My husband and I popped into the Dornie Hotel on a dreary Saturday evening for a bite to eat (we were staying down the road for the night) and immediately regretted the decision to do so.
We were in Scotland on our Honeymoon and at this point of our trip had spent two weeks and 800 miles driving all over this beautiful country. We had marveled at how bizarre it was that with all this time and all this driving we had yet to encounter a single rude person in all of Scotland.
Until the Dornie Hotel.
Walking into the bar you would've thought we had flounced into someone's home uninvited. Not a single bartender acknowledged our presence. An entire sports team sprawled across one whole end of the bar and nobody so much as moved a toe to allow us the space to move through them and to grab a seat.
The bar staff didn't ask us what we'd like to drink or make any suggestions as to what was on tap. When I asked for vodka and cranberry juice I was told "We don't have that, the soft drinks are there" as she pointed towards the cooler below the bar. Last time I checked cranberry was a juice and not a carbonated soda, but whatever. I then asked for vodka and orange juice and received an eye roll. My husband requested a sample of a local beer and that was haphazardly slid into his direction.
We decided to try some food instead and asked if we could grab a table. She grunted and tossed her head over her shoulder in the direction of the dining room. We pushed our way through the rude crowd and into the hotel where we waited for approximately 10 minutes before being spoken to by the waiter. After ordering a cheese plate we were given three really wonderful cheeses that unfortunately were being served with some real crap sides : a piece of celery that had been cut into slivers so thin you could've used them as a toothpick, and the same with the one slice of apple that had been sliced into paper thin sheets.
It was such a shame to stumble upon such an adorable town that seemed to be filled with people loathe to deal with two well-mannered tourists. Definitely not a place I would ever recommend. read more