Thank you John and Evelyn for having us recently. We had a lovely time in at The Sands Hotel, Orkney. Your hotel is immaculate, your rooms are spacious and had all the comforts we needed for our short break. The meals are really tasty with a huge selection. Keep up the good work. We hope you have a busy Season.

Saw the sign on the roadside - don't be put off by impression from the road. Front of hotel is lovely, the rooms are beautifully furnished and spotless. Rooms have lovely views onto Scapa Flow. Food was beautiful - freshly prepared and the sirloin is to die for as are the desserts. Staff could not have been friendlier. Would certainly return here and recommend it to friends.

I regularly travel to the Orkney Islands on business. And since Flybe have trebled the price of the flight from Glasgow to Kirkwall( more expensive than a flight to Boston!) it now requires a lengthy drive and an overnight stay.

I have now had the dubious pleasure of staying in most of the higher profile Kirkwall and Stromness hotels and have to say they are generally overpriced and distinctly mediocre.

However, the Sands Hotel is an absolute GEM and is only five minutes from St Margarets Hope( the arrival point of the shorter and cheaper ferry crossing to Orkney.)

The building had originally been a fish store and has been lovingly converted some years ago into what an Island Hotel should be. Family owned:family run and extremely welcoming.

The rooms are modern and expensively furnished, with flat screen tvs and hospitality trays. The en-suite is large enough and the showers effective.

There is a public bar where many of the local fishermen congregate together with a lounge bar and a small restaurant. Try the locally dived Scallops and Blackpudding with pesto. Fantastic.

And after a couple in the bar you can walk out onto the pier and marvel at Scapa Flow and the hundred years of history below the surface.

The next morning and a thirty minute drive takes you up past the little Italian Chapel; over the Churchill Barriers and onwards to Kirkwall or beyond.

I just loved this little island hotel. I am sure you will too.

We didn't stay here (stayed at the fab Creel Restaurant and Rooms) but came here for dinner one night when the creel was closed.

The service was perfectly good and deserved of the 10% standard tip BUT the food was bland at best and greasy at worst. The choice of starters was 90% deep fried (cheese, prawns, chicken fritter types) and the roast beef main was a dark grey, with an odd jelly like gravy,...very strange. My steak was appropriately cooked to order but un-seasoned rendering it, also, rather flavourless.

Small redemption in the puddings - 2 single scoops of hard-to-get-wrong Orkney honeycomb ice cream were pallet boosters after their depressing predecessors.

Not one to drive out of your way for.