Scalloway Hotel

Bar was a bit noisy

Stairs

Nothing we didn't like but we did get a sense that with a bit more finesse in food presentation it would have been really good. Unusually The food tasted much better than it looked. The breakfast egg was especially good.

2 flights of stairs!!

Frokosten var ikke god

Difficulties in communication due to phones not working and on check in the wifi not working
Longish wait for a meal
Pie ordered but when it arrived no pastry just stewed meat as run out of pie crust. ( I wasn’t warned) also gravy poured all over chips.
The vegetables were very undercooked so that it was difficult to cut with a knife

The welcome was very cursory. We were told the bar /restaurant was closed and directed to a cafe down the road, which was very busy but welcomed us. We were given no introduction to the hotel, facilities, restaurant or bar. On our second day, it was more friendly and welcoming.

Breakfast very good, but optional dinner in hotel less so. I believe it's hard to find a good chef in Shetland and the current one didn’t even turn up on the Sunday!! Clearly not the owner’s fault and I’m sure he’ll work hard to remedy this problem. Stairs to bedrooms are steep (no lift) so hard going for seniors like us. A better banister than the current one would help and - even better - banisters on both sides! These are only minor difficulties and don’t take away from the excellence of the bedrooms and bathrooms and the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff.

No dinner, no b/fast. They knew cook was sick but didn’t prepare anything - packaged muffins, no fruit.

The catering arrangements were rather disappointing.

Others have mentioned the paper thin walls and noise from other rooms, this could be an issue but as we were not there on a Friday or Saturday we were not disturbed.
Rooms are not serviced at weekends and mid week only some days. Penny pinching.
Beds advertised as super king are not. They are std U.K. 160cm wide king beds. That’s a queen to Americans. That was my biggest gripe being used to 180 wide bed.
The WiFi is poor in the rooms, often signal dropping out and nothing to do with because it’s Shetland, a hotel should have mesh repeaters and a fibre connection which is available in larger villages and towns. Failing that Starlink. This didn’t and at even with an occasional wifi signal it was poor. So easy to address Scalloway!
Finally evening meal. We were not asked in advance if we needed a table and the dining room was full. We had to sit in the public bar were it was loud with foul language. But no trouble. Then we discovered half the menu was sold out so we ordered other items only for server to return to say further things were gone :( at this point I heard a friendly local apologise to another guest “the food used to be good here”. The meal we got was 5/10.

Bathroom was updated, but it was a bit cramped feeling for me