Holiday Home Alk 8-2 by Interhome

The location is just perfect! Whether you want to enjoy the sea, the dunes, the tulip fields, the nearby towns, or just have a few days of relaxed rest—it's a good place. The house is also rather spacious. The ground floor contains the diner-kitchen-living room, a master bedroom with an en-suit shower, and a toilet. The attic contains three smallish twin bedrooms and a shower+toilet. There is dish washer, a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a vacuum cleaner, an iron and a fireplace*. I also liked that a short time before our departure someone came to check the house, so we could get our deposit back. We didn't have to chase anyone for this procedure.

The poor experience started even before we went there. Never in my life have I received so much confusing communication from the host—without even asking! I received 8 (!) lengthy messages from them, while I only sent 3 with a few short questions. They asked to provide them with the details on all 8 guests (including names and birthdays of all adults and children and the car numbers)—and that twice! In addition, the venue has a web-site, and the information there and at Booking is inconsistent. Although they claim to speak English, they communicated in Dutch with me, until I asked them explicitely to switch to English. They've done so—for a couple of messages—and then switched back to Dutch and, for some reason, German. When we finally arrived, we couldn't locate the reception, which is barely marked and barely visible from the road. So we ended up at another establishment, and the lady there didn't seem surprised at all. At the reception, they handed us a list of what we should do before leaving, including brief cleaning up, which was OK. What was not OK is that they ask to empty the dishwasher before leaving. Again, a new experience for me. A proper washing program takes more than 2.5 hours. The check-out time is strictly before 10:30. It means, that you need to finish your breakfast before 8 in the morning or wash the dishes by hand. Since they have to clean the house anyway, I don't see why it would be so hard to empty the dishwasher. The furniture in the living room was in a poor condition, but it didn't disturb us. Just spoiled the impression. I am not sure I understood how to control the day/night temperature setting, but it worked out OK eventually. There was no instruction for the timer, although we were provided with a bunch of user manuals including the one for the iron. *The fake fireplace didn't work—apparently we had to pay extra, not mentioned anywhere.