Note - we don't review chain hotels unless they're particularly nice or have something outstanding about them.      

Hotels and B&Bs are rated in "Yo's" From 1 to 5.   ................     
             Any accommodation that we found particularly unpleasant is awarded a "Barf" ..............  

Hotels are not rated on their "Poshness" but on the suitability of the market they serve, therefore an excellent 1 star hotel will maybe score 4 "Yo's" here, whilst a lousy 5 star with rude staff will receive only 1 "Yo" - or none if it's that bad!
 
If the accommodation has a website, a click on it's name will take you there.

If anybody stays at one of the following B&Bs or hotels and finds them to be better or worse than we did let us know and we'll make a note of it.    

Biker Friendly

Stayed here  June 2003 

The George Hotel, is the kind of place to book into when you want to spoil yourself a
little, because cheap it ain't!   The facilities here are superb and the rooms are  incredibly comfortable. There is an excellent and (for hotel of this class) reasonably priced bar. We stayed here on our 2003 bike tour of Scotland as a treat to end off the run. We never ate here except for breakfast but if that was an illustration of the standard of food then we were impressed. 

The location is ideal, with easy access to the bars and restaurants of Leith Walk and for shopping in Princess Street & The Hard Rock Cafe is just opposite.  No car park as such but we found a few spaces for the bikes on the parking area that runs down the centre of George street outside the hotel.  We had a few concerns about the security but they were fine.  Would have scored top marks if the parking was better

NOT Biker Friendly 

Didn't stay !

Erm!.. What can we say about the Averon Guest House in Gilmore Place? What one single word could possibly sum up such an establishment?   Let me see.........Yes , I've got it.....Shithole!  

When this place was booked we asked for 2 twin bedded rooms, when we got there they'd bunged 2 single beds along with a double bed into one very small room thus taking up every bit of floor space so we'd have had to climb over each other to get into bed.  They seriously expected us to accept that!  When it became obvious they were going to do nothing to rectify the situation we buggered off to find somewhere else to stay. 

We had planned to stay here to end our 2002 Scottish tour, apart from the bedroom fiasco it was a filthy run down hovel which we probably wouldn't have stayed at anyway.  Just to add to its charm there were piles of crap heaped up in the dining room & the minging girl who showed us around had a real bad BO problem!  It's situation in one of the more depressed areas of the city is quite a way from the best shopping and nightlife areas. 

There is a car park at the rear but it's covered in a 4 inch layer of gravel which makes riding a bike on it bad enough but trying to use the centre or side stands was virtually impossible, Pete's bike fell over onto mine as it sunk into it.  Finally, don't be fooled by the photos on the website for this guest house, it looks very nice from outside but the interior is truly bad.  A third class knocking shop at best - not recommended.  

Biker Friendy

Stayed here  Sept 2006

What a place, over 200 malt whiskies, gourmet food, good accommodation – and an American ex-ice hockey player, Jim as the owner.  Completely bonkers – we thought he was terrific, as was his establishment.  Friendly, nothing too much trouble – good value.  Secure parking.  Highly recommended – complete madhouse with beds really – excellent.
                                                                                                                                Review by Jack

Very biker friendly

Stayed here June 2005 

Absolute treasure of a find! Lochwood is one of the best B&Bs you'll find anywhere on  planet Earth.  The rooms are excellent  and incredibly clean, and the hosts are the nicest  people,  Elaine Murdoch is a very bubbly person with a great sense of humour.

Best of all is the hot tub outside on the hillside. Bring yer swimming knickers and indulge yersel'.   The location of the farm is quite a way from any bars or eateries so you'll have to drive or order taxi if you want to go out at night for food and drink.  But, for all  that it's a lovely peaceful place and taxis are cheap and reliable here.  The breakfast was superb but it should be, Elaine wins awards for them.  

