UK property rental for ~15 in October - Any ideas?

[mcanny]

My other half is trying to arrange a weekend away for the family for her father's birthday in October - in summary we need to rent something suitable for sleeping up to 15 people somewhere vaguely interesting.

Current majority preference is the south of England with a slant towards Cornwall but being up north myself I'm pretty flexible on anywhere in the UK.

Looking at the weekend of the 24th / 25th of October, possibly the Friday & Sunday night too if that helps secure something.

I'm stuck in the middle of a number of siblings battling out to impress their dad with the best place for the best price, just trying to defuse the situation a little in the background with your help hopefully.

Any good websites or personal rentals you might have would be appreciated, failing that general suggestions on places to look would be good too. As an only child with a small family that don't socialise all this mass trip stuff is beyond me

[pugwash4x4]

www.sleeps12.com

might be a bit high in the price stakes, but they are all lovely (used to contract the linen cleaning for all the properties!)

[mcanny]

Looks like a good one thanks, have passed it on to the missus to have a look over it.

At the moment they are looking at a fairly ordinary place that's about £2000 for Sat & Sun but suspect it would be flexible in either direction within reason.

[thetapeworm]

Having a bit of a nightmare with this one, mainly due to the number of fussy people involved but also because the one booking the majority agreed on got cancelled by the agent because they wanted to rent it out for a full week rather than the long weekend we had booked.

So back to the drawing board.

South of England seems to be the preference, ideally not too far down into Cornwall if possible just to reduce the amount of travelling involved for those of us coming from the north.

Property needs to be available 23rd to 26th of October inclusive so we can stay Friday night to Tuesday morning, sleeps up to 15 but probably more like 12 and ideally have 5 proper bedrooms rather that 2 with lots of beds and sofas in them. Budget still flexible within reason but would like to be close (short taxi ride OK) to a decent restaurant for a birthday celebration on the Monday night.

Previous cancelled booking was in Brighton and seemed to tick the right boxes for most people attending (I've only been once on business myself but it seemed OK) so anything in that area would probably go down well.

The sleeps12.com site seems to be having a few technical issues at the moment so any similar links people can recommend would be good, I don't want us to end up like the chap who posted up a video from his rental in Wales recently

Edited by thetapeworm on Friday 18th September 10:13

[pugwash4x4]

keep trying the sleeps12 properties- they really are very very nice!

website seems to work fine for me using firefox

[Pabl0]

Do you need just one place or would it be better to have more than one place next to each other.

Edited by Pabl0 on Friday 18th September 11:10

[Bluebarge]

I'd let the siblings sort it out if I were you - it's never a good idea to step into another family's quarrels.

If you're still keen to stick your neck out, however, the obvious one - English Country Cottages lets you search by number of guests, and the Landmark Trust rent out some big historic properties (eg castles) which should have plenty of rooms for offended siblings to go and sulk in/chase each other round with axes.

[thetapeworm]

pugwash4x4 said:

keep trying the sleeps12 properties- they really are very very nice!

website seems to work fine for me using firefox

There seems to be an SQL issue when you try to check availability, I can still view entries, I just can't do any searches.

Pabl0 said:

Do you need just one place or would it be better to have more than one place next to each other.

Several in close proxity would probably be OK as long as there was sufficient room in one to socialise, personally I'd be happy with properties in different towns... counties even

Bluebarge said:

I'd let the siblings sort it out if I were you - it's never a good idea to step into another family's quarrels.

If you're still keen to stick your neck out, however, the obvious one - English Country Cottages lets you search by number of guests, and the Landmark Trust rent out some big historic properties (eg castles) which should have plenty of rooms for offended siblings to go and sulk in/chase each other round with axes.

I'm trying to assume the role of silent assistant for my other half as she seems to be taking the bulk of the search burden. Several people are working overseas at the moment so the time differences involved make it difficult to just throw ideas out and get quick replies but she seems to have made some progress today and is just waiting for a confirmation from somewhere.

I'll be taking a sleeping bag and a pillow just in case sleeping in the car seems like a better option

Thanks to everyone for your input and help so far.

[Pabl0]

Another site to look at http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/

Place I was going to suggest has one of the cottages let for the week for the days you wanted - it was here >> http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/England/holiday-g...