Stivesholidays Reviews 

Easy to use website, kept up to date with holiday (check-in / out procedures, location etc.) at all stages before and during the holiday. The whole holiday process was very smooth with no issues and property information was very accurate.

Stayed at Richards Song St Ives July 2021. Great position comfy accommodation. but information is quite misleading. it doesn't say anywhere in the info that there is 2 steps inside to ground floor ora small step up to dining area and a small step down into the kitchen. it doesn't say there are 2 steps up to the living room or 2 steps up to the upstairs wc from the bedrooms. it says there is a basin in the downstairs wc. but there isn't. so you go to the loo then have to walk through dining room and kitchen to wash hands. it then says upstairs is a shower room with a wash basin and wc. no there isn't it's a shower room only. it then says another bathroom with a hand held shower wash basin and wc. no there isn't uts a bath with hand held shower and wash basin no wc. and yes there is a separate wc and wash basin up the 2 stairs I said about previously. I pointed this out in the office and it's still not been rectified. I kept a review which has not been publishes and sent a feedback form telling them everything but they never even replied. But the main complaint was the book in the cottage was out dated. it says about the refuse bin out of the cottage we looked all over to be later told there isn't a bin. so all the 1st week we had to keep leaving all our bin bags of rubbish in the entrance not very nice . and then was promised it would be removed on the Saturday it wasn't. Sunday the office is closed so I tried ringing the housekeeper. number not recognised. another thing in the book that hadn't been updated. After an email to them and yet another visit into the st ives office complaining I was promised the rubbish would be removed that day. thankfully it was but you should not have to live with bags of rubbish indoors for 9 days of 5 occupants waste. I've never had an apology or a reply . what has happened to this company. its the first time I've used them for years they certainly aren't as on the ball as the old st ives holidays used to be I'm sorry to say

We booked Kilaganoon cottage in St Ives and stayed from 5th to 12th June 2021 with Original Cottages through Cornish Horizons. We arrived to find the cottage in a dirty condition despite the booking time being moved to later to allow for Covid compliant deep clean. I was unable to contact anyone until Monday, further cleaning was arranged. We returned to find the cleaning still inadequate. We then visited St Ives Holidays offices (which only opens a few hours a day) and they said they’d send out further cleaners. Better this time but still not clean so I did it myself. The bath then blocked so I called again the following day but got a message saying they were closed for staff training and to call back later. Had the same message all day, shop was closed too. I eventually found an emergency number on an email. By this point we were also locked out (teenagers!). The emergency number went through to an answer phone. I left several messages. When they did phone back they were helpful and we could gain access but didn’t get a plumber. The following day I tried calling again but was 15th in the queue, 20 minutes later 14th. Thankfully I then received a call to arrange a plumber. A couple of hours later I heard a noise out front and assumed it was the plumber trying to gain access. It wasn’t, it was a member of the G7 summit crew who had also booked our cottage and was trying to gain access! He was very pleasant and left but he had the key code!! We took the key with us then. Went to complain at the office and again a sign in office saying closed for staff training. Finally on the last day we received instructions on what to do wit linen etc due to Covid. There were no bags left for us to leave linen in. To top it off when we were packing I then found dirty linen in the bottom of the wardrobe. I have sent numerous emails and photos to the company but have received no response. I feel for the people who have left their cottage in this company’s hands.

Edited after response: Thanks for the standard response clearly copied from previous responses. I’m glad you found the time to respond but have still not answered my emails. It’s a shame I can’t share the photos in here.