Biker friendly

Stayed here June 2005         

A nice basic small hotel with fantastic views of Kyleakin Harbour and Loch Alsh - if you're lucky enough to get a front facing room. Clean with a good brekky  and a shower that will beat you to death!  Very friendly and amicable owners.  Parking is good here, but the bikes are exposed at the front of the hotel, I doubt if there's a lot of crime here though! There was plenty of space for our 5 bikes on the area at the front of the hotel.  No bar but there are a few half decent local ones and the bus over the bridge into Lochalsh village was only 15p after 6pm. 

Very biker friendly

Stayed here June 2005    

Nice, but basic B&B set in the heart of the village of Killin which is situated at the western end of beautiful Loch Tay.  The landlady, Elizabeth will welcome you to her clean and comfortable Fairview House, she is very friendly and helpful, and makes a pretty fair breakfast as well.  She also offered us the use of a large garage for the bikes, so they were very secure here. 

The only downside here was the steep gravel path which for short legged bikers like me on tall bikes caused a bit of a problem - I had to ask Pete to get my bike out when we left or else I'd have fallen flat on my arse!  There are some very nice lively little bars in Killin, and Fairview House is handy for them all, as well as the Falls of Dochart which are a 5 minute walk away.  
A  recommended B&B

Biker Friendly??

Stayed here April 2006      

Another Killin Guest House. We stayed here in April 2006, not on a bike tour but for a 
weekend break. The new owners had recently painted the place and our room stunk of potent fumes. We had to leave the bedroom windows open all night and it was freezing. It would have been cold regardless though, because the heating was never turned up more than a trickle despite the sub zero temperatures and snow outside.

The owners were quite friendly but tried a bit too hard, the landlord Vic had a thing about hanging around like a bad smell after he had delivered breakfast (which was mediocre at best) and chatting away whilst we ate.  If this floats your boat then fine, but I'm not a particular lover of this practice at B&Bs, I like my breakfast delivered then they can sod off and let me eat unobserved and in peace - especially if they're boring old anoraks who like the sound of their own voice! Just a little foible of  mine!

Not sure if this place would be biker friendly or not but I wouldn't imagine there'd be a 
problem. Parking isn't too secure though, any bikes would have to be left on the gravelled area (what is it with B&Bs and gravel paths?) at the front of the house which is on a main road so they could be at the mercy of any passing drunk! Not a bad B&B but not particularly good either, there are better places in and around Killin. Unless they've sorted the heating out probably best staying here in summer only and giving it a miss in winter

 Biker Friendy

Stayed here Sept 2006

Very friendly and very helpful to two very wet and miserable bikers, nothing was too much trouble.  Good value, good breakfasts.  Recommend.
                                                                                                                                Review by Jack

Biker Friendly

Stayed here Sept 2004

One of the nicest B&Bs I've stayed at in Oban.  Spotlessly clean, superb brekky and very amiable hosts. Secure parking at the back where bikes can be hidden from view of the main road.  A little outside of the town centre on the north side.  About 5 - 10 mins walk will see you in  the heart of things where the pubs and restaurants are.  Highly recommended B&B. 

Not biker Friendly

Stayed here May 2005

No website for this B&B. We booked here for 3, but 4 of us ended up going on the tour of Scotland in 2005.  When we tried to book an extra room we were told they couldn't accommodate another  person, which was fair enough, so I ended up staying in the B&B next door. When the others arrived on the doorstep of Glenara, the landlady was mortified to find herself greeting 3 bikers!  After reluctantly allowing the guys over the threshold, she proceeded to lay plastic sheets everywhere they walked or put down their panniers.  Not a comfortable place to stay unless you like show houses with nothing out of place.   

We got this B&B out of the  "Peter Gleave, Motocyclist Welcome Guide"  which just goes to show what a crock of crap that is!  Save yourself a tenner ( and a lot of embarrassment) and don't bother buying it because it's useless.  We've tried a few places mentioned in it and they've either been bloody expensive or biker haters!  Just a case of some opportunist trying to make a quick buck out of selling shite to bikers, Mr. Gleave can't possibly have stayed in any of the places he recommends............Well not the ones we've tried anyway!

