As most of you know, we’re off travelling at the moment, in the UK. Stayed in a B&B last night just outside Liverpool, visiting J’s sister. The fabulous place we normally stay in was fully booked, so we ended up somewhere else. It clearly says “dog friendly” on Booking.com and, when I placed the booking, I put “travelling with two Labradors” in the notes. When we checked in (dogs still in the car), we were met by a very grumpy guy who barely managed to grunt at us. Staying determinedly chipper, I told him the dogs were in the car. “You got dogs?” “Errr, yes. You take dogs, don’t you?” “Well, we do.. but … well, it would have been nice to have known.” “Um, it was on the booking…” “Hngh” (or something similar) He the proceeded to show us the room. We walked through the house to get there. A house full of cats. I counted five. I’m sure there were more. All the time thinking, how in high heaven am I going to get Shadow through here?! In the end - and after a full evening of activity and socialising, I managed to get him in, with a bit of sausage glued to his nose. He spotted one, but it was so nonchalant about him that he was a bit taken aback and just kept walking past! Thank the little baby cheeses! The guy's demeanour hadn't improved by morning. We will not be returning.
Hope you are having a great time on your travels. You will laugh about this B&B in the years to come!
Oh, I will be leaving a review. Don't you fear In the morning (after running the gauntlet to get back out of the house), we took the dogs for a walk, past a life-size statue of "The Childe of Hale", who was a big lad, measuring in at 9'3"! The dogs were not happy about it in the slightest, hackles up and barking at him. Cheese made Willow very brave and she ended up having a sniff and was brave as anything after a few minutes, but Shadow was not a fan! I couldn't help but laugh at my "tough" boy. We're in Scotland now. It's cold and wet. About to take the dogs for a walk around the lake where we're staying. I wonder if Willow will be tempted or if it's too cold.
We went to one and the 'no dogs here, here and here' rules made it dog UN friendly! Do come and visit us on your travels - puppy cuddles to be had!!
Aw, that would be lovely Mags, but we're off again tomorrow. I'm back in a few weeks, though for a slightly longer stay, so maybe I can arrange something then! Remind me where you are again?
My sympathies. Glad you are out of there and off to (hopefully) greener pastures! I've not had huge success with Booking.com and their definition of dog-friendly. Usually it means "dog friendly if your dog is less than 10 pounds and we feel like letting you in depending on our mood for the day". And there is usually a fee that adds substantially to the room rate. Just for the future, but for booking.com I've found if you look in the fine print and the part that specifies the pet policy says, "No additional charge for pets", those places are the ones who are more TRULY dog friendly. The "Pets accepted with a fee" or "Pets considered on request" categories were usually the dodgy ones. I also used to email well beforehand and tell them how much my dog weighed - and then keep the email when they replied to confirm in case of problem at check-in. For chains, I've consistently had really good luck with Ibis. I think they do charge for pet dogs (Brogan didn't get charged), about EUR12 per night. I used them in France, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Germany and Portugal... all without an anti-dog grump in sight. The hotels are pretty soul-less, but fall into that "cheap, clean and comfy" category. If it is a stay of more than a couple days, places like Airbnb and HomeAway are significantly better. You can search by dog-friendly and the places who are REALLY good will have pics of their own dogs in the listing photos.
Thanks, Emily. We have a "go to" in the village, but with it being so close to the airport, and with Liverpool playing football this weekend, they were booked up. I couldn't book in advance because we didn't know until a short time before that we were going to be staying. The place we normally go (The Barn in Hale, if anyone is interested) is fab. Self-contained units off a courtyard. Gary that runs it will shuttle you and your dogs if you want (he dropped us off and picked us up from J's sister's house for dinner), and he'll look after your dogs if you need to go out and leave them. Proper dog-friendly place that I couldn't recommend highly enough!
We'll see what happens when I'm back then. I have to spend two months in the uk with the new pup, so we can hopefully organise something
