“After 7yrs of the Dolphins being our home from home I didn’t think I would be writing a review like the below but I feel after the way our complaints have been handled its a justified one to inform future all customers.”
Our most recent stay this year confirmed in our view that the prices have risen but the standards have fallen. On previous years we have politely informed Coast and Country that the small fridge in the kitchen was not closing properly, and therefore not keeping temp and that there were no shelves due to them presumably being broken. This was again not rectified and to make matters worse the additional fridge in the pantry also had shelves missing / broken. Not a deal breaker but when a party of 7 are staying it doesn’t leave much option for the storage of open milk etc. A review of this issues was left by us back in 2020! Our main issue however was the condition of one of the en suite bathrooms. On arrival I noticed that grout was missing around a number of tiles on the floor and one of the tiles had cracked in many places & was sticking up, upon walking on the floor there was excessive movement on the floor and mould behind the toilet. From a health and safety point of view and with young children we chose not to use this bathroom during our stay. During the day when we were out of the house and we returned, walking into the bedroom there was a strong smell of ammonia, much like walking into a public urinal. This in my view is unacceptable and should have been picked up on the clean along with the subsiding floor, with Coast and Country informing me before our stay with a plan on how it was to be resolved. We took the decision to wait until our departure day before informing Coast and Country as we had a lot planned for the week and with young children didn’t want to be hanging around the property waiting on someone coming to inspect. In our view the bathroom floor needs replacing and this would not be a five min job whilst the house had occupants. There were other issues that I can concur with on the below reviews, cleanliness is not great, the bottom room is completely out of bounds due to smelling so bad, bins not being emptied on arrival. Today we received an update from Sykes/coast & country on our complaint, I am FUMING with the response and utterly gobsmacked in the lack of customer service. I paid the £2700 for a week and I expect a lot more. To be told that nothing will be done because we didn’t inform them to the issues during our stay is a joke. No phone call reply to discuss, just a couple of paragraphs basically sweeping it under the carpet. It’s not for me or the other members of our party to keep Coast and Country etc informed of maintenance issues, this job sits with Coast and Country and not the customer and reading most of the below reviews it seems all customers are being dealt with the same treatment, nothing being done! This will be our last time staying at this property, it’s a shame as we have enjoyed our times over the years. If only those who take your money took onboard the feedback below we would be going again next year! Another note to the owner .. You pay a fee to coast and country to clean your property between stays. This clearly isn’t happening with all the reviews stating the same, maybe don’t pay them? And for our inconveniences, refund customers a small amount?? I barely ever complain & I wouldn’t be writing this review if you actually took the complaint seriously. The toilet was complained about previously back in Feb 2022 & nothing been done???
Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback. Given the number of years you have spent taking holidays at Dolphins, it upsets both us and the owners that your recent experience fell short of expectations due, in part, to a shortfall in your perception of the customer service attention you experienced in connection with your visit. This has lead to a situation that is completely at odds with our efforts to provide customers with the holiday experience they require. For that we must apologise. We also regret that you did not contact our office direct at the time any issues surfaced. We feel that the majority of your complaints could have been dealt with as soon as we had been notified and we regret that we did not have the chance to do that. We hope you will return to Salcombe again, hopefully putting this one-off experience behind you.
Property Owner