Avis A Cottage on a Private Island Big Rideau Lake

Was rustic and private could have been alittle cleaner. Enjoyed it very much.

The listing for the Potato Island cottage was accurately described. The new dock was fantastic. We had a great week with family and friends relaxing and fishing. Thank you very much for allowing us to stay at your cottage.

Potato island was absolutely perfect for our family, and we had a fun, relaxing week long stay. The cottage is older..rustic but very clean and had everything needed for prepping food. The surroundings are absolutely beautiful and peaceful, and we felt so mentally refreshed. The kids swam every day rain or shine, we went canoeing, read books, sat around the camp fire, played games, and the dogs had a blast running around the island. As an owner of three small dogs, this was a huge stress reliever for us to not have to leash them all every time they needed to go out and we didn’t worry about them getting lost. Do bring water shoes as there are some sharp rocks in the lake. If you like camping, this is like glorified camping with everything at your finger tips. The kids even loved the week without wifi and suggested we should have a day a week at home without it! The only thing I would love to see is another tower fan or two, as these were life savers on hot days, but were fought over at night. Thank you for sharing your beautiful location with us! We would love to come again.

The cottage feels like it used to be a well-loved family cottage at one time, but that has sadly been “let go”, to the point that I honestly don’t think this cottage is fit to be rented to the public in its current state. Let me just say that the reference to Cape Fear may have come up a few times by others in my group. First of all, the cottage is on an absolutely beautiful lake. And there are lots of truly neat little crafty projects throughout the cabin and island. However, the cottage is otherwise not well- maintained, to the point that the cottage should not be rented in its current state. While there, we experienced a major roof leak in the main bedroom, which was extremely disruptive and could not sleep in the room one night. Many aspects of the exterior were also downright unsafe- some unusable docks with debris and garbage left on them, including wire fencing and concrete blocks, significant debris /garbage throughout the island etc. The bunkie is also completely unusable. There is an old dirty toilet (not hooked up) left in the bunkie (!), mouse poo on the inflatable single mattress, there are piles of leaves and dirt on the floor inside, the countertop is stained and dirty. There are countless dead bugs all around the inflatable mattress. Overall it is beyond disrespectful to offer a property in this state. In the main cabin, I had to use Lysol wipes throughout. There are too many trees to count that have fallen on the property, sometimes making parts of the island inaccessible. The “caretaker” said it was due to the recent storm in May, however, not a single other cottage on the whole lake had even one tree down. Quite frankly as you approach the island it looks completely abandoned because if all the trees down. The docks are misrepresentative compared to the photos. The main dock is old and sloped making it difficult to use. As mentioned above some of the other docks had significant debris-waste on them (wire fencing and concrete blocks). The cottage advertised having lots of equipment, such as canoes, badminton, games, etc, but I can upload photos of this to demonstrate that it more closely resembles piles of junk. Again, I found the condition of the equipment extremely disrespectful. Overall, this place is not fit to be rented out to the public. It’s such a shame, as the lake is truly beautiful and you can see the cottage was probably well loved as a family cottage in the past.