Let me start by saying that this is a very nice hotel in a lovely location and the many wonderful reviews it has received are merited. I would have given this review 4 stars had it not been for a couple of points however. Looking at past reviews, I do not like that the hotel manager writes a sarcastic response to any person that so much as criticizes any small thing about the hotel and does not respond to any of the very positive ones! Even a small 'Thanks for the great review!' would not be such hard work would it? No doubt, I will in turn be treated to my own sarcastic response once this review is published. Sadly and predictably, this would be completely in line with the nature of the bald headed man who seemed to be the person in charge during our two night stay in August. Throughout various encounters with him on our two- night stay, I did not see him smile once. If you hate people so much and are so unhappy working in a customer facing role, I highly recommend changing industries. During our stay, my wife came up with the nickname ‘Mr Stiff’ for him, which I thought was most apt. From the moment we arrived, he seemed upset with us that we had not booked breakfast and dinner times- this had been requested on the email confirmation the hotel had sent after making the booking, however due to us having only made the booking the day before and then being out the whole day prior to our evening arrival and without WIFI, I had not seen that they had requested us to do this. We were nevertheless grateful they still had a table available for dinner that evening and enjoyed our evening meal, despite not being happy at having to pay £18.95 for a plate of vegetarian pasta with pasta that was not even handmade. If you are charging that much for a vegetarian pasta, please try and at least make the pasta by hand- it is not that difficult. I don’t think I have ever paid that much for a plate of handmade vegetarian pasta in some of the finest restaurants in Bologna or Rome. On our first morning, I decided to go for an early morning run before joining my wife in the breakfast room. Whilst fully understanding that due to it a being a small room in which breakfast was served, hotel management asked guests to book specific times for their breakfast, the guests on the table next to the window had just left when my wife arrived, however Mr Stiff declined her request for us to be seated there instead. It became clear that the guests who had just left were the last sitting of the morning, as nobody arrived afterwards, so would it have been so difficult just to ask us to kindly wait for 5 minutes whilst they cleared that table and remade it for us? But no, he had his set way of doing things, with no room for improvisation, even if that meant making the guests happy. I must say that the breakfast itself was excellent, amongst the best I have ever had at a hotel, and the young Scottish lady who was working on both mornings was very kind, polite and helpful. The lady and the young girl working in the restaurant on our first evening were also kind and friendly. This is a lovely hotel and clearly a lot of care and hard work has been put into it. Whilst being critical of Mr Stiff, I could see that he was a hard working man (something I can relate to, having previously worked for many years as an ‘all-rounder’ at a hotel), however just a smile and some basic friendliness really do come a long way to people who are on holiday and are wanting to have a good time, and who are also paying very high rates to stay in your establishment. Whilst appreciating that the Highlands in general are expensive and that hotels are still trying to recuperate money lost during Covid, paying £180 a night for the smallest attic room in the hotel was excessive. On the morning of our checkout, my three-star review was confirmed- we admittedly came down to reception half an hour after the 10:30 checkout time (surely for a £180 a night hotel, one would expect checkout to at least have been at 11AM?) and Mr Stiff was there waiting, looking extremely perturbed. I apologized for being late and began loading our car. As we were doing this, he came rushing out in a state of ire demanding to have our keys back as we had not yet returned them. I had indeed forgotten to do this, although I am sure I would have noticed I still had them before getting into the car. Again, his whole nature seemed unnecessarily untoward. Just before leaving, I thought I would give him one more chance. We had wanted to go to a local loch before driving to Inverness and so asked if he could recommend one. His answer could not have been more curt. “We are on a road which leads to Loch Ness and can recommend going there”, with again nothing so much as resembling a smile. It is obvious that most people would know Loch Ness, so I was hoping for some local insight into perhaps a lesser known, less touristy loch. I didn’t bother to ask further. …
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.