Idylic country cottage with hot tub on private estate

Dear Teresa Thank you for choosing to stay in Hop cottage and for your kind review, we are pleased that you enjoyed the clean, spacious cottage and its lovely surroundings, close to all Kents attractions. Do come again Nigel and Wendy

Lessley, thank you for your lovely 5 star review, it was an absolute pleasure to host you in Hop cottage, we are delighted that you all enjoyed your stay and found it so convenient for exploring all of Kents attractions from castles, to beaches and vineyards. We look forward to welcoming you back in the future for a longer stay. Wendy and Nigel

Thank you for your kind review, we are very glad you enjoyed your stay. We will add the Oysters as a recommendation to our guest information pack. Many thanks Nigel and Wendy

They do say you cant please all of the people all of the time, and we seem to get one guest every year that this applies to. We are very sorry that you did not enjoy your stay at Hop cottage and felt compelled to complain to Home Away and us for money back. A request that we have refused for the following reasons. The title of your review says not 5 star like you describe it! - This is factually incorrect, nowhere in our advert on Home Away do we describe our property as 5 star, it does has over 100 independent reviews across 4 lettings platforms over a 5 year period where it gets an average rating from guests of 4.7 out of 5. The guest that left the property the day you arrived left this review: Highly recommended to those who would like to enjoy a little piece of heaven on Earth. Beautiful surroundings and a lovely spacious home. The guests the week before left this review: We had a wonderful time at this truly unique property. The children, and us actually really enjoyed a dip in the beautiful swimming lake and a relax in the hot tub. The cottage was well equipped and any issues were very quickly sorted out. Nigel was a very good host with prompt communication. We enjoyed staying at the property and some sightseeing, including Leeds Castle which was very charming. We would most definitely recommend Hop Cottage and would love to return! Thank you You state that the garden was not Kept - The lawn had be mowed the day before you arrived, it has brand new rattan furniture and cushions, in spring and early summer it is full of cottage blooms, but unfortunately come september, the blooms start to die away and in winter it will be dead headed, this is the first negative comment about Hop Garden in 5 years Torn curtains, they are not torn, one net curtain was had come off the runners, I offered to re attach it but you said you would pull them to. Toilet - You are correct, we have septic tanks so we do try not to use bleach but other products more suited. There is a small limescale build up but it was clean. Game room - is a new facility we added this year, it has not yet been plastered so has bare walls, every other guest has really enjoyed playing table tennis in it this season. Bathroom sink, if you had advised this at the time of your stay we would have fixed it, I assume it needs a new washer which will be done. Taxi- there are numbers for 4 taxi companies in the guest book and I advised you of this on arrival and which to use

David, thank you for staying in Hop cottage with your family and for your 5 star review. I have checked the shaver points and they do work, just slightly complex to switch on, we will add a video on how to do that on our guest portal, never like to mow the grass and disturb guests when they are staying, but like the towels, you only needed to ask and we would have sorted them out for you, so apologies we didn't offer these, but glad these did not spoil your overall experience.

It was lovely to meet you both after the long COVID delays to your booking and very glad you enjoyed your stay, Nigel and Wendy

Thank you for your lovely review, it was a real pleasure to meet you all and have you stay in Hop Cottage. We are very pleased you enjoyed the facilities and comfort of the cottage as well as the great central location for exploring Kent's attractions. We look forward to welcoming you back in the future, Nigel and Wendy

Darren Thank you for your kind review and also for leaving the cottage so clean after your stay. It was a shame you could not stay longer and we look forward to welcoming you back in the future Kind regards Nigel and wendy

Julia Thanks you for your review. We are very glad you all enjoyed your New Year break in Hop cottage, we thought we saw you all trying a New Years day swim in the lake you mad fools! We would love to welcome you back in the summer to come and enjoy a stay when swimming in the lake would be somewhat more pleasurable. We hope to see you all again soon Nigel and Wendy

Thank you for your lovely review of our cottages, we are very pleased that your found the cottages comfortable and well equipped. As you have stated the cottages enjoy a very quiet location in our small estate in the heart of the Countryside and are ideally located for exploring all of Kent and for day trips in to London. It was a pleasure to meet you all, do come again Many thanks Nigel and Wendy

We are very sorry that you enjoyed your holiday in our cottages but felt compelled to write such a negative and factually incorrect review of your experience, we are also pleased that so many of our customers write accurate and pleasant reviews about their experience. You start your review by suggesting we describe our cottage as Luxurious, it is not a 5 star hotel, it is a very well priced self catering accommodation with excellent facilities in a beautiful location. You arrived in our cottage on Wednesday, on Friday morning you came to advise there was a problem with the hot water, why did it take you 2 days to tell us of this problem if you had a 90 year old who needed a shower? Why in your review do you make out it took us until Saturday to fix a problem you did not notify us of until Friday? When notified of the problem we immediately attempted to get out an engineer but none were available so we carried out some tests over the phone with them and were unable to start the boiler. We turned on the immersion heaters for hot water but it was clear late Friday afternoon the water had not heated up. We offered your mother a walk in shower in our house and she declined this offer. At 08:00 hrs Saturday AM we got our electrician out who got the immersion heaters sorted and hot water restored. Now I understand it is unfortunate when something as critical as a boiler breaks when you are staying, but you took 2 days to tell us and we did everything possible to resolve the problem and offered alternative showing for your mother. The problem was resolved within 24 hours of our being notified. The second bathroom has an electric shower, when you advised us of the boiler you also stated that the shower head was not functioning properly, we took it apart and found an internal washer was out of place and this was fixed and returned within 2 hours of being notified to us. We provide a modern gas BBQ and free gas to all guests, in return we ask them to clean the BBQ after use. If the BBQ was not clean, had you notified us we would have cleaned it for you. You state the equipment is not high quality but with absolutely no justification. All the kitchen appliance are less than 2 years old and well maintained. The TV is widescreen and has Freeview satellite a DVD and a Wii. We go to great lengths to ensure guests enjoy our cottages and their stay so we hope that anyone reading your review will look at the other 32 positive and more accurate factual reviews