Things to Check before booking a room
Your choice of accommodation is one of the most important decisions you will make when booking your trip. A good choice can make your stay so much more enjoyable and a bad choice may stay in your memory for all the wrong reasons.
At Inverglen Guest House we want to make your stay a delight that becomes the icing on the cake. We nearly said the cherry, on the icing on the cake but perhaps that is stretching things a bit far!
Anyway, here are a few tips to make sure you book the room that is right for you and that you get the best deal possible.
Tip 1 – Check the Exact Location of your Accommodation
Location is often one of the most important decisions you can make so it is worthwhile doing a bit of research.
City Centre may sound great, but it can mean noise (especially if near late night bars or on a busy road). On the other hand, a place described as in a quiet location may simply be code for “Middle of Nowhere”.
We strongly recommend that you check on Google Maps to get a true idea of the location. If you use Street View mode you will often be able to see just what the area is like.
At Inverglen Guest House we are in a location that can truly claim to be within walking distance of the City Centre whilst also being a quiet residential street. We are only a 5-minute walk to the main shopping area and the nearest restaurants, but our street is in a quiet residential neighbourhood away from busy roads and late-night bars.
If traveling by public transport, you will find that Inverglen Guest House is within easy walking distance of both Inverness Railway Station and Inverness Bus Station. If coming via Inverness Airport, we are also located on the eastern side of Inverness City centre so easier to get to than those located on the western/northern side of Inverness.
Tip 2 – Check out the Reviews
Knowing as much information about your accommodation as possible is very easy these days with reviews being available from various sources.
When booking hotels & B&B’s for ourselves we always check out the reviews before making a final decision.
Our preferred review site is TripAdvisor which is the world’s largest review site. However, do be careful to look beyond the headline ranking. The real value of these sites is to be found in the volume, consistency, and recency of reviews. A great headline score may be attractive, but if there have been relatively few reviews, or if they are getting a bit dated (say over a year old) then perhaps they aren’t a true reflection of what to expect now.
Also, be sure to look for consistency of good scores. It would be unusual for any establishment with a reasonable volume of reviews to not have a few poor reviews. After all, they say you can’t please all the people all of the time. However, a good Guest House or B&B should be pleasing most of the people, most of the time so look for places that consistently score top marks.
At Inverglen Guest House we are proud to have have been awarded a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for 6 years running (2013-2018) which also afforded us the highly coveted Hall of Fame Award.
Why not check out our TripAdvisor reviews
Tip 3 – What about Parking?
If you have a car, do make sure you know what the parking situation is. Although Inverness has many places to stay they don’t always have parking, and for some places parking also comes at an extra cost.
Do also be wary of those that claim to have parking as sometimes they don’t have enough spaces for all their rooms. Usually, this isn’t a major problem, but every now and then they get more guests with cars than they have spaces for.
At Inverglen Guest House we have our own free off-street parking area and each room is guaranteed one parking space.
Tip 4 – Is Breakfast included?
In an attempt to grab your attention with a great headline rate, many accommodation providers have taken to offering a room only rate. This is especially true of hotels but is increasingly being seen with B&B properties where that second B (the breakfast) isn’t always included in the base rate.
At Inverglen Guest House breakfast is always included in the price. Not only do we offer the full Scottish cooked breakfast but we also have a range of other options that will cater to a variety of tastes, appetites and dietary requirements.
Check out our tasty breakfasts
Tip 5 – What about free Wi-Fi?
You could be forgiven for thinking that free Wi-Fi would be a given just about everywhere these days. Unfortunately not! Some hotels still charge for this service.
Even where free Wi-Fi is included you may find that it is restricted in some way such as to a maximum number of minutes, a limited amount of data or speed limited making all but basic web surfing impossible.
In the Scottish Highlands, the problem can be exacerbated (even in Inverness) by the fact that there is no universal high-speed internet provision available so some accommodation providers may not be able to offer free high-speed Wi-Fi even if they wanted to.
Inverglen Guest House is fortunate enough to have high-speed internet and this is available free to all our guests with no restrictions on usage. The speed of service is usually very good (sufficient for streaming videos), but is, of course, subject to line contention meaning that it can become slow when it is in high demand (not only in the guest house but in the area as a whole).
Tip 6 – Book Direct for the Best Rates
No doubt you will have seen adverts from various websites known as Online Travel Agents (OTA’s) that seem to promise that you will get the very best rates by using their services. Unfortunately, this can be misleading and increasingly you will get a better deal by booking directly with your accommodation provider.
The OTA’s have vast marketing budgets (which are paid for by the commissions they take from the money you pay) and it can sometimes be difficult to actually find the direct website for a particular accommodation provider. The OTA’s often pay search engines (like Google) to have their listings for a particular accommodation provider appear higher up the page rankings than the provider’s own official website. So, when searching for the direct website for a hotel, guest house or bed and breakfast, do make sure that you haven’t inadvertently been directed to one of the OTA
Inverglen Guest House Guarantee that you will always get the best rate by booking with us directly.
