Royal Hotel

Very nice comfortable facilities located directly above a few fantastic restaurants. Staff went above and beyond to accommodate requests. Very central location to this lovely town. Rooms are smaller as it’s an older building, but are very contemporary and clean.

I really enjoyed my stay for 8 days at the Royal Hotel well looked after by all the staff there. Room was great looking out on the front onto the harbour and castle view! Food was also really nice no problems, I tried a lot different food and was happy every time. Would I come back yes.

Lovely hotel & very friendly staff. 2 restaurants available to use , I used the HS-1 bar , fantastic fish & chips👍🏻 & beer 🍺. Very fast service. Breakfast was brilliant ( full) & of course Stornoway Black-pudding. Highly recommend this hotel , great location.

10th-12th Aug 24. Won’t visit again. We spent 17 days on a roadtrip in NW Scotland and the Hebrides across 2 B&B, 2 Hotels, a Pod and a cottage and found little of value at the Royal Hotel. Location on quayside in Stornoway was excellent, access to Northern Lewis and multiple historic sites of interest. Parking was tight at rear of hotel however plenty st parking out front. We reserved standard double, harbour view with en-suite at £249 per night B&B. If you are given room key 31, return it. Bathroom was not functional, sink in front of toilet, meaning difficult to use toilet, standing or sitting at an awkward angle, with sink at teeth level and dangerous. With door closed not able to dry yourself in the bathroom, the shower was tiny. We advised reception immediately, they were unable to move us that night as hotel full, advising bathrooms in old buildings typically tight ( photo attached.) Disappointed with this response we asked them to review the room rate, as other rooms had appropriate bathrooms. Next night we were advised no reduction in room rate as configuration of bathrooms similar in old buildings unfortunately ( not true.) We shared more disappointment with the management, then late that evening we were moved for the first time to room 16 ( which was just what we’d expected for this rate ) then moved again the next night to room 7 ( shower fitting was broken ) as 16 was required for other guests. Only one of the 3 rooms came anywhere near our value for £249 per night. No reimbursement as they must have felt moving us made up for their shortcomings. On the plus side, restaurant was accommodating, despite reception losing our booking for dinner on the last evening, staff were friendly, fayre was OK. Team at reception had their hands tied, hotel was full. They had little awareness of the configuration of the rooms, which surprised us. 2 of the team had never seen the rooms ? Could they have done more, yes, admitted frailties and adjusted rate, they chose not to. Their positive manner doesn’t cover for the inefficiency of events. £750 for 3 nights B&B ( in 3 rooms ) in a dysfunctional building represents no value. All we needed was a room and a useable bathroom, nothing special. All other accommodation across our trip was as expected. Fantastic adventure, just not at the Royal Hotel for us again, very disappointing.

After a long drive up to Lewis. We were looking forward to some warmth and kind reception. We received this in spades. This started a couple of hours before we arrived with Gordon in front of house checking in on us to ensure that we had booked dinner during our stay. Once we arrived we had a lovely warm welcome from the ladies in reception and settled in. The room was a castle view and quiet, adequately maintained and with a lovely warm duvets. We ate in both restaurants and the food and service were excellent.

The Royal was great for a long stay in Stornoway. It was so easy to pop out to do something in town then pop back in. It's right in the middle of everything, so one time I was able to go out to a street concert down the street, run back to get my umbrella when it started raining, and get back to the concert with the umbrella, all in about 8 minutes. I do recommend a harbor-facing room so you can see the fun on the street. Our rooms all had en suite bathrooms, but I think a few had their own private bathroom but in a separate room facing the main bedroom across the hall. (Like two steps, not all the way down the hall, but still.) If that's important to you, just be sure your room has the bathroom IN the room when you're booking. It's an old place, but they've done lots of renovations that are on-going to keep it nice. The rooms were comfy, the staff great (shout out to the famous Gordon at the front desk!) and the food was good. We definitely want to come back to Stornoway, and when we do, we've agreed to come back to the Royal. Shout out to the young women working in housekeeping who did a fantastic job keeping everything so clean, and I'm sorry about my men bringing back half of the mud around the Callanish Stones on them. And the Heb Celt mud on the shoes. Sorry. :-)

We arrived at the Royal as strangers in a strange land and departed as friends. Our stay was made by the staff who were friendly, obliging and efficient. The dining in the restaurant and cafe was always a pleasure, special requests catered for without hesitation. Our comfortable room overlooked the harbour and across to Lewes Castle. If we go back to the Western Isles, the Royal will be the first place we would book.

Perfect. 1st class restaurant. Book in advance if you want to eat here in the evening. Staff AMAZING! Reception staff very helpful and willing to advise anything and everything on Lewis and Harris. Rooms spotlessly clean. Stayed for 2 nights. Would definitely stay again.