Note*
The "Motorcyclists Welcome Guide" has been taken over by MCN and is now called the "MCN Motorcyclists Welcome Guide"   Same shite - different name!    

Biker Friendly 

Stayed May 2002

Our 2002 tour of Scotland saw us staying at the Kings Knoll hotel in Oban for a night.
Back then it was in need of a spruce up, and wasn't that cheap. It does have a bar though which is a plus. They let us use the little yard area at the back to park the bikes, which was ok, but not that secure as they could be seen from the main road. 
We tried booking here again in 2005 but it had become very expensive for what it offers. 

Biker Friendly 

Stayed here May 2004

No website for this place, but it's a really nice B&B with a great view of the coastline around Oban from the front door.  I stayed here when the others were suffering the anal landlady  next  door with her plastic sheets!  "Colryn" is run by a lovely old dear who had recently returned from living in South Africa,  Great little B&B, with a superb breakfast and a lovely chatty lady who will spend time telling you about her travels over a nice cuppa tea.  If you're looking for a nice relaxed bolthole  whilst in Oban then try here, not ultra posh but clean and friendly and reasonably priced.                                                  
Colryn
Rockfield Rd 
Oban  
Tel: 01631 565144        

Very biker friendly  

Stayed here June 2003

We stayed at The Bosville in June 2003. A nice comfortable hotel with very helpful staff.  There was nowhere for us to park 4 bikes outside in the road so the manager kindly let us park the bikes on the small path at the front of his house opposite. We never ate here on this occasion but Wee Jimmy Krankie and me were up there again later in the year and did so then. The food is excellent.....A highly recommended hotel. 

Biker Friendly

Stayed here May 2006      

No website. Pity about this B&B,  Albert is a lovely bloke, but the house is full of clutter and crap, not to mention his washing drying on a rack in the living room complete with his skiddies!  It also doesn't smell too good inside.  From outside it looks bad enough and we probably should have taken that as a warning and walked away!  He runs the place by himself and the lack of a "womans touch" is very noticable.  Little things like no soap in the bathroom and an un-hoovered bedroom carpet (although he did do that after we'd gone out!) A squirt with the air freshener as well wouldn't have gone amiss but you can't have everything I suppose. 

Wee Jimmy Krankie  and me stayed here for (mercifully) just one night in spring 2006, we weren't on the bike but Albert would have no objections to anyone turning up on one.  Whether or not you'd want to stay here though is another matter entirely!  Good points?  Only one I can think of is its close proximity to the Wallace Monument . Oh! and it's cheap! The address, should you feel in a particularly masochistic mood,  and get off on the smell of stale B.O is:

Alberts Bed  & Breakfast
10 Hillfoots Road
Causewayhead
Stirling.   Tel 01786 478728

Biker Friendly  

Stayed here June 2003   

A large hotel, the staff were helpful enough but quite impersonal, some of the rooms weren't very clean when we stayed there and there was the  "Turd in the pan" incident to contend with!  The large car / coach park at the rear where we parked the bikes was reasonably secure but a bit messy, it looked more like a piece of wasteland than a hotel car park.  There are better places to stay in Ullapool. 

This hotel caters  mostly for ageing coach trippers.  Evening entertainment consists of accordionists, pipe players in kilts,  and Moira Anderson  tribute acts, not terribly "rock 'n roll"!  Finally take no notice of the blurb on websites featuring this hotel that state,  "it overlooks the harbour".....It doesn't. Not unless you have access to a periscope and a telescope.......or you happen to land there on a day with very high tide!!

