My husband and I have just returned home after a 4 night stay at the Ben Loyal Hotel. The views are spectacular and the quality of the food superb. We received a great Scottish welcome from the owners and staff who all went out of their way to ensure we had a fantastic time. We return home so relaxed we feel we had a much longer break. The Hotel Bar is very friendly and we really enjoyed meeting all the other guests some of whom were on their fourth or fifth visit to the Hotel. We highly recommend the Hotel to anyone wanting to experience the delights of the Scottish Highlands.

Just spent a night at The Ben Loyal Hotel and wished it could have been longer.

The lady owner greeted us on our arrival and showed us to our room. We had been offered a room with four poster bed and a view and it did not disappoint. The room was well equipped and comfortable and the view was to die for.


The standard of food at this small hotel is incredible both in content and quality, the fish special being so fresh that the evening menu was not finalised until after the local fisherman had arrived with his catch of the day.


The well stocked bar had a wonderful range of Malts and the chef is more than happy to impart his considerable knowledge of them to the guests.

This is certainly no boutique hotel rather it is a little gem in the Highlands, homely and welcoming and we hope someday to return.

We stayed at the Ben Loyal Hotel during a tour of the North of Scotland. The hotel is of a traditional build and appears to cater for walkers and anglers. There were a few guests who were obviously regular visitors to this establishment, which is high praise indeed.

Our room was comfortable and had a lovely view over the Kyle of Tongue. It is worth paying the extra charge for such a room.

We had a very enjoyable dinner in the hotel. The food was well prepared, using fresh local produce, and was served by very polite and attentive waiters.

We would recommend this hotel and would stay there again.

A friend booked this hotel for us as part of a three-day drive around the Highlands. Unfortunately, she had never heard of Trip Advisor, and hadn't done any research. If she'd had -- or I'd had the time to -- we'd have been staying at the Tongue Hotel, deservedly well reviewed on this site. The reviews for the Ben Loyal are all dated, and whatever this place may have been like in the past its current proprietors are taking the ingredients that should add up to a great little hotel, including a location with jaw-dropping views of Ben Loyal and environs, and turning it into a nightmare.

The first clue that we were in for a rough ride came at check in, when the female proprietor was very impatient with us (guests are a nuisance?). Our later experiences with her made us realize that at that point she was actually at her charming best.

When we returned from a few hours of touring the area, we went into the bar for a pre-dinner drink and were again made to feel that customers were a nuisance, this time by her husband who slapped down a menu in front of us and barked at us to read it for ourselves when I asked what Black Isle beers they had. (Their website advertises these as one of their great offerings.) The proprietors then proceeded to have a squabble in front of us. This concluded with the female proprietor swatting her husband. The bar, which was "heaving" as the British would say, was obviously giving them more business than they could handle without losing their cool. This was, however, the tip of the iceberg.

We went into the dining room for our booked dinner at exactly the appointed time (you can't dine here without booking) and the waitress gave us no more than a minute to consult the lengthy menu before asking us to order. When I ordered only a "starter" and said I still had to read over the "main" choices, she sent over the male proprietor, who, in front of several tables of other guests, barked at us that we needed to order right away because the chef needed to "clean up." It was 8:25 p.m.

We should have left then and gone for a second meal at the Craggan Hotel in Melness, a village a few miles away, where we'd had an unbelievably good lunch of fresh seafood prepared to very high standards. But we made the mistake of giving the Ben Loyal the benefit of the doubt. My "starter" arrived -- fresh loyal oysters -- and I had one. When I set down the shell, I discovered that three creepy-crawlies were doing a tour of my dinner plate. The waiter's response? "Oh, dear." (No apology.) He whisked the plate away and returned a minute later with the two remaining oysters informing me that they had now been "rinsed." And that at any rate one of the creepy-crawlies had been "a baby Langoustine" (i.e., prawn) and that there was nothing for me to be concerned about. I told him that was not acceptable to me, and that I no longer had any appetite for the oysters. Unfortunately for me, my "main" was also inedible: it was a leathery "shoulder of beef" so over-cooked I could barely cut into it.

The worst was still to come.

I waited for my friend to eat her meal. (I had no opportunity to return mine as the waitress didn't come anywhere near us to ask whether we were enjoying our dinner.) Then, extraordinarily, the female proprietor came over to our table to confront us about daring to return any of the food. By objecting to the bug-riddled oysters, I had been "rude." And we *would* be charged for our food, she informed us. "The customer is not always right," she declared. And we could write to the Scottish Tourist Board, and whomever else we wished. She didn't care.

We were flabbergasted! Apparently, the proprietors of this hotel not only fight one another, but enjoy having a good -- and utterly unseemly -- brawl with their customers! My friend was so disturbed she simply wanted to leave, but we couldn't, of course, because whether we slept in our rooms that night or not, we would have been charged for them. So we went up the street to the elegant Tongue Hotel to put the Ben Loyal behind us at least for an hour. There, we were warmly greeted by the bar lady in the pub downstairs who personally walked us round to the far entrance for the lounge. After we'd been graciously served by the bar woman there, we settled into the cozy lounge with happy Tongue Hotel guests, and rued our choice. There was nothing we could do but long to go up the stairs to a bedroom in the Tongue Hotel, which -- if their lobby bathroom is anything to judge by -- must be spacious, airy and well-appointed. (I'll spare readers the details about the Ben Loyal rooms.)

In the morning, when we were settling our bill, I discovered that the husband wanted to charge me for the one oyster that I had eaten before discovering the bugs. When I said he had to be kidding, he asked "Was that oyster no good, then?" My response: "What kind of logic is that! If I'd eaten all three before discovering the bugs, you'd be charging me for the full dish?"

I'll keep the rest of the gruesome details of our "conversation" to myself. Let me simply say that the Ben Loyal desperately needs "Super Nanny" to roll in and teach the two sixty-year-old children who are running this place that they are not allowed to fight in front of their guests or yell at the customers. In the meantime, anyone looking for a hotel in Tongue should without question book to stay with the competition. We can only regret our choice. Don't regret yours.