An Irish holiday cottage owner hit back at a negative TripAdvisor review from a disgruntled visitor who complained that Ireland doesn’t compare to Dubai.
Patrick Mungovan is the owner of Quilty Cottages in Co Clare. The property in question features numerous luxuries including a tennis court, indoor pool and free parking.
The cottage’s average review on TripAdvisor is ‘excellent’, and just 4% of those who have stayed there rated it as below ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’.
Here is the promotional video for Quilty Cottages.
They certainly look like a great place to stay. However, one guest was less-than-impressed with their visit and took to TripAdvisor to make their point.
The review read:
“If you are looking for a basic place to stay then it will suit you fine.
“But it was a bit dirty around the cooker and in the bathrooms. One of the rooms stunk so badly of mould we struggled to use it. Fair enough… There was also no Wi-Fi in the houses.
“They have an indoor swimming pool which we used, but once again it was not very clean, felt kind of slippery in the pool and there was so much chlorine our eyes were burning before we got into the water.”
Not exactly a glowing report.
Bad reports on internet review sites can be extremely damaging to the business of hotels, holiday homes and restaurants, and now many proprietors have began to hit back and question the accuracy of negative reviews they receive.
That is exactly what Patrick Mungovan did with this comical response.
“Thank you for sharing your experience from your recent stay at Quilty Holiday Cottages.
“I can see that you are based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I have a friend living in Dubai and I have been told that the hotels and accommodation over there are of an extremely higher class than Ireland.
“Unfortunately for us, we are not based in your beautiful country of Dubai, we are situated in the West of Ireland and although we might not have everything that meets the standards of your country, most of our guests are very happy with their stay and for that, we are very proud of our “basic place to stay”.
“With regards to your comment that ‘there was also no Wi-Fi in the houses’, we do not have good a good internet signal in the west of Ireland at the moment, we just about have internet quick enough to be able to check our emails and reply to TripAdvisor reviews.
“For this reason, we do not mention/advertise that there is Wi-Fi available in our houses.”
In response to the complaint about the slippery floor around the pool Patrick wrote:
“Unfortunately this problem is beyond our control as our swimming pool contains water and most people know that when a surface gets wet, it gets slippy.
“As for the chlorine levels … if you would like to send me your email address, I can send you records of our chlorine levels for the past three months.
“Once again I am very sorry that you did not have a pleasant stay with us and thank you for your review.
“Best regards, Patrick Mungovan.”
The comical debate has been spotted by numerous online commentators and social media users.
It is the latest in a running trend of managers and owners of hospitality businesses losing patience with their over-demanding guests.
Last month, this hotel owner from Ireland went viral with his response to a negative review online.
In case you missed it, you can read the story in full here.
Hotel has hilarious response to bad online review
This Irish restaurant owner also took to the internet to defend his business.
Restaurant owner maintains his Irish humour in epic response to bad online review
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