Guest User
October 17, 2023
Firstly, let me say that my wife and I have been coming here for years…. It has always marked the beginning and sometimes end, for nearly all our Cornish exploits over the last decade or so. The fact is, we have visited here time and time again, returned home and forever extoled its wonderful location, food, sunsets and idyllic “holiday” charm to no end of family and friends who, in turn, have felt it necessary to see what the fuss was all about (and wholeheartedly agreed upon their return). This year, we decided to take a rather “later than normal” Cornish break over the first week in October, purely down to my frankly ridiculous work constraints. We booked “The Inn on the Shore” as both our first and last night destination, whilst staying at a favourite “very nice” hotel further down the coast for the week in between. Our first night’s stay was spot on! The weather not quite so, but it didn’t matter because my wonderful wife and I were together, on holiday, in our most favourite county in the world. The staff were attentive, we had a great dinner, the room was very much on point, and we went to sleep with the sound of the sea almost lapping at our window…. Perfect! We then spent a fantastic week in Cornwall before returning to the Inn for our last holiday night….. This was an absolute disaster! We had confirmed our booking two days before with the Inn and also booked a table for dinner that night as we did not want to go anywhere else, having driven for a few hours that afternoon. However, when we arrived (4:30pm), ready to enjoy the sunset of yet another superb late summer day, we were informed that our room had “very unfortunately” been let to another couple by a staff member who was not aware of our booking and there would consequently be no room for us that night!! The duty manager went to discuss the situation with the other couple (which we already suspected would be fruitless) and indeed on his return stated that they had “already settled into the room and were not prepared to leave”. We were then very much left on our own to sort out alternative accommodation at the end of a very warm, perfect, late summer’s evening when everybody else in Cornwall seemed to be doing exactly the same thing. The duty manager told us that he’d phoned “The Smuggler’s Inn” in Seaton and another place across the road to see if they had any rooms, but they were full and we would “therefore need to find a room ourselves” as he had no further suggestions or indeed the time to help us. He did add that we would be getting a full refund for the room, but we essentially had to sort out the Inn's booking fiasco ourselves. They provided us with a drink “on the house” as we dejectedly sat on the patio trying to find anywhere that still had a room for the night, but I really don’t think that went anywhere near an apology for what we went through. It really seemed at one point that our only option was to drive the 250 miles home, which I was really in no mind to do. For