We arrived at Cyntwell Guest Accommodation on Thursday 26th August at 1745hrs. We had planned to arrive a few hours earlier however an accident had caused traffic chaos and we arrived 3 hours late. We were met by Wendy the guest house owner, who greeted us and told us where we could try and park and where to park in the case that we could not find a park nearby. Wendy also shared her house rules and what was and what was not included in our stay. That was the last we saw of Wendy or any staff in our entire 5-night stay. The Good 1. The guest accommodation is ideally situated within the village of Padstow, you have a relatively easy downhill stroll to the main harbour area, shops and restaurants. And although uphill on your return, for the able bodied a relatively normal stroll back. 2. The guest accommodation is very clean, although I didn’t check for dust on top of the wardrobes. I didn’t have any worry’s that the room had not been cleaned properly. The BAD 1. No breakfast. When I engaged in my search for a friendly Bed & Breakfast. I had thought that the Cyntwell would be serving breakfast. However, when booking the room, it was pointed out to me that due to Covid they would not be serving breakfast. I was a little disappointed as a large majority of the good online reviews had mentioned how good Wendy’s breakfasts were. I had thought to myself if restrictions where lifted, breakfast would be served once again. Not the case Wendy has chose not to re-start serving breakfasts. 2. You are not allowed to take food back to your room. On the evening we arrived as mentioned previously, we were late. We popped our suitcase in the room put on our coats and went to look for somewhere to eat. We soon found out that, that was not as easy as anticipated Padstow was extremely busy and most eateries were full with huge queues. We had to resort to takeaway fish and chips, unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse and started to rain heavily. We quickly realised that we had nowhere to eat our food. Wendy had made it clear that food was not allowed back at your room and had taken away all the chairs in the communal dining room, we had been assigned a table but just for leaving a flask on, to replenish milk, not to sit and eat at. That evening we had to walk past the Cyntwell and up the hill, where we had not other option other than to eat our food in our car. 3. We were told we had the best room in the house which was on the second floor in the attic. The stairs up to upper floors are very steep. We found the stairs to the second floor very steep and awkward and very, very noisy creaks. 4. We were in the Marram room. The room was clean and decorated well, however the room was extremely hot, a fan was provided in the room but it was far too noisy to leave on and get to sleep. My husband resorted to opening both the bathroom window and the front window in the hope it would create a through draft, this however presented its own problems as the noise of people walking past and chatting in the street was loud and even worse was the hourly chimes from the local church clock. If you are lucky enough to get to sleep, make no doubt if you leave the front window open you will be woken on the hour, every hour from the chimes on the local church clock. We nick named it Big Ben. Another thing that caused us a problem was the low beams in the room, if you are sleeping on the window side of the bed it is highly like that you will bang your head if you need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, my husband rather nastily banged his head twice, before we opted to swap sides in the bed. Just to clarify my husband is not at all tall at 5ft 8. 5. Wendy told us that there would be no cleaning during our stay in fact she or any staff would not be entering the bedrooms at any time. If we wanted the bins emptied, we should leave our bin bags outside our room before 11am. I found that I could not do this, Wendy had provided the cheapest, most see through bin bags on the market. I did not feel comfortable or think it was appropriate to leave a see-through bin bag outside my room. I had personnel hygiene products in the bin which I did not want the people in the next room to be privy to. Therefore, both bins in our room were not changed for the full 5 day stay. THE UGLY On the day we left I went to hand the keys to Wendy. I knocked on her private door and waited 5 minutes, Wendy did not answer so I went back up the stairs and left the keys on the bed. When I came back down and just was about to shut the front door, Wendy poked her head around her door, Wendy appeared to be very stand offish and unwilling to come from behind her door, a brief conversation ensued and we left. Later that evening I received an email off Wendy. It read that unfortunately due to the black stains we had left on the Sheridan duvet cover, Wendy had taken £100 off my credit card as she had washed it 3 times and was unable to get out the black stains. When I questioned Wendy about taking £100 off my credit card without prior discussion or having my authorisation to do so. Her only answer was that it was in her terms and conditions. I was furious, we had noticed a small black mark on the duvet cover the day after we arrived but didn’t know how it got there. 2 days later I sent a courier to collect the duvet cover, I could not leave it there knowing that I had paid an extortionate amount of money for the duvet cover, and I knew the mark was tiny. I have uploaded the photos of the duvet cover and the mark that Wendy said we left on the duvet cover, you will see that I have compared it against a 1 penny coin and a tape measure to show how ridiculous Wendy’s £100 charge is. Also, on closer inspection trying to find the make of the expensive duvet cover, I found that the duvet cover had been washed that many times the duvet covers brand name could not be identified, as all branding marks and washing instructions have washed away. Effectively Wendy had charged us for a new duvet cover when surely at least a portion of that cost should have been put down to wear and tear. I have uploaded photos for you make up your own mind whether it is worth you to leave your credit card details for the fear that it is misused. I have 3 self-catering bungalows and would never ever even dream of taking money off somebody’s card without prior discussion or without coming to an agreement with my customer. Would I stay here again? Absolutely not!! The disturbed sleep, the lack of friendly interaction from a small business host is missing, it is very expensive for what you get £500 for 5 nights for a bed, a bathroom and tea and coffee making facilities and most of all an owner who thinks it is acceptable to deduct your money from your credit card, without prior discussion or consent, should she see fit to do so. Just also to mention I was asked to leave a review from ‘freetobook’ who Wendy runs her website through. I did write a review but surprise, surprise it has not made the website, however a good review from somebody from Tel Aviv that was written on the same day has been published. I will be looking into this further as surely if you write an open and honest review it should be published.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.