Overview

We have just come home from a seven night stay at Ellwood Cottages in Wolland Dorset. We have been visiting at least once a year sometimes twice for a couple of years. We chose the cottages because of the setting and proximity to our extended family and quality of the experience offered by the original owners Koos and Carolyn De Jonge. They worked hard to offer a fully accessible holiday experience for disabled clients, their families and care teams. They provided three self catering cottages with wetrooms, profiling beds and mobile hoists as well as additional stables accommodation for carers who may be travelling as part of the party. The place was spotless, the gardens beautifully maintained with BBQ and fire pit and comfortable outdoor seating as well as a fully accessible heated swimming pool. You always received a warm welcome and they were on hand checking in daily offering advice on places to eat, visit etc. nothing was too much trouble. A welcome basket stocked with fresh orange juice. Local farm butter and milk and freshly baked bread and home made jam was provided. The kitchen was fully stocked with everything you needed to self cater and each barn had comfortable furniture, good wi fi and Netflix available. Accessible thermostats in each barn enabled clients with additional needs to heat water on demand and turn the heating on when needed. This meant the Ellwood Cottages were awarded the Gold Standard Tourism Award. Ellwood Cottages came under new ownership in October 2024. We have visited twice since they took over. Sadly on this visit our experience has tarnished our desire to return and we will not be booking to return. Our main concern has been focused on the way in which the new owners responded to a concern raised by my brothers carers about hoisting equipment. His needs are very complex and he travels with a highly experienced trained team who really know their stuff. Whilst I am not going into the details here as we have fed back directly to the owners in the hope it will improve their customer service, the way in which they dealt with the concerns raised gave cause for alarm as it was very aggressive and inappropriate. Witnessed by a number of people in our party it caused such concern that we would not wish to return. We have provided in writing a number of key recommendations to the new owners about their customer relations skills and making overall improvements. Aside from our experience we noticed a general decline in the quality of the accommodation. Cottage door paint is peeling which is the first thing that you notice on entering. each of our cottages had a stale odour on entry. Some walls are marked and grubby and furniture needs repair or replacement. Wi fi is now very slow and there is no Netflix anymore. The kitchen crockery is mismatched in our cottage and not many glasses for the size of party that it accommodates. The heating thermostat is now locked which means that any disabled clients who are unable to regulate their own body temperature eg with spinal cord injury/brain injury, they will struggle to keep warm. Luckily for us it has only just hit autumn but a couple of mornings were chilly and my brother had to have extra blankets that he’d brought with him put on him to keep him warm. The towels provided were thin, we had only one loo roll provided and the bed pillows were thin and only one in each pair had a pillow protector. Fortunately we took our own pillows with us! So generally the overall quality of the establishment is not what it was. Outdoors the BBQ is not readily available outside anymore for use -you have to notify the owners you want to use it and you have to give 24 hours notice if you want to use the pool. We decided not to use either as a result and either ate out or self catered. We provide this feedback as a guide to others who may be looking to book in the future. Accessible holidays cost a lot of money and we understand the need for families to feel they are getting value as well as quality in a stress free environment.

Transport & Parking

We drove 7 hours each way

Access

Fully accessible Level thresholds wide doors, open plan, wet rooms, profiling beds and mobile hoists Large print guides

Toilets

Staff

The current owners really need to develop their customer relationship skills and understand the complex needs of the clients they are providing a service to.