The positives:
- the apartment is in a perfect location to explore Southwold. A short walk to the beach and high street, but the road itself is quiet with parking right outside.
- the apartment itself is modern and clean
- the bedding is super comfy and soft
The negatives (all minor):
- the listing states check in at 3pm and check out at 11am. This isn’t accurate - they sent us a message asking us to check in at 4 and check out at 10. The new check in time was fine, but we asked to check out at 11 as planned. We were told it was fine, but still had someone knock on our door at 10 on day of check out to ask why we weren’t out yet. I’ll assume this is a miscommunication, but should be fixed.
- the bed looks pretty weak. It bows significantly in the middle and makes some worrying cracking sounds when you move.
- bathroom had a bad musty smell that didn’t clear
- the place would benefit from some basic provisions - there was no tea/coffee, salt/pepper and only half a toilet roll on arrival.
- some sort of privacy screen on multiple windows would be nice, particularly in the bathroom, where the window faces out into the property’s back alley. I’m sure it’s not used often, but whoever does use it would get an eyeful.
- extractor fan was non-functional/had been sealed. This meant we couldn’t make a cooked breakfast without setting off the fire alarm.
All in all, we did have a lovely stay, and the apartment provides a good base to explore Southwold, but there are a few things that prevent this being called a truly “luxury” stay.