Loch Shiel Hotel

This is a welcoming hotel. It is also a pub with plenty of locals and there is good interaction between the locals and the guests. We had a loch view room - the loch is a bit further than we'd expected but it is still a great view of the mountains and a ribbon of water. The room was good - lacked a bit of storage - and the bathroom was quite modern. The hotel is run by a small staff - they are very friendly & always busy but you still get service with a smile. We are there on both nights (there isn't really anywhere near) - limited menu but fresh & good food. Breakfast is freshly cooked too. Hotel is difficult to contact - I sent an email to reserve a table (no reply); my wife rang to reserve a table but they still had no record of it when we arrived! The loch is about 400m down the track - worth the walk for stunning sunset views (& midges)

Crikey - amazing how one land'lady'/bar person/whoever, thinks its appropriate to throw as many obstacles and banned activities as possible at your party the minute you step to the bar. No welcome, no warmth, nothing - just rudeness, arrogance and self loathing. She must be waiting, like a coiled lizard behind the warm Tennents pump for the next unassuming customer to walk in. How can someone who must genuinely hate other people so much, choose a job that deals with other people all day long! Aggressive ID check on the party. I'm 53 and look 60 so that one was lost on me. Next aggressive challenge to an 18 year old who hadn't actually ordered anything yet. He wanted a coke so clearly upset her stride at that point. Next - the youngster was not allowed to stand anywhere near the pool table, yet alone play it as it was in the bar and that is clearly against international law at 3pm on a wet May afternoon. He was stood next to the pool table because that is where the door into the bar is! Clearly this simple practicality was too much for the dragon behind the bar to comprehend. The woman/owner/horrible pointless bar person, combined with the two pasty looking midge riddled zombies drinking flat lager in the corner, added to the atmosphere of an abandoned crematorium. Rude, self important hobbyist with zero understanding of the area, and the amazing opportunities available in the stunning part of the world. Travel a little further north and spend your time and money in the Glenuig Inn. That place has never been better since the miserable old loner that owned it eventually sold up a few years ago. ...Maybe take the hint - for the good of the community.

Check in was great, felt very welcome. It’s an old house, quirky. On way up to room could definitely feel the odd sunken floorboard Brushed against the wooden radiator cover on the landing and it promptly came away from the wall with us scrabbling to catch it. The room wasn’t huge, but had 2 chairs so that was a bonus. The floor slopes from the door to the window, quit a bit. Enough for a 4x4 wooden plank to be put under one side of the bed to make it level. The bed, although only a double, was actually wry comfortable. The shower room was pretty small, that’s ok but the actual shower was tiny. My hubby could hardly get in the doors, once he was in, he filled the space, could hardly turn round and had no chance of retrieving the soap when he dropped it LOL The bar area was good and a great view of the garden. Breakfast. Well, the tea and toast was good. I don’t recommend getting the scrambled egg and salmon, think the whole lot was microwaved together, it was still in the shape of the bowl when on th plate. My hubby had full breakfast, the bacon tasted microwaved too and the rest tasted bland. All in all its needs updating and someone who can cook breakfast. The staff were friendly and helpful but we definitely don’t think it was value for money, we’ve stayed in far better places for a lot less.

Three weeks in advance we booked a deluxe room with double bed and loch views for our 52nd wedding anniversary. When we arrived the assistant manager spent an hour running around looking for keys, asking the staff if they were sleeping in any of the rooms and finally informed us that the only room they had available was a tiny attic room with two single beds above the smoking area for the hotel. The window had been left open so the room stank of cigarette smoke, the beds were hard and creaky and, although my husband and I are both quite small people, we had to turn sideways and ease around the door to get into the tiny shower room. The "amenities" consisted of two earl grey tea bags in a filthy box, two tiny thimbles of non-dairy milk and two broken biscuits. There was a double socket in the room with a four way, unswtitched extension which the television was plugged into but it was quite warm so we unplugged it. We didn't dare to use it. The food at this hotel was disgusting. We ordered the seafood platter. The waiter informed us that we couldn't order a starter because the platter was so large. We were bitterly disappointed to be served sadly defrosting prawns in a watery Marie Rose sauce, the cream and wine sauce for the mussels had curdled but about half of the mussels hadn't opened anyway. The whitebait were not the tiny, crispy morsels one might expect, instead the were a good three inches of bitter bones and fins. The langoustines were still frozen. The "artisanal bread basket" turned out to be two slices of under baked, bake-it-at-home baguette. We asked for a dessert menu but the waiter ignored us, looked at what what left on the table and said "I'll just leave you to that for a while". We actually went to bed hungry. We had booked and paid a huge amount of money (for us, it was supposed to be a special occasion) for two nights, we went home after the first one. We didn't stay for the breakfast.

Very friendly staff. Well appointed room with good shower. Good food including a great breakfast.

In many ways more like B&B rather than hotel. Public bar downstairs. Breakfast very nice and owner friendly and helpful. Set in a small village with very nice surrounding countryside. My only criticism would be that it was quite expensive for a B&B.