Search icon

Life

28th Aug 2017

Clare cottage owner has a comeback for negative Trip Advisor review

Alan Loughnane

Not by a long shot…

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and not everyone is going to agree with that opinion as this below review shows.

Quilty Cottages are located down in the small fishing village of Quilty in Clare, and look like a delightful little escape if you’re looking for a weekend away.

There’s plenty of amenities available including free parking, a pool, family rooms, kitchenette, and a tennis court.

A total of 72% of reviewers have rated the destination as excellent, with a further 20% rating it very good. Meanwhile 4% of people have rated it as good and average.

But one person wasn’t convinced with their stay there and took to Trip Advisor to leave their two cents on their stay.

We stayed here for 5 nights so we could explore the coastal areas, the cottage is a nice size with everything you need in it, but it was a bit dirty around the cooker and in the bathrooms, one of the rooms stunk so badly of mold we struggled to use it. There was also no wifi in the houses. If you are looking for a basic place to stay then it will suite you fine. They have an indoor swimming pool which we used, but once again it was not very clean, felt kind of slippery in the pool and there was so much chlorine our eyes were burning before we got into the water.

But Patrick Mungovan, the owner, wanted to give his response to the review left on the site.

Dear [username],

Thank you for sharing your experience from your recent stay at Quilty Holiday Cottages. I am concerned to learn of your disappointment and would like to extend my sincere apologies that your experience appears to have fallen short of your expectations. We here at Quilty Cottages continually strive to ensure that our maintenance, cleanliness, and service remain on the highest level.

I have noted your comments with regards to the cleanliness of the house and I have passed on this on to our cleaning staff for further investigation. I am terribly sorry that “one of the rooms stunk so badly of mold” and we could have sorted this problem for you had we known it before you checked out! I can see that you are based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I have a friend living in Dubai and I have been told that the hotels and accommodation over there are of an extremely higher class than Ireland. Unfortunately for us, we are not based in your beautiful country of Dubai, we are situated in the West of Ireland and although we might not have everything that meets the standards of your country, most of our guests are very happy with their stay and for that, we are very proud of our “basic place to stay”.

With regards to your comment that “there was also no Wi-Fi in the houses”, we do not have good a good internet signal in the west of Ireland at the moment, we just about have internet quick enough to be able to check our emails and reply to TripAdvisor reviews. For this reason, we do not mention/advertise that there is Wi-Fi available in our houses.

In relation to your comment about our swimming pool, I was disappointed to have read that you did not have a pleasant experience. I’m sorry that it “felt kind of slippery in the pool” but unfortunately this problem is beyond our control as our swimming pool contains water and most people know that when a surface gets wet, it gets slippy. Our swimming pool is used for teaching swimming lessons for up to four hours a day and this is the first time we have ever experienced an issue in regards to the cleanliness and chlorine levels. As for the chlorine levels, I was shocked to hear about this, as we only use a minute amount of chlorine in our pool since we installed our ultraviolet pool system two years ago.

The following statement is taken from the company where we purchased our ultraviolet system: The system eliminates up to 90% of chlorine and nearly 100% of chlorine side effects. UV for pools frees your family of burning eyes, skin irritations, foul chemical odours, bleached hair, and chlorine allergies.

If you would like to send me your email address, I can send you records of our chlorine levels for the past three months. Once again I am very sorry that you did not have a pleasant stay with us and thank you for your review.

Best regards,
Patrick Mungovan.

Main image via Quilty Cottages.

Cheers to Conor Keane for sending this our way. 
Got a story for JOE? Hit us up on Facebook or Twitter, send it to our WhatsApp number 087-4001102 or mail [email protected].