The Good:
This booking is an excellent value. The home is lovely, with shiny new appliances and gorgeous views across the water. We ended up putting (I think) 10 euros in the electric meter in our 5 day stay, which is perfectly reasonable.
Laundry facilities are good, which is important for international travelers.
Hugh is very responsive and helpful. My husband had a flare up of a chronic medical problem and was restless at night, which kept us both from sleeping, so we asked for the second room to be unlocked and he sent the very kind Evelyn right over. (As a side note, the pharmacist in Donegal was also lovely; she called and got him an appointment with a local doctor so he could get a prescription renewed.)
Hugh also left us towels since we were coming from abroad, which was appreciated. Note for the fastidious: For a 5-day stay we got one hand and one bath towel each, which was fine for us, but I know some are more fussy. My own mother, for example, uses a fresh towel for each bathing session. So bring your own if you're local or perhaps request more if you are not.
There is a large packet of tourist information at the house as well, which is very handy.
Not Bad, But Things You Might Want To Know:
WiFi is not listed as an amenity, so we were not surprised to find none, but we were a bit discomfited by finding ourselves with no mobile service at the house and no house phone. It's possible that international roaming was our trouble, and locals providers can get a signal with no problem, but we were dead in the water at the house. Our son is at university and can (mostly) care for himself, but it still made me nervous to be out of contact, and we also left an elderly dog in the care of relatives and I didn't like their being unable to get hold of me. We could drive down to the main road and get a phone signal so it wasn't a huge deal, but it could be a bigger deal for some.
As I say above, the house is beautiful and the modern kitchen has all the utensils and cooking implements you will need, but that is all. We had to go to the store for salt, pepper, and sugar. We have booked at least 20-25 self catering places in England, Wales, Isle of Man, Scotland (mainland and Orkneys), and Ireland. Most landlords leave bread, butter, milk, and cooking spices, along with tea and coffee and sugar. The description does not say to expect this, so the assumptions were our fault, but I wanted to mention it in case others made the same ones. Bring everything with you if you're going to cook at the house.
Another surprise was that we had to pay 6 euro for a special rubbish bag at the local store and find the correct crossroads to leave it on Friday morning for pickup. (I would honestly rather have had the E6 added to our bill and found the bag already in the house.) Once we took out the rubbish on Friday we had two more days at the house and could not find more regular bags for the kitchen can, which meant another trip to the store for a package of trash bags that we would not want to schlep back home in our luggage. Something else you might want to pack or pick up on your way in.
Much of this is likely less of an issue for locals coming by car from their homes.
One other thing--when you book you are emailed several pages of instructions and information. PRINT THIS or save it to a device from which you can view it offline (recall no WiFi) because there is no printout at the house. Oh, and this was not an issue for us at all, but if you are hoping the three (very nice) showers will get your party out the door faster in the mornings, you should know that you can't run more than one shower at the same time because it will trip a breaker. (We did not test this--it's in the info--though on our last day we got up and found no outlets functioning. Finally found the main outlet breaker and flipped it and everything came back on. No idea if that was caused by something we did.)
In summary, we loved the house and the location and the booking fee and would have paid more for WiFi and a few more things in the kitchen. Maybe offer an optional extra charge and setup for people coming by plane or who just prefer to prepay rubbish bags, etc.?
Thanks for everything!
Toutes les réservations sont effectuées directement auprès du propriétaire 