Let's see - where will I begin? Upon our arrival at Domaine du Lac Champagneur:

The bedrooms of the cottage were tiny and everything black and filthy (mattresses, pillows and bedding especially). There were even socks and lingerie lying around in some of the rooms (I suspect the rooms weren't cleaned at all in some time)

In fact nothing in the cottage looked liked it had been updated or cleaned in a very long time (bathroom, floors, kitchen cutlery, dishes, BBQ, kettle, etc). None of us wanted to touch anything! I've stayed in hostels that were cleaner!

The furniture was from another era and was stained, smelly and broken. There were nails sticking out of spots in the floor and on the hand railings in many places (a real safety concern for the young kids we had there).

There were ants crawling all over the baby crib. Several of us got allergies from the mildewy smell emanating from the stained walls and ceilings. The roof was leaky: One night when it rained, there was a leak in the ceiling of my brother in law's room - and it came down right on my sister in law's pillow.

There wasn't even the most basic of supplies provided at the cottage (dish detergent, toilet paper, soap), which is ridiculous for the $1000 we paid for the week.

And the supposed 'waterfront' that was supposed to be great for kids was treacherous, rocky and unsafe for the toddlers who wanted to play there.

And then the electricity went out after a storm one night... After almost 14 hours of no power and no water, with rotting food in the refrigerator, we were understandably fed up. The owner was no where to be found, off somewhere in the woods. His 'representatives' were rude and obnoxious when we approached them about getting the old generator they had on the site working. And when they finally decided to bring someone in to fix the generator and start it after much coaxing from all the guests, it didn't start.

Domaine du Lac-Champagneur was a nightmare week for us and I found the owner and his 'representatives' to be crabby, unfriendly, and impolite. The owner was very misleading in his description of the place, as well as the photos of the cottages that he had sent to us and placed on his website (notice there are no photos of the inside of the cottages for a reason). When we asked to see photos of the inside of the cottage, the owner told us that there were no photos of the inside because there was a problem with the website server??!! Lies...

I really feel we got scammed at Domaine du Lac Champagneur and unfortunately we were stuck there for the week as it was our mum in law's birthday and the only chance for us to all get together as a family. We paid $1000 for the place and feel really duped. To top things off, when we asked the owner Jean Pierre for a receipt, he was impolite and actually hung up on my brother in law on the phone. We think that he doesn't report the income from the guests to the government and doesn't want to give recipts for this reason.

I just don't want others to go through the same terrible stay that we had. It's unfortunate that he had to go through this, but we will def. DEMAND photos of the inside of the cottage next time. Stay far, far away from Domaine du Lac Champagneur .