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.

The Duisdale country house hotel has a beautiful setting overlooking the sound of sleat and our room had this astonishing view, though it would have been easier to appreciate if someone had cleaned the windows. The view was easily the best thing about it. The gardens are pretty but the terrace hard to enjoy because of the perennial midge. The hotel felt as though no-one cared about it much, nor about service to the guests. The room was nice but the 4-poster wobbly and no-one had vacuumed under the bed for some time. The bathroom was OK but in here as in the bedroom the decoration was tired, and the bathtowels were too small.

The food in the restaurant was barely OK and clearly mainly pre-prepared and mass-produced. That's OK but doesn't forgive the lack of attention to detail. The staff were willing and friendly but poorly trained (not their fault) and the first two bottles of wine we tried to order from the wine list were not available and we ended up with a flabby bottle of french plonk that was not particularly cheap. Our waitress was clearly embarrassed about this. The restaurant had muzak competing with the radio playing from the kitchen, both clearly to be heard at breakfast as well as at dinner. Not a relaxing or enjoyable experience, and not cheap either. Stay somewhere else.

This is a beautiful house with nice communal areas and could be a really lovely hotel if someone lavished a little care upon it: I hate to see good ingredients not living up to their potential and this hotel is a supreme example of this.

Very high standard of accomodation. The rooms and the rest of the hotel are furnished with great taste and luxury. Our room was huge and had a four-poster bed and an LCD TV. The hotel has a beautiful garden, and the sea is just a short walk away. The staff is surprisingly numerous for a relatively small hotel and exceptionally helpful. The full highland breakfast is very good. Unfortunately we missed the dinner, and the comments of other guests made us regret it very much.