitely do not agree that you should have had to put up with it, as some GN's seem to have suggested.

No, no refund offered, Auntiflo, but at least they apologised.
And let's hope they do provide a new oven soon, especially given that not everybody staying there will be able to afford to eat out all the time - and there's no microwave.

We've been very lucky with holiday rentals, but we booked a very expensive property two years ago on the basis that it had four bedrooms each with its own bathroom. In one, the shower wasn't working and it took them four of our seven days there before they came and sorted it out. There was also no vacuum cleaner, so cleaning up the sand that inevitably came on with us most days with a brush and pan was a chore. On the last day my son was boiling some eggs for a salad when the handle came off the pan full of hot liquid. Fortunately he had just got it over the sink before it happened, or it could have been horrendous. It appeared that the handle had broken and been glued back on - whether by the owners or a previous occupant we don't know. This place was so popular that we had to book it a year in advance, but they obviously had no time between letting to check and put things right!