“My wife and I visited for a three day break in February 2024.”
The setting is idyllic, over-looking the water, with lots of wildlife to watch (we even saw an otter!). Willow is one of three identical cabins around the same water, but they are well spaced out. In drafting this review I re-visited the website and realised that the photos showing the exterior of the cabin are not (at the time of writing) actually of Willow – the hot tub is further away from the main cabin at Willow.
Anyway. the cabin is very cosy, and with the fire going it is beautifully warm and romantic. Everything is still fairly new, clean, tidy and unblemished.
I liaised by message with Elinor, and she was very responsive, including in dealing with some of the points below.
My wife and I are seasoned self-catering UK holiday makers, and I always recommend to hosts that they live in a property for a while (ie several days) to experience the property as a guest would. I suspect Elinor may not have done so, as there are little things that could be done to make a stay even more comfortable. For example, more hooks on the walls/doors for coats/hangers, providing washing up gloves and a bowl, providing kitchen roll, kitchen foil, etc etc. Nothing earth shattering, but just little things you notice are absent when living there for a few days.
I can think only of two ‘gripes’, which are worth mentioning. Although the listing made reference to ‘electric heaters’ (plural), there was only one (until Elinor provided us with a second, upon my request). The heater is a portable oil filled electric heater, which you have to wheel between the bedroom and main living space. It is not programmable, and takes quite some time to heat up. The log burner really does blast out the heat, but that doesn’t help when you first get up, and the main living space is really rather cold. A couple of hardwired, controllable (ie with timers) wall mounted electric heaters (one for the bedroom, one for the main room) would do the job nicely.
Secondly, the listing describes a “King-sized bedroom”. Obviously there’s no such thing, so we took this as short-hand for “bedroom with a king-size bed”. The bed was certainly very comfy, but it’s definitely a 4’6” Double, and not a 5’ king size.
I realise that any criticism, even when it’s constructive, can be viewed negatively. This isn’t my intention. We had a lovely time, and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Willow for a cosy romantic getaway. Just remember to take your own washing up gloves!
Thank you for your feedback, it's always useful to hear what our guests think of our cabins.
We have stayed in the cabins as we needed to know how they worked for our guests, we designed them based on what we would want, peaceful, comfortable, and immersed in nature.
With regard to the heater, we found that the small portable heater worked well with the wood burner, the cabins are very well insulated so we were always very warm - I'm sorry you didn't find this to be the case.
I do apologise about the position of the hot tub on the listing - this has now been rectified. Willow's hot tub is in a wooded glade, just a short way from the cabin. We designed it so that you can sit in the tub under the trees in complete seclusion. The listing has since been changed to reflect this accurately
We have added more hooks for storage etc, so thank you for your feedback on that.
The washing up gloves point is an interesting one - from an environmental point of view we would have to provide a new pair for every booking and therefore throw them away- and it has never been mentioned before. Personally, I don't use them, and would not provide them unless specifically requested to do so.
I'm so glad that you enjoyed your stay despite these niggles, and that you saw an otter! you might have also seen an egret and a cormorant who had taken up residence when we were staying in Dragonfly the week before.
Property Owner
