We went on the 1-Day Moray Coast, Puffins, & Speyside Whisky Explorer tour on May 6th with Iain. We had a bit of a mixed experience, as we enjoyed many of the locations we went to, but felt that the tour itself was poorly organized and that our tour guide was not knowledgeable for this particular tour. The beaches and cliffs that we were able to see were absolutely beautiful, and we would highly recommend going to visit Findhorn beach. We were very pleased with the choices of the coastal areas, though we wished we’d had more time there. The tour description states that we would “learn all about single malt production at a Speyside whisky distillery”, and although we did go into a distillery, we were only offered menus from which we could purchase whisky and not provided with any information on whisky history or production from either our guide or the staff at the distillery. Our guide pointed out distilleries as we would pass by them but did not seem to have anything to say about them or about the process of making whisky. We also feel that this tour should remove the “puffins” in the title, as when we got to the bird sanctuary it was quite clear that puffins don’t seem to nest in that area at all, even though we went at the right time of year. After discussing puffins with another tour guide, it became clear that this coastal region is not actually known for having puffins in the first place. What was particularly disappointing is that our tour guide claimed that he had seen puffins the last time he came, only for him to admit later on that what he thought were puffins were actually razorbills (cute, but not puffins). He only admitted this once one of the members of the tour pointed this out to him. We made the best out of the trip, however, as we did enjoy seeing the cliffs, but the sheer lack of knowledge on our tour guide’s part was upsetting. This tour would be much better off simply advertising for gannets instead, as they are definitely present on the cliffs. In terms of safety, we did feel that our tour guide was driving a bit recklessly. We weren’t sure if this was simply due to the roads, but after having taken many other tours on our trips, we did observe that our other tour guides did a much better job navigating the roads. Unfortunately, we also didn’t feel that we had enough “comfort” breaks to go to the washroom, which was never an issue on the other tours we took. We were quite disappointed when we arrived back at 6:45pm rather than 7:30pm, as that extra 45 minutes could have been used for more time at some of the beautiful locations we went to, such as Findhorn beach. Overall, we cannot say that we would recommend Highland Explorer tours, especially when compared to the other tour companies we used over the course of our trip. This may have been due to an unexperienced or unprepared tour guide, but either way we felt that the tour’s title and description were misleading and should be changed.