Timing Complications
Chris and I had gotten our list down to just a small handful of hotels and they all offer to hold a date for a fortnight before asking for a deposit so I figured we could just see if we could hold the same date at all the hotels and then have another week to pick which place, precisely, it would be. This would've been fine except not all of the venues have the same day free. Of course. That was easy to see coming.
The real problem was casually alluded to by one of the venues, "There's nothing on the 10th* [of July] but there aren't any rooms in the hotel so you don't want that day. There aren't any hotel rooms available anywhere in town." She was quite coy about why but it turns out that the newly opened Stuart Castle Golf Course - and by extension Inverness - are in the running to host the Scottish Open this year and they've gone ahead and put a preliminary booking on (pretty much?) every hotel room in the area. Early July is out. I figure people would be rolling into town the week before the but I can't imagine they'll linger more than a day or two after it ends.
* Sundays don't have as high of minimum numbers that Saturdays do and most places also offer a discount on prices
The real problem was casually alluded to by one of the venues, "There's nothing on the 10th* [of July] but there aren't any rooms in the hotel so you don't want that day. There aren't any hotel rooms available anywhere in town." She was quite coy about why but it turns out that the newly opened Stuart Castle Golf Course - and by extension Inverness - are in the running to host the Scottish Open this year and they've gone ahead and put a preliminary booking on (pretty much?) every hotel room in the area. Early July is out. I figure people would be rolling into town the week before the but I can't imagine they'll linger more than a day or two after it ends.
* Sundays don't have as high of minimum numbers that Saturdays do and most places also offer a discount on prices