You claim to be writing a "real review", implying that other reviewers may not have done so. Given Trip Advisor`s zero-tolerance policy on fake reviews, (Sunday Times Travel Section, 21/06/11), one can only assume yours has passed their rigorous scrutiny, yet your location is given as Maui, Hawaii. Our records indicate that we have had no non-EU visitors so far this year, let alone August, when you claim to have stayed. The registration cards for this period show visitors came from Hull, Leeds and Sheffield, but none from Maui.

We have had some problem in matching up events you describe to the people who have stayed with us in August. For example, you claimed to have travelled as a couple and had a problem with the televison in your room not working. The only complaint we have had was about a brand new ( we have just completed the digital switch-over here) television whose remote control batteries were not working, and that was from a family (parents and daughter) in two rooms, not a couple.

The forty-minute wait for paper work is another thing we find difficult to match up. We ask guests to fill in a registration card whilst they have tea/coffee and biscuits, and usually then recieve a bill or receipt. Whilst it may sometimes occur that many guests and other visitors/potential guests arrive in a very short space of time, we cannot recall such an occurance in recent weeks that would had led to anything like that time for you to be left unattened in a "over-crowded, loud, musty and warm living room" to fill in "the paperwork", which comprises a registration card. Unlike some establishments, we do not ask guests to sign waivers and other legally binding documents prior to handing over the room keys, nor do we demand immediate payment at the time of registration, so the "paperwork" you may have been expecting to have been given does not apply in our case.

I do recall my husband having to leave the family I mentioned earlier at one point during their booking in; this was to move his car to accomodate a large family of guests who had arrived whilst they, the parents and daughter, were debating between themselves whether to stay one night or two, and I immediately replaced my husband for the registration to continue.

We totally reject the implication that you were left unattended or ignored for any appreciable length of time when booking in.

Your comments regarding the bedroom we can beg to differ on as to the style and age of the furniture is a matter of personal opinion, and it is possible to find hair in various places in any home, though one obviously takes care to remove them, but all rooms are cleaned prior to guests entering them. The bottled water in the mini-fridge are replaced as required for new guests. As not all guests take advantage of these free bottles not all are needed to be replaced but all bottles are checked at each turn-around to see if they are still sealed. If an individual bottle as been overlooked or mistakenly thought to have been unused then it would have been replaced immediately had it been brought to our attention at the time. We believe we are one of the few guests houses/hotels in this price bracket to offer free bottled still/mineral waters in bedrooms, and are often compliemented for doing so.

Also in the mini-fridges are the milk pots for the free tea/coffee sachets, replaced (at no charge, unlike other establishments) every day which you described as ex-Woolworth`s stock, implying that it was out of date and cheap. The milk pots are bought from a leading national chain of wholesalers, used by many in the industry. Again, the only problem we can recall anyone having with them in recent weeks was some which were found to have gone off, possibly as a result of previous guests turning off the fridge overnight; they were replaced immediately.

Whilst we totally reject your assertion that the shower room was "filthy", we would point out that, by your own admission, your stay seemed to co-incide with that of several other guests (re your comments about booking in), possibly involving a large number of children. In this situation it may have been that the shower room was left untidy. Again, we do what we can to ensure such shared facilities are looked after, but it is not always possible to restore them between guest use with such a small interval between use.

Again, your comments about the cleanliness of the breakfast dishes we totally reject; had there been such a level of dirt on them as you imply then surely you, and the others at breakfast, would have raised the matter then and there. Your comments about the breakfast are also difficult to square with what most others have said, both to us personally and through reviews elsewhere on Trip Advisor, even to the extent of posting pictures. For those not familiar with our fare, we offer four different cereals, orange juice on each table, refilled upon request, a cooked English breakfast of two sausages, two rashers of bacon, egg, fried bread or waffle or hash browns, tomatoes or baked beans alternating and occasionally mushrooms as well, followed by toast with a selection of four different types of jam and marmalade, finished off by tea or coffee, refilled on request. At several points throughout the breakfast you would have been asked if you required more toast or orange-juice or tea or coffee, so how was it that your appetite left unfulfilled, and why did you not request more?

I referred earlier to having difficulty in matching up events described in your review to recent guests. Nowhere is this more true than in your assertion that our pet guinea pig was brought into the dining room during a meal time. Since you were "half way through your bacon and eggs" I would be in the kitchen, since I do not come into the dinin g room until guests have finished their main courses, my husband would be still serving and our teenage age son rarely surfaces for breakfast, so it is hard to imagine under what circumstances it was brought into the room and by whom.

A positive note - the Staff are friendly but occasionally overwhelming, except we do not think of ourselves as "Staff". Staff are what you find in bigger, more impersonal places. Here we go by first names, because we want it to feel more homely than hotel.

Finally, we are not sure as to how we can alter the layout to better suit your needs, and you imply that you may consider coming back after "a deep clean" that you recommend. Should you do so, we hope we would meet your expectations, but also that this time you would have the courage to tell us personally of our shortcomings rather than through Trip Advisor.