Biker Friendly

Stayed here Sept 2004        

Ben and I stayed at the Riverside Hotel in 2004. This hotel actively welcomes bikers, no bar and not too many rooms makes it more of a guest house than a hotel, but the owners and staff are very friendly. Parking for the bikes is on a small area in front of the hotel but the area is very quiet so it's safe to leave them there, in fact if you're bothered about  them ask for a room at the front  and you can keep an eye on them from the bedroom window.  The rooms here are clean and comfortable, but the breakfast wasn't up to much when we stayed there.  The name is bit of a misnomer as well...there's not a river in sight, whoever named it must have been trippin'....Or had a bloody good imagination!

Biker Friendly 

Stayed here June 2005      

This place is a little gem, we arrived here in torrential rain on our tour of Scotland in Spring 2005. The landlady was great and welcomed us despite 5 hairy arsed bikers dripping water all over her lovely hall floor.  An exceptionally comfortable house with spotlessly clean rooms. We stayed here for 2 nights and during that time endured one the longest torrential downpours of any of our trips. We spent most of the time in the house (apart from when we were in the pub!) as the weather was so foul.  Good secure bike parking at the back of the house in the little car park.  A highly rated guest house with a brilliant breakfast thrown in for good measure

Biker Friendly 

Stayed here
May 2002

Probably the largest Hotel in Wick,  in fact probably the only hotel in Wick!  Provides a good standard of accommodation at a reasonable price, comfortable rooms and helpful staff. We had no complaints.  No car park, but there is parking in the street outside.  Bike parking is a problem because of the severe road camber,  the street being on a hill and an insecure location.  The hotel did arrange for us to leave the bikes at a local bike shop though.  The cheeky buggers did go for a joy ride on my bike but that wasn't the hotel's fault.  

Biker Friendy   

Stayed here Sept 2006  

Rules, rules, rules.......too many damned rules, & too much to remember!  Janice, the 
woman who runs this place likes all the 'T's crossed and the 'I's dotted from the off.  Before we even got to our rooms we were treated to a 15 minute diatribe of the house rules and feeding times etc! The meal times are VERY specific, guests are not  allowed to sit in the dining room 'til the gong goes, and when it does all the bedroom doors open in a flash and the mass exodus to the dining room begins - It was like the faithful being called to prayer!  We had an evening meal here, cooked I think she said by her son Paul who is a "Cordon Bleu Chef" - allegedly,  and he does make a half decent steak and kidney pie I have to say!  His puddings are a grave disappointment though - far too stodgy, maybe he was off Cordon Bleu Chef School sick the day they did the puddings! It was all just a little over dramatic to be honest ..........Delusions of grandeur perhaps? 

Breakfast was carried out in much the same vein.  Most guest houses or hotels we've stayed in will give an hour or so window for guests to arrive at breakfast - not Janice!  No, she allowed us a 15minute gap in her obviously "too busy to be arsed with guests" schedule, to be dressed and down for breakfast and if we were late we had the feeling we'd have to stand in the naughty corner as an example to other guests who were thinking of flouting her rules!  Not wanting to get too personal here, but one look at her overgrown fungus infected toenails would put you off breakfast anyway! She really needs to get them sorted out.......Either that or not wear open toed sandals to serve meals - kinda puts you off dinner! 

Having said all that, the house itself is in a nice position, with a decent, view from the 
lounge and Alnmouth is a nice little town with a decent pub or two and some nice walks. Our room, although clean, was miniscule (think converted broom cupboard) and quite an odd shape with low beams, just the right height for banging your head on - which we did once or twice.  

No en suite here, despite the blurb on the internet declaring, "All bedrooms are en-suite"  .......Well Janice,  ours bloody well wasn't!  And if you had to follow Wesley into the bog after one of his morning "dumps" you wouldn't be too happy either! The room the other 2 lads stayed in also had no en suite - although it should have done for what it cost.  *note - the ad has now been changed  read "most" rooms are en suite - maybe she read this!

Bike parking here is reasonably secure but the car park is tiny, so cars or bikes could well be blocked in come morning if you park near the back. It's also quite deeply gravelled so you'll need to take a stand support.     
  
