Falconwood Retreat - Denmark, Western Australia

Emma S.

Both times we stayed here we had dramas with bats.
The first visit we had a bat swooping at our faces and flying at us constantly in the middle of the night, we were in bed and it was very dark - it took us a big portion of the night to get the bat to fly downstairs and then outside.
The second visit we couldn't even sleep there because of a dead bat with ants eating it and crawling all over our bed. We cut short the accommodation early and asked for a refund to use on other accommodation which unfortunately cost us extra $$ as we were booking for somewhere to check-in that very same day (not many options).
It has potential, but needs a lot of love to fix the little issues which then turn into bigger ones.
We fixed the sliding door the first time we stayed as it didn't close, letting all the bugs and insects (and bats) in, on our second visit it wasn't closing again. I notice another review mentioned this and had an issue with insects. Not sure why they don't get this fixed for good..
Definitely a few other issues, but I won't go into them as they aren't enough to warrant a bad review, just issues that come with a basic shack that hasn't been given much love in a long while.

Our main issues were bad luck with the bats, and admittedly it could have happened to anyone.. but it didn't, it happened to us.. twice!
The owner said a bat had only ever been found inside by one other person other than us. So it seems we were extremely unfortunate that 2 out of those 3 occasions were ours.

There is a bigger home on the property, I think called the 'cottage'.. this is probably a much better option to book as it seemed everything in there worked (such as doors to the outside closed) when we had to use the home for cooking/drinking water, toilets, shower etc. as we had no water at all in our accommodation when we checked in on the infamous second visit.

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Edited to add reply:

We stayed on TWO separate occasions, because during the first visit you offered us some money back OR a couple free nights, neither of which we expected but we're grateful for. We took the free nights as we enjoy a getaway whenever possible - especially in Denmark.
You told us BOTH times that someone else (before us) had a bat issue inside - what you told us may or may not have been true, but that just means you either lied to us, or are lying in your reply.... Thanks for trying to make me out as the liar though. 😉
It also doesn't matter what your average rating is and how many reviews you have - the point of a review is to leave honest thoughts for others. Which I have done.

Not the most professional reply from you...

326zzzm

I have written this review in response to the property owner Mr David's biased comments after our recent stay at the Falconwood Retreat. ||||Basically, Mr David wrote that, according to her cleaner, the property could not be cleaned upon our departure unless Mr David agreed to pay the cleaner double the amount. However, I believe anyone who's got a pet and looking to book their stay at the Falconwood deserves to know what's really happened before making your future booking at this place. ||||Firstly, you need to be aware that you will be charged a cleaning fee of $70 and I believe this is the root cause of argument that we have got with Mr David. ||||Secondly, we've decided to book our stay at Falconwood because it is claiming to be pet friendly. Upon acceptance of our booking, we had offered Mr David to clean the whole place before our scheduled departure but his response was we don't have to do that as soon as our dogs stayed at the ground floor of the property at all time. Upon our arrival, I've noticed that there is a black folder welcome pack that contains at least 10 pages of instructions. It appears that Mr David prefers us follow exactly is written by him, for example, you need to make sure all of your rubbish goes into one single bag, you need to make sure you would not play around with 2 of the TV remote controls, you would make sure that you are not going to take a long shower. Having briefly read thru the instructions I felt like I came here to do my military training rather than enjoying my holiday in Denmark. Notwithstanding this, we have followed his strict instructions, i.e. we have cleaned all of the dishes that we have used during our stay, and we have picked up all of the dogs' poos in small bags and placed them in one single bag as he has asked, and we've taken our rubbish out, in again, one single bag and placed them next to the half full green bin, and we have removed any visible dog furs from the furniture using a lint roller. It is my personal opinion that Mr David is expecting us to do a thorough clean before vacating the property despite the fact that we have already paid a cleaning fee to him. It is also my opinion that because the property has to be ready for the next guest the same day which we departed, Mr David is frustrated with the fact that he had to pay whatever the cleaner decided to charge him. Therefore, he’s dumped all of his discontents on us. ||||Last but not least, we have identified some maintenance issues which I believe everyone who is looking to book your stay at property should be made aware of. The main issue is the timbers on the balcony deck of the first floor is such a distressed condition that we think it's posing a safety hazard to the occupants of the property when standing on it. As well ,the flyscreen door on the ground floor is broken and cannot be shut completely which resulted a large amount of insects coming into the property during our stay.

Kaz B.