Choosing a holiday cottage

Ask Questions about your accommodation!

Our guests sometimes enthuse, having arrived after a long journey, how absolutely thrilled they are with our holiday home. How relieved they are at having found a cottage that is actually as good as they hoped for and more often than not, better than they had expected!

We hear horror stories of leaky roofs, filthy cookers, freezing cold rooms, dirty bathrooms. etc etc etc. Sometimes as if to add insult to injury they have paid four star prices in the belief that "you get what you pay for" sadly this is not always the case!!

Even Visit Scotland graded properties now are no guarantee of quality! Check when booking a graded property when it was last graded, before you believe the logos displayed on websites and in printed literature, Just ask the question "When was the property last graded?"

We have been self catering cottage owners and agents for other owners for many years now and sometimes get asked by other accommodation owners why they don't get many bookings and why they don't get repeat business. There are a hundred and one possible reasons why holidaymakers never return to a holiday home, increasingly these days it is because the accommodation is overpriced. We know that if you don't feel you have had value for money you don't return, and this applies even if the accommodation is clean and warm. We also know that location is of the utmost importance to you that is why we chose this apartment over some of the others in the Abbey.

We are sometimes embarrassed at stories we hear about past self catering experiences of our guests. Our industry unfortunately has its bad apples with operators who dont take pride in the country or the accommodation they offer often charging higher than superior properties. We acknowledge that the vast majority of self catering operators are honest and caring accommodation providers out there and some very good visitor attractions, but...

• How do you know you haven't chosen the bad apple?
• How can you minimise the risk of ending up in a sub standard holiday home?
• How can you tell in advance whether you are getting Value for Money?
• How can you be certain there isn't a nuclear power station or similar six yards to the left or right of your chosen holiday haven?
• How do you know how clean the accommodation will be?

Well the easiest way to be sure is to ask! ask for references, check out guestbooks and contact entries in the guestbook if possible. A reccommendation from a former visitor is one of the best ways of satisfying yourself as to what to expect form your accommodation. Our number is 01456 486631 we will be happy to talk.

Bear in mind though, if you book with large agencies you will not get the answers you need to be sure, in our experience they usually have little or no local knowledge. be wary of their answers to questions like the ones above they will sometimes tell you what you want to hear. Do yourself a favour book through small local agencies or better still book direct with the accommodation owner, especially owners that live close to the holiday home. Also word of mouth recommendations are always the best recommendations.

We live within 12 miles of our self catering holiday home at Fort Augustus.
We will give you your money back if our property fails to deliver what we promise.