To sum up, this is an expensive B&B for what it offers, especially as we had a shared 
bathroom and such tiny rooms. We've stayed in better and more reasonably priced B&Bs.  This is definitely one for the older guest.......preferably those who own a crash helmet - the beams in those cupboard sized rooms ARE low! 

Not good for bikers

Stayed here  Nov 2006  

Odd little place with no bar calling itself a "Hotel" situated in the Jesmond area. It's more a guest house really; cleanish but in need of a bit of TLC.  Our shower room was tiny and well past it's sell by date, the shower was crap and took ages to get warm - it never actually got hot or produced more water than a light drizzle.  The tap in the sink (which is in the bedroom) was the same - you lost the will to live trying get water hot enough for a shave.
  
Brochure blurb states:  "1 mile from city centre.  Fluffy white towels. Traditional English breakfast."   

Facts:  Just short of 3 miles from city centre and almost impossible to walk unless you know the area well as there are some VERY busy roads and traffic only sections to negotiate - you really need to get a taxi. We paid an average of £7 each way in the local cabs which took us from the hotel to the centre and from the hotel to the "Quayside area and back . Towels were neither white nor fluffy -  we could strike matches on ours. A bit more "Comfort conditioner" was needed in the wash I think!   They sell themselves short with their breakfasts though - they are excellent and they should make more of them as a positive feature of the hotel rather than spouting erroneous shite about towels and it's "closeness" to the city centre.   

Staff were friendly enough but the breakfast girls excepted, were not over helpful, we had one woman hoovering around our feet with her vacuum cleaner in the tiny reception / hallway area while we were phoning / waiting for a cab. She succeeded in making us feel like we were in her way - which we were,  but it was pissing down and we didn't feel like standing outside getting soaked just to appease her. 

Whilst not a criticism of this particular hotel alone, because most hotels in this area  sell themselves on the "nightlife" of Jesmond with it's, "Many Bars and Restaurants".  What none of them tell you is that all the hotel bars around here close at 11pm after which the place dies.  The close proximity to a large residential area means they have to close early. Unfortunately there are no other bars in the vicinity, and within 10 minutes of a long line of taxis whisking off all the revellers to other places, and everywhere shutting up shop, the place resembled the "Marie Celeste".......Not good on a Friday night out!

The centre of Newcastle doesn't have many good pubs either - that we could find. Lots of cosmopolitan arty farty wine bars / restaurants and a few downtodden, "Tap rooms"  but very few decent drinking houses with a good atmosphere where you can go for a few pints without bad taste, mega bass, loud, and bloody annoying "music" blasting your eardrums out of the side of yer 'ead!   None of us would rush back to Newcastle for a couple of nights out - there are better towns in England which cater for people over the age of 20!

The Avenue is not really a good hotel for bikers either,  there is no secure parking and the bikes would have to be left in the street overnight - it's not that good an area.     

Biker friendly 

Stayed here June 2004
& April 2006  

Stayed again 
July 2007

The Swingate Inn is an ideal little hotel for a nights stopover en-route to the ferry terminal at Dover, especially if you have an early ferry to catch. Within ten minutes of leaving here you'll arrive at the terminal. The hotel has a decent bar and restaurant - nothing too posh or pretentious, just good wholesome food and friendly staff. The rooms are ok - clean and reasonably comfortable. There's a large car park which isn't that secure for bike parking but it's a way out of town so as long as the bikes aren't left near the main road end of the car park they should be fine.   There's not a lot on offer in the area to make this a good tourist hotel, but for the convenience of it's location to the ferries it's excellent.

Another stay for us in this nice little hotel. It's been taken over since our last stay and there have been lots of alterations made, especially around the restaurant area where they serve very good food.  As it's gone up a notch it gains another "Yo" and it's well deserved

Biker Friendly

Stayed here Sept 2006

5 miles south of Harlech -  Extremely biker friendly, very decent people, great accommodation and good breakfasts – very highly recommended..
                                                                                                                          Review by Jack