Summary - was a packed and very active tour. Our guide Helen was personable, warm and wonderful as we have come to expect from RS guides. Our coach driver was the same (Jimmy) with the addition that he was super patient with drivers who could not quite figure out what to do when confronted by the coach on a narrow road! Hotels were all centrally located to the plans and very comfortable overall. Tour members ranged from later 20s thru mid 80s and everyone got along great from my perspective. Thought I would enjoy Edinburgh the most, and turned out that Inverness was more my thing overall.
Read on for the full report day by day.
Finally getting around to a report now that we have been home a few weeks - and the shutterfly book is done too! Thank goodness for a coupon for free pages! LOL
So, tour started on a Sunday afternoon so we flew on Thursday from SFO-LHR-INV with no issues arriving Friday. (We got lucky as they were to have a ground strike in LHR but resolved for the time being). I have decided I am not a fan of LHR - massive and seems unorganized and I don't like having to go thru shops to get to my gate! YMMV Inverness arrival was a non issue, just walked off the tarmac, thru the small airport and outside - only issue was there were not enough taxis so we waited about 30 minutes - if you fly in there, suggest pre booking a pick up if you don't want to wait.
We had booked two evenings at the Royal Highland (not the RS tour hotel) which was across from the Victorian Market and close to most things on foot. Nice if older hotel, but was clean and staff were courteous. Did not try the breakfast as we went out for breakfast both days. Did some sightseeing and ate dinner (tried haggis - good really!) at Hootenanny which also had live trad music that evening. Sampled some whisky too and managed to make it back before getting a good nights sleep. BTW we had been up about 28 hours at that point but never sleep before "bed time".
Saturday -We hired a driver to take us outside the city thru Inverness Tours, and Laura picked us up promptly at 9 and took us to Dunrobin castle, lunch, the beach and Clava Cairns - yes, Outlander fan in the group. I found her to be engaging and wonderful and highly recommend her. (There were 4 of us). This allowed us to cover a lot of ground and not worry about driving on the opposite side while jet lagged and we got to hear a lot about Scotland from a local. That night dinner was at the Castle Tavern, great food, view of the Castle (scaffolding mostly).
Sunday - checked out and into the RS hotel which was two blocks away (Radisson River Ness). New, shiny and had great breakfasts!
Meet the guide and group at 4/5 and off to dinner to Mustard Seed for group dinner. Welcome wine with dinner which was good.
Mon.- Breakfast, followed by meeting the driver of the coach and a ride to Loch Ness, the boat to Urquhart Castle, misty in the morning and sunshine by the time we stepped off the boat. Then Cawdor Castle, lovely gardens and lunch! Yummy Off to Culloden which was very moving and somehow bigger than I expected - weather still holding and warm! Back to town where we had made reservations at MacGregors for both dinner and their "whisky experience" musics and 5 drams - very fun if that is your thing- was a bit crowed for some of us but good tastes, tales and tunes.
Tue. - Checking out of the River Ness. Out to taste whisky at Glen Moray and visit the woolen mill in Elgin. We were split into 2 groups and got to tour and taste drams and then go to have a tour of the mill - so much work goes into making stuff (very expensive for a reason!). We finished our tour and had group lunch at the mill in the cafeteria and tried both Irn Bru (think orange crush) and Cullen Skink (chowder) delicious and sorry we had not tried sooner.