We stayed here as a group of 25 people and took over most of the hotel for 2 days in May. I would recommend Duisdale House to anyone who likes very good food and very good accommodation with stunning views over the local hills and sea. The staff are all very friendly and keen to help with anything. I was most impressed that the Chef could turn out good food for us all without having to take advanced orders and we were also offered a choice for starters, mains and deserts. Something that the Dunblane Hydro could not offer us 4 days earlier! Shame on them. Thank you all at the Duisdale House Hotel; we will be back.

After a wonderful series of stops within Scotland by our five star tour service 'Scotland Calling', our tour guide Chris Gordon brought us to the Duisdale Country House, a beautiful estate located near the sea in the rich greenery of that southeasterly section of the Isle of Skye known as Sleat (pron. 'Slate' by the Scots). The staff, Anita, Joanne, Agnes, and James were wonderful, and exceeded our expectations with their helpfulness and care for our needs. The food was great, the rooms very well conceived, and the beautiful grounds lit up at night made it magical.

This could and should be a top quality hotel - it is a lovely building with pleasant gardens in Skye's beautiful Sleat peninsula - but, unfortunately, it doesn't come up to scratch for a number of reasons. On leaving a four star hotel you don't expect to be able to reel off a long list of unsatisfactory and frustrating occurrences racked up over a short stay, but that is the reality of our experience.

The two most galling points to note relate to billing. From the word go it was hard to shake off the view that the proprietors were trying to get one over on us. On arrival, we were presented with a bill for £160 per night when we had been quoted £120 per night by two members of staff when making the booking. On being challenged the proprietor appeared somewhat disbelieving but did eventually alter the charge back to £120 per night. The notion that this was a result of a harmless mistake was somewhat undermined as a result of a second instance, in which we were made to pay through the nose for something we were specifically - and voluntarily - told was "free."

On being taken to our room the proprietor make the following statement: "the phone is free." Whilst a few years ago we would not have believed our ears at such a statement, in the age of standard monthly billing and "free calls," we accepted this a nice gesture and thought no more of it. Until we were presented with our bill on departure, that is. This listed a number of phone charges that all came in way above the rate you would expect to pay when calling from a mobile phone (we were even charged for calls that were not connected). On challenging the proprietor she informed us that, when she said the phone was "free," she meant it was "free for use" as opposed to "free of charge." This was highly misleading. In the end, after making my protest, I paid up and left before I was charged for breathing (which I very nearly wasn't after this little episode).

There are two possible explanations for these events. The first is dishonesty. The second is that few of the staff appear to speak English as a first language. If being charitable these "misunderstandings" could be attributed to the latter.

Here is my summary:

Room - Clean and pleasant, but dated and extremely small.

Food - Breakfast: Very basic [buffet of tinned fruit, cheap runny yoghurts, breakfast cereal and fruit juice (usually none left)], scanty portions, slow service, you have to get the waitress whenever you want a cup of coffee and she isn't around all that often (although they will give you a weak pot of tea, for some reason)

Dinner: Very good. Expensive, but justifiably so (although service still slow).

Billing - see above!

Overview - Overall this was a disappointing establishment. Putting the overcharging to one side I would say the main problems stemmed from poor language skills and understaffing. The people who we dealt with were friendly and polite at all times, but had a tendency not to provide things when asked (probably because they were run off their feet) or to provide the wrong thing entirely, sometimes to comic effect (such as providing brown toast when brown sauce was requested).

After staying at this 4 star hotel we stayed at a 3 star in Portree (The Royal Hotel) which was significantly better in every regard (and the phone WAS free!)

Disappointing. I would not recommend this hotel.

We stayed here in April 2007--new owners had just taken possession--staff were courteous and helpful--both dinner and breakfast were excellent--rooms are spacious but not stylish--new owners plan extensive facelift which should improve the rooms--grounds are extensive and wonderful--renovations had already started in Library/Bar--we hope to go back in 1-2 years so we can see the changes.