Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion Review

🚢 Invergordon Cruise Port Tour Guide for +10 years

Thinking of taking a ‘Best of Scottish Highlands’ shore excursion when you visit Invergordon Cruise Port?

Read on for all the practical information you need to know so you can decide if this is the perfect tour for you.

Links You Might Find Helpful:
Invergordon Shore Excursions Available from Private Companies
Private Tour for 4 People to Cawdor Castle & Urquhart Castle from Invergordon
Loch Ness Private Car Tour for Up to 3 People

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion

Table of Contents

This excursion operates as a full-day tour from Invergordon.
This tour visits Cawdor Castle.
There is lunch included in this tour.
There is also a visit to Urquhart Castle included.
This tour also operates in reverse to avoid overcrowding at the castles.
Buses without air conditioning can be used on this tour.

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion

Route to Cawdor Castle

The route into Inverness is via the A9. The bus will follow the Cromarty Firth shore initially and then cross over the Cromarty Causeway.
It will then travel over the Black Isle, along the dual carriageway, and over the Kessock Bridge.
Generally, coaches going to Cawdor Castle will travel along the A96 and then turn off on the smaller road to Cawdor Castle.
They may go a slightly different way depending on what time the visit has been booked at Cawdor Castle. Cawdor Castle operates a booking slot system for visiting coaches.

Click here to see the route on Google Maps

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion

Cawdor Castle Practical Information

The journey to Cawdor Castle takes around 1 hour and 15 minutes from Invergordon Port.
Coaches park in the coach park at Cawdor. There is then a 500-yard walk to get to the castle entrance.
There are bathrooms on the way to the castle entrance.
No flash photography is allowed within the castle.
No backpacks or larger bags are allowed in the castle (the rooms are quite small).
There are audioguides for all visitors. It takes around 45 minutes to listen to every bit of information on the audioguides.
There are guides in various rooms throughout the Castle if guests need to ask for any further information or explanations.
This is a self-guided tour of the castle. Tour guides from the ship tour are not allowed to guide in the castle itself.
Cawdor Castle is a very old castle. There are steep narrow steps to access the various levels in the castle, along with narrow twisty turret stone steps.
There is a cafe at Cawdor Castle, with more toilets located beside it. There is indoor and outdoor seating. The cafe serves soups, sandwiches, and cakes.
There are several gardens to explore, all different and all with lovely sculptures in them.
There are also woods at the rear of the castle which are pleasant to walk in.
The paths around Cawdor are not tarred, there are some loose stones and tree roots at various points.
There is around 1.5 hours for the visit at Cawdor Castle.
(For more pictures and information check out my Cawdor Castle review)

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion

Lunch in Inverness

It takes around 25 minutes to reach Inverness city centre from Cawdor Castle, depending on the traffic.
Lunch is generally in a city centre hotel.
This can be the Mercure Hotel in Inverness, The Kingsmills Hotel in Inverness or sometimes the Leonardo Hotel in Inverness.
Of these 3 hotels, only the Mercure is in the city centre. The other two are set on the outskirts of town. This means it is not possible to walk into Inverness from these venues.
The lunch stop is generally around 1 hour.
There may be other groups having lunch at the same venue.

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Getting to Urquhart Castle

It takes around 40 minutes to reach Urquhart Castle from Inverness.
During the journey, you will travel alongside Loch Ness, following the edge of Loch for around two-thirds of the journey.
Once you reach Urquhart Castle you will park in the coach park which is at the top of the site.

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion

Urquhart Castle Practical Information

Urquhart Castle is set beside Loch Ness. It is next to the shoreline and there is a hill sloping down to the edge of the loch.
The coach park is at the top of the hill.
The visitor centre for the castle is in the middle of the hill, between the coach park and the castle. All visitors have to pass through the visitor centre to reach the castle.
There is a sloping path from the coach park which leads down to the visitor centre entrance.
From the entrance, there are 3 flights of stairs to walk down to get to the visitor centre itself. There is a lift if needed (only 1)
On arrival at the visitor centre on the lower level, you will come to the bathrooms.
There is a film show which tells the history of Urquhart Castle in a very interesting and easy-to-understand way. The film runs for 8 minutes and it plays every 15 minutes or so throughout the day.
There is a shop and a cafe on the same level. They both accept card payments.
To visit Urquhart Castle itself guests need to walk out of the visitor centre and then down a long sloping path to reach the castle ruins.
There are guides at the drawbridge area of the castle who can give guests information. There are also interpretation panels for visitors.
Visitors can also scan a QR code and get a guide to the castle on their mobile device.
Urquhart Castle operates a time slot system for visiting coaches to avoid overcrowding on the site.
Guests visiting the Castle should allow 20 minutes to get from the castle ruins to the coach park – it’s uphill all the way.
There is generally around a 1.5-hour visit at Urquhart Castle. It can take 10-15 minutes to get from the coach park down into the visitor centre as the guide will have to sign the group in.
Guides from the cruise ship tour cannot guide guests around the castle or give any sort of guided tour on-site or in the visitor centre. This is a self-guided visit.
(For more pictures and information check out my Urquhart Castle review)

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion

Return to Invergordon Cruise Port

To give guests a different view and different scenery this tour will generally return to Invergordon Cruise Port via Beauly.

This route passes through heather moorlands and passes through some Highland villages before it rejoins the shoreline of the Cromarty Firth where the ship will be moored.

Best of Scottish Highlands Excursion – Conclusion

This tour is not well suited for anyone with mobility issues as they would have to miss so much out from both castle visits.
Lunch is in Inverness but not necessarily in the centre of the city.
Urquhart Castle is a ruin so exposed to the elements.
Getting to Cawdor Castle requires a walk through the grounds with no cover.
This is a great tour that combines two lovely but completely different castles in the area.