igal27
August 2015
This place is really nice. The cottage is basically a fully self-contained part attached to a larger house where the hosts, Nikki and Angus (very friendly and helpful!) live. It's a two-story cottage with a nice, large, fully equipped kitchen (fridge, large oven and stove, microwave, dishwasher, washer, and dryer) and dining room on the lower floor, where you also have two bedrooms (a double and one with two single beds) and a bathroom with shower -- and the heated floors are a nice touch! On the top floor, there's another large double bedroom, a full bathroom (with bath and shower), and a very cozy living room with TV, DVD player, and even a selection of DVDs (which the kids appreciated very much!). There's also a nice telescope you can use to get close-up views of the bay and mountains opposite the cottage -- you really get an amazing view from the living room and dining room!
The cottage is spotless (including the bathrooms) and very elegantly finished and furnished -- there's a lot of attention to detail, much more than you would typically expect from a rental accommodation. And its childproofed as well, except for the stairs (no barriers), in case that's relevant.
The only thing I found a little disappointing was that all the "consumables" you use during your stay (and which in my experience with self-catering establishments are normally provided in ample amounts), such as toilet paper, paper towel, tea, coffee, sugar, etc., were only provided in bare minimum amounts -- a couple of spoonfuls of coffee and sugar, a few rolls of toilet paper; not nearly enough to last the entire week, requiring us to purchase all these things at the grocery store. Either you provide these items in sufficient quantities for the entire stay or you don't, but don't provide just enough for 1-2 days when you rent the place out for a week at a time... Also, items of which you need much smaller amounts over the course of a week than the smallest packaging you can buy (e.g. oil, vinegar, spices...) should also be provided (they were not, and we had to buy large bottles of each). I nearly reduced one star in my ranking for this, but decided not to in the end.
The cottage is very well situated on Skye, with most of the major attractions and hikes/treks within a 0.5-1 hour drive away. There are grocery stores (Coop is the only chain on the island) and gas stations in Broadford (which you pass along the way from the Skye bridge, about 15 min before reaching the cottage) and Portree (the "capital" of the Isle of Skye), about a 15-min drive North past the cottage (the Coop in Broadford is much larger than the one in Portree). You've got a number of restaurants in Portree as well.
With the one caveat above, I highly recommend this self-catering cottage.