I have just come back from renting a property through St Ives Holidays ( a day early I might had)
On arrival at the property after a 7 hour journey, I just wanted to get in and have a cup of tea. On picking up the kettle and l notice how dirty it was and I mean dirty on the inside and outside, whilst waiting for a new kettle I started to take a closer look and went in the oven WOW SHOCKING! The lady came with the kettle and then started to clean the oven, once she left I started to settle down, but as you start moving around the property I quickly realised that this whole property was just completely unclean and very poorly dated, we can live with dated but other peoples filth is quite something else, considering we are in a covid pandemic and you take hours off peoples holidays for supposedly extra intense cleaning is quite beyond belief. I could not reach the company by phone on Monday morning so had to take time out of my holiday to go to their office to complain, and to be quite honest the woman I spoke to couldn’t actually give a damn, just said she will send someone round. Well she did and she may as well of not bothered. I hope the next people that go in there have plenty of time on there hands when taking a shower, worst shower I have ever experienced.
I was a solo traveler and desperately wanted and needed to have a lovely restful stressless break in beautiful St Ives, a place where i frequent to at least 3 times a year for the last 10 years. To say I’m saddened and upset at the lack of care you have shown your paying guest is unbelievable.

It would be good if there was somewhere to put up the evidence (pictures) so the company can actually see what I’m talking about, how are they ever going to be able to rectify the situation if they don’t know where the problems are.

Not the best year for holidays and had to rebook but process was very easy and fair from them so all good.

Easy to contact and a great service.
Very polite and friendly staff.
My holiday date was moved and confirmation email sent immediately.

I have read the previous reviews but I have to say St Ives holidays have been nothing but helpful with our booked holiday which we have subsequently had to cancel due to currently being in a Tier 3 and the booking being made up of 3 different households. There were issues with our original booking (not with St Ives holidays but with the homeowner), which St Ives holidays swiftly helped with and now, we can no longer travel due to being a multi-household, St Ives holidays have already processed a refund. Special thanks to Mary Barritt for all your help.

Due to travel to St. Ives after Christmas, but our county has been put in Tier 3, so contacted St. Ives Holidays to cancel and receive refund as offered when we booked.

This was their reply...
"Thank you for your email.

We would like to reassure you, that if your party is composed of a single household/ support bubble, your booking can proceed as planned. Whilst travel from a Tier 3 for single households is not advised, this is only guidance and not legislation. "

Therefore they are encouraging families from Tier 3 to still travel to a tier 1 area, and beautiful St. Ives during these hard times.
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Further to this they currently refused to refund our money. Customer service has been awful, and they refuse to tell us which of the "legal exemptions" allow us to travel to St. Ives without being fined. I notice all other holiday cottage companies are refunding customer's money if they are travelling from a tier 3 area - so book with them and definitely not St. Ives Holidays, Original Cottages, or Cornish Horizons. ( or any of their group, that can be checked on the originalcottages website in the about us section)

Just waiting for the generic reply they have posted to everyone else's Trustedpilot complaints next.......

Update after response from SIH: I was specifically told in my email "We would like to reassure you, that if your party is composed of a single household/ support bubble, your booking can proceed as planned". Update your policy and make sure not to tell anyone its OK to proceed, whether its one family or not. It is illegal, and I would have been fined for following your advice. Playing with semantics to not give refunds is just demeaning to your customers.

I booked a cottage with St Ives Holiday/Cornish Horizons (part of Original Cottages group) back in July. The level of cleaning was an absolute disgrace, mould in the fridge and microwave, green mould on the cutlery, chopping board, open drain in the rear yard, broken freezer.....I could go on and on. A health and safety disaster. Access was delayed to "minimise your risk of exposure to Covid 19". No cleaning had been done. A letter of compliant has been submitted, it is now middle of September and all I have received is an automated response. They have no customer service and simply don't care. Absolute disgrace of an organisation. Do not book through this organisation or its subsidiaries.

I booked Mermaid through St Ives holidays unfortunately the apartment was dirty and uncomfortable. The apartment was dirty despite a supposed Covid 19 deep clean prior to our arrival meaning we couldn’t access the property until 7pm. The bathroom had mould on the ceiling and on the tiles and the bath was broken. The kitchen is tired and the cutlery was dirty on arrival. The living room is small with an uncomfortable sofa and a chair with stains on it. The apartment is in a fantastic location so it was such a shame that our stay in St Ives was spoiled by a stay in this property. I contacted St Ives holidays during our stay to be told they could send out a cleaner, this was unacceptable as this should have been dealt with before our stay and in any case a cleaner could not sort all of the issues. Very poor customer service.