アーカート城、カローデン、クラヴァケアンズ、ネス湖

Rabbie is wonderful. An authentic Highlander.

I can’t say enough good things about Thistle tours. Our guide was so friendly and knowledgeable and customized the tour to our interests. The second half of the day was rainy but it was still great! The rain made for excellent moody castle and Loch Ness photos! So many thanks to our guide June for making this such a memorable day!

Great experience at Invergordon, they picked up us at the port just outside the ship, excellent guide tour, Robbie was great, lot of knowledge and very friendly, we really enjoyed, we really recommend this tour.

We booked a Thistle Excursion as an alternative to a more expensive Princess Cruise Tour. It well-exceeded our expectations! Though it was rainy, Thistle tour guides were right where they said they would be when we disembarked the ship, and we had no trouble finding them! We were pleasantly surprised to find that our transportation for the day would be a Mercedes van as opposed to a larger coach bus. This made it much more comfortable and easy to hear our tour guides and to get in and out at all of the stops. Speaking of tour guides, Simon was AMAZING! He shared so much knowledge and history of Scotland and the highlands with us. He also had a way with his storytelling that was engaging and never felt like too much or a bore. We learned the whole time we were with him, and I think he went above and beyond to share his country with us. The highlights of the trip for our family were Urquahart Castle and Loch Ness, but we also appreciated Clava Cairns, Culloden, and the Highland Cows. As far as timing, it was definitely a busy day, but we felt like we had enough time at each of the stops. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this tour to anyone!!

Aileen was an absolute joy and an amazing guide. We saw all of the local highlights and had an exceptional day seeing ancient burials, historic battlefields, the loch, the castle and even highland cows. My family said it was the best excursion we have ever done. Aileen made the day perfect and allowed my family to create lifelong memories.

Our day with Danny, exploring the Scottish Highlands was amazing. Danny made our whole experience special. We loved the small group tour. I would highly recommend this experience, Thistle Tours and Danny.

Very nice day, guide Rab did well, although Scottish for NL is quite difficult to understand.

Wonderful introduction to the Scottish Highlands. The best part was Urquhart Castle overlooking the Loch Ness. Oh, and the brief visit to the Highland Cow farm. We could have spent less time in Inverness, though that could have had something to do with the early timing of our arrival (and therefore too early for lunch). Our guide was very knowledgeable and pleasant - and he got us back to the cruise exactly on time.

I really enjoyed this tour! The journey was beautiful and our guide, Seoris, is from the area and has such an intimate and personal knowledge of Scotland as a whole and every site we visited. He is so informative and engaging and I loved each and every stop along the tour! The pickup and drop off from port could not be more convenient. I would highly recommend this!

My wife and I can confirm that this operator’s aggressive and sarcastic responses to their one-star reviews are authentic, since my wife received a similar diatribe with a logical red herring thrown in: “You not being in the queue at the earlier time was not my fault either.” Here’s what happened: our cruise ship, the Norwegian Star, apparently has a reputation among Inverness area tour guides for disembarking at a snail’s pace. Maxine had emailed us the night before to say that the Thistle tour’s departure would be adjusted to between 9:30-10 to accommodate a new face-to-face UK immigration process aboard the ship. Strangely enough, Maxine’s email directed us to meet at “Invergordon Tours,” and so I thought it would make sense to send a WhatsApp message to tell Invergordon Tours that we were on our way and update our progress through the immigration queue. (My wife and I were too flustered by the possibility of missing our tour to coordinate on the name of Thistle.) The gentleman on the other end of that WhatsApp chat was indeed quite helpful, though he had nothing to do with Thistle Tours. He was appalled by how Maxine treated us. Read on: We arrived at 10:05 after a 2.5 hour wait to meet one of the TWO immigration agents apparently necessary to match our faces to our passport pictures for thousands of passengers. Another tour operator (Invergordon Bus Tours; please take them instead!) let us know that Thistle had been there last time he had turned around, but apparently had left without us. Maxine cannot decide whether the tour left at 10:02 or 10:08, but the fact is that the tour had left before we arrived at 10:05 and that one of her tour guides told us that *she was not there.* We immediately booked a tour there at the port with Invergordon Bus Tours then logged on to TripAdvisor to request a refund from Thistle for missing the departure due to circumstances far outside our control. Maxine will not refund our money after several requests. Some losses due to clients’ unforeseen circumstances are certainly par for the course in the tourism industry. Treating customers in the way that she has us and others dissatisfied with Thistle’s services should not be. (Please see attached screenshot of one of her email responses to our request for a refund.)