The Skye Inn — Hotel in Skye

We were really excited to be staying at the Skye inn both based on our research and recommendations from close friends. So much so that when our tour botched the accommodation and wanted to put us in another accommodation, we requested/insisted to be put in the Skye inn. In retrospect that was probably why we received the service we did. The hotel itself was beautiful , rooms spacious and gorgeous . Loved the fact that there were many hangers and charger points in the room as well. The lad at the check in counter and the bar were absolute gems and provided us with a warm welcome with their cheerful disposition. Now for the unpleasant bit, the breakfast + the service (by some people) was the worse I’ve had in the UK. More details would follow in my narration of what happened yesterday when I came down from my room. I greeted the waitress / staff only to be ignored as she greeted the guests directly behind me (more clues who were behind me later). The staff during breakfast all appeared to be in an awful mood and just overall very sour. Unsure if this is just a general pattern of behaviour or just to us people of colour since they appeared to be a lot more cheerful otherwise. In the alternative, it could be because of the hold up during check in due to the slight botched accommodation arrangement with our tour. Regardless, I felt awful - it’s like we were uninvited guests crashing on hotel premises. Food wise, I was served scrambled eggs that tasted like rubber and sausages that were so hard and sorely lacking in flavour. I then asked the staff if the eggs were supposed to be this way since I had a bite of my mum’s plate where the eggs were done correctly - fluffy, wet and runny. The remark was “ it can be either way “ - either that was just rude & unhelpful or they truly believed eggs were to be done that way in which case then it was just awful food having had eggs all around the UK . I left the eggs untouched. The next day aka today, I had something safer bread with jam - and again the jam wasn’t very nice. Absolutely Bland. The eggs were slightly better but again really poor but ate it since we didn’t have much choice as we had an early stop and lunch wasn’t till many hours later. I wanted to give a 3 star because the beautiful rooms and hotel was counterbalanced by a horrible breakfast and service by the staff but because I wasn’t really a breakfast person and for me the rooms mattered a lot more - but the service makes or breaks a B&B experience so for me 4 stars would be generous for how unwelcoming the staff were. Although the horrible breakfast wouldn’t put me off visiting again , the service was kind of unpleasant and I hope it would be improved. The 2 gents were gems and maybe the breakfast staff should take cues. Took the pains to write a very detailed review because it was difficult to give a score when the accommodation + rooms were insanely good and the service and breakfast woeful .

Edit 1 (January 2022): It also seems like the owners of this place cannot be bothered with responding to this review from more than 2 month ago.

Edit 2 (May 2022): Shocking professionalism - left them a message on Facebook which hopefully means I’ll get an answer...

We had quite high expectations about this place, mostly because of the price (we paid £370 for two nights). The staff was very friendly and helpful. However, at breakfast both days, parts of the order were forgotten, so we had to ask again.

Before we arrived, we received an email about infection prevention measures in place at the hotel, and that guests should be wearing face masks. I was therefore very surprised to see that some of the staff serving food only wore a scarf-like thing that they pulled over their nose, when being visible to the guests. It is pretty clear that this doesn't count as a mask and certainly does a poor job in reducing the risk of transmission.

The room was nice, but I noticed that there were dog hair on the carpet. I asked the staff to do an extra sweep with the vacuum cleaner, but the hair was still there when we came back.

Lastly, the walls between the rooms felt like they were made out of cardboard – we could hear everything that was going on inside the neighbouring rooms (coughing, snoring, barking). Really annoying to wake up from.

All in all I have to say that I was disappointed about what we got when paying that much – I would have expected more. That said, the hotel itself is really nice and comfortable, but there is some room for...

Our stay at The Skye Inn was delightful! The hotel is about a 10 minute walk to the restaurants, bars, and shops of downtown Portree. If you are walking back late at night, be mindful that there is a small portion of the road that is not lit up (we used the flashlights from our phones to ensure we could be seen by any on coming traffic).

Our room had a comfortable king sized bed and a stylish, clean, good-sized ensuite with a shower that had excellent temperature control and water pressure. If you like to fall asleep to a television programme, there are lots of cute local channels you can choose from on their cable package and if you have a Netflix account you can sign in on the TV as well.

The main room with the skylight has two big comfortable leather couches and a coffee table set in front of a wood-burning fireplace. The Inn provides logs and fire-tending accoutrement if you want to light one on a rainy highland day. There were also many books and games to choose from to entertain yourself and a bar that is open until 10pm (except for Sundays - on Sunday we bought a bottle of wine and had the room to ourselves).

Thanks for the amazing stay - we would recommend and would come again if we ever find ourselves back in...