Inner Hebrides

Islay offers some of the most distinctive experiences on any Inner Hebrides sailing. Previous guests have taken a morning tour and tasting at Laphroaig, one of the island’s ten distilleries and famous for its deeply peated character. Others have followed RSPB guides across the dunes and machair to Ardnave Point, where lapwing, corncrake and barnacle geese share the grassland. Barnacle geese arrive here in their thousands every October, migrating from Greenland to winter on the Islay flats, while the rare chough, a red-legged member of the crow family found in few other places in Scotland, nests among the cliffs and dunes.

Jura is a place of wild beauty, crowned by the landmark Paps and watched over by the treacherous Corryvreckan Whirlpool to the north. Hebridean Princess has anchored overnight in Loch na Mile on several occasions, and guests have gone ashore at Craighouse, the island’s only village of some 200 residents, to visit the Jura Distillery, producing a single malt of its own since 1810.

On Raasay, guests have toured and tasted at the island’s own distillery, opened in 2017 and already drawing a loyal following. On Colonsay, Andrew Abrahams, who has supplied Hebridean Princess with oysters for many years, leads tastings of island oysters and honey in the village hall.

Some of the most memorable Inner Hebrides experiences come by ship’s tender aboard Hebridean Princess. A landing on Iona brings guests ashore at one of the most sacred sites in early Christianity, and the restored Benedictine Abbey stands on foundations established by St Columba in 563 AD. Guests often walk on to the Bay at the Back of the Ocean, or climb to Dun I for the view across to Mull.

On Lunga in the Treshnish Isles, the clifftop turf is honeycombed with puffin burrows, and guests have sat among them at a proximity (the birds returning without alarm) that stays with you long after the ship has sailed.

On previous Flavours of the Hebrides voyages, a Hebridean Princess itinerary, Sir Lachlan MacLean has welcomed guests to a Champagne reception at Duart Castle, at the seat of his clan, a welcome in a medieval tower above the Sound of Mull that very few people are ever fortunate enough to experience. White-tailed eagles hunt over the Mull hillsides, and in the evenings, the painted houses of Tobermory are reflected in the still water of the harbour.

The ship’s tender has also carried guests into Loch Coruisk on Skye, landing on the gabbro, the rough dark volcanic rock beneath the Cuillin. Guests have returned describing the extraordinary grip it provides underfoot.