Terry let us know about 3 months before that she had double booked Gladstone for one of the three nights and that we could either have our money refunded (not an option given the difficulty in finding an alternative), be put up at Deerhurst (a resort, not a cottage), or stay at her personal cottage. We opted for the latter. It was rustic but nice, however we were not allowed to use the stove, so we planned to barbeque, but both propane tanks were empty. Terry did direct us to grab some from her neighbour. We did also use the canoe, however there were no life jackets. Another neighbour noticed this and lent us some, stating that the OPP were aggressive with tickets. Glad he was around as sure enough OPP were around.
Terry allowed us to stay at her cottage past the 11AM checkout time, but asked us to move everything out of her cottage, which we did. We were asked not to arrive at Gladstone until after 2pm to allow the cleaners time. Serious inconvenience, but ok.
We arrived at Gladstone at 4pm, and the cleaners were still there. Another inconvenience. Basically this was turning into a one day holiday, as we needed to check out at 11AM on Labour Day Monday.
Once we were finally settled in, it was fine, but the whole experience was overall negative. From the beginning Terry was disorganized (at one point she "misplaced" our deposit) and would take several days to return e-mails.
Perplexing also is the cleaning fee charged at Gladstone Lodge, as the contract states that renters must clean the entire cottage before leaving or risk their damage deposit. Even the furniture cannot be moved. We swept the whole cottage (where we found dog hairs from previous guests) and left it spotless. We were shocked when she then accused us of staining the towels. Honestly we walked around on eggshells all weekend as we were worried about not getting the damage deposit back, given Terry’s casual response rate to e-mails. It was refunded promptly though.
We travel a lot and do private rentals frequently. This is by far the worst experience we have had. Unfortunately, I would not recommend renting here. The cottage is really cool and very well decorated with a great kitchen. We admire Terry's vision, but this rental it was far too much of hassle to be any fun.
I’m sure that Terry will post a response labeling us as ungrateful and unreasonable, but we are trying to be fair and honest. We rely on honest peer reviews when making rental decisions and this was our experience.