Edinburgh, the Highlands and Islands

J Wheatley

Good choice of places, experiences etc. Covid restrictions adhered to without affecting the trip.

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Robert

This trip took place under the Scottish Government’s COVID Level 1 restrictions. In the last 50 years, I have been on five guided tours each between two and three weeks, and never had any reservations about either the tour or the tour leader. Great Rail Journeys and it’s leader let us down. They chose to have a parallel trip with a separate leader; this was not advertised and meant that the there was a compromise in enjoyment on certain days. One example was with the chartered Jacobean Steam railway where our trip ran two hours later. The returning alternative scenic route from Mallaig to Inverness with an extra ferry resulted in our arriving so late into our Inverness Hotel that we had no time to freshen up and change for dinner. Another avoidable aspect was as a result of poor leadership including lack of research , poor logistics and very poor empathy. As an example on the final day, our leader followed a crow flying pedestrian route from the depths of Waverley Station (Edinburgh), avoiding all escalators and lifts, the wrong way up a long slope, in blazing sunshine. My wife, a distinguished nurse with 50 years experience had to be helped by a retired doctor’s receptionist when she had an asthma attack. Struggling, despite being very stoic she was in tears when we reached the Intercontinental hotel. Other members of the party , also very stoic, were an amputee, two nonagenarians and fellow octogenarians. Earlier on, in Oban, my wife and I were loudly and severely reprimanded by ‘sergeant major’ for being a few minutes late at a rendezvous point. He later apologised but the underlying problem was the lack of knowledge and recommendation by our leader of sandwich shops, of the location and time taken to queue for ladies toilets and the restrictions imposed by asthma. Admittedly our leaded did seem to improve a little as our tour progressed. The first ‘toilet blunder’ was our leader’s advice that toilets were available at the top of the Neptune Staircase; these were private toilets for the use of canal tenants. It was by the kind mercy of such a tenant that nearly a dozen party members were able to use these facilities by passing the key from one to another. Some of the three and four star accomodation was lacking in good ventilation, a fact acknowledged retrospectively in Inverness, by the hotel management saying “we could have borrowed THE portable air condition unit”. The Intercontinental Hotel in Edinburgh had very good rooms but the Hobson’s Choice Scottish menu dinner was terribly fatty (despite our request for a low fat diet) and the breakfast menu forbade having cereals AND a cooked breakfast. Overall the tour was not worth £1,750 each for 8 hotel nights, breakfasts at each hotel, dinner on all but one night, baggage transfer, rail and coach travel and mainly senior citizen entry to venues. There was very beatific scenery and wonderful weather but terrible management greatly compromised the tour’s value.

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E Sonnenberg

Given the current Covid rules limitations a very good tour with an excellent tour manager who managed to make things happen in spite of limited service in hotels and tourist places due to Covid restrictions. Good hotels in good locations. Especially in Edinburgh within short walk distance from Waverley station. Especially last night hotel with excellent facilities and exceptional customer care. Four rather than five stars as the Loch Ness trip was a bit of a non event, just an outing on a boat, maybe we could have done the Isle of Skye instead.

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R Price

Excellent accommodation superb dinners Breakfast often chaotic but excellent content save for Glencoe Unfortunate first night service poor table arrangement in twos not friendly Group was in practical effect 50 not 25 in normal circumstances would’ve complained Overall however excellent and would recommend to friends weather helped

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Customer

We enjoyed our trip to an area we did not know at all. Everything worked well, given the constraints applied by Covid. The hotels were all well situated and very comfortable. We particularly loved the view from our room at the Isles of Glencoe, which was unbelievably tranquil and very healing for the soul.

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Simon K Suvarna

A varied and interesting tour that was a delight as we emerged from lockdown !

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