Reviews

The main reason for a five star rating is the quality of the tour guide. Joan Dobbie was extremely knowledgeable, very friendly and accommodating, as well as experienced and highly competent.
Other positives about this holiday were the overall itinerary, which gave us a good coverage of Scotland's cities, highlands and islands, as well as the group size (10) which helped make it comfortable.
The weather helped, but nobody can choose that!
Nearly all the hotels used were very good, but the Marriott in Inverness was poor in terms of service and quality of breakfast (typical of a large chain). The Knipoch hotel was definitely the nicest, although the Edinburgh and Glasgow ones were good too.
The evening restaurant in Inverness was OK, but it was a shame that we had three consecutive nights there when the city obviously has a far wider choice, e.g. the lunch time Mustard Seed was very good.
Lunch in Loch Lomond was really very bad and if an alternative can be found for future tours we suggest doing that.
Overall, as explained, we had an excellent time.
Best wishes,
Christine and Paul

The tour was well planned and gave a good mix of experiences and things to see and do in Scotland.
The pace was about right for us and the tour guide Joan Dobbie was absolutely first class.
We were blessed with excellent weather which of course always helps, especially as a lot of the things we did were outside. Maybe different weather might have changed what we could do and might have coloured our view a bit...
The hotels were all comfortable, well-appointed and convenient. Some were more cosy or more atmospheric than others, but they all provided the opportunity to have a good night's sleep.
I do have mobility issues and use a rollator, so sometimes I chose not to leave the coach for the regular photo stops; I also did find the 1 mile walk up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and the cobble stones in the castle grounds in Edinburgh and in Stirling a bit challenging and uncomfortable, but they didn't spoil things for me in the overall scheme of things.
My only real issue was that we ate our evening meals in Stirling at a restaurant that was about 600 yards away from the hotel. By the end of the day I really didn't want to leave the hotel in order to have our evening meal. Also, we were taken to the same hotel for each of the 3 nights, when I would have preferred the option to try somewhere else - we passed lots of establishments on the way that looked suitable. It wasn't as if the restaurant we were taken to offered a good choice of meals - at least, not for us. Thank goodness that the weather was kind otherwise it would have been miserable! In fact, for the 3rd night my husband and I passed on the meal and ate in the hotel instead, at our own additional cost, just to avoid having to out again.
But all in all, it was a great tour!

The tour guide Joan was excellent and the tour was well planned and executed. Some improvements could be made, the Queens hotel in Oban had poor quality bedrooms and the restaurant was not operating, which meant we had to walk outside to another sister hotel with a lower star rating for the evening meals, which were average in quality. Two of the lunch venues were not up to standard ,one at Newhaven near Edinburgh and the other in Mallaig. The train journey from Fort William to Mallaig is scenically superb, Wendy Wu should however consider booking its customers in first class as the second class carriages were not particularly clean.