rogeruktm beat me to the Calmac/Bowman tour response, and he did it without any spelling errors. :) Thanks rogeruktm.

I checked the calmac site. It's so sophisticated, it's almost impossible to find anything, but i did manage to find the appropriate tours.

What did you do for lunch on the Mull-Iona tour?

We ate in Iona. Most got off the ferry direct to a cafe, nothing super special, but fast and good. Other places in the little town.

If anyone has done both, which activity would you recommned? With one day, only one is possible.)

1. bus-ferry tour, such as Calmac through Mull and to Iona
2. visiting Torosay, Duart and Tobermore independently

OK - I'm late to this party :)

But let me be a Devil's advocate re Oban/Mull. If you only had a day - then I would agree a day trip to Mull as a pedestrian would be fine.

But you have 2 nights and .5 + 1 + .5 days. W/ that much time, I'd definitely take the car over and stay on Mull for the 2 nights. You could easily see most of Mull, plus Iona, and Staffa. You wouldn't have to pick and choose what to see.

Duart Castle (quirky and very interesting), Torosay castle, Iona, a boat trip to Staffa/Fingall's Cave, Calgary Bay, Tobermory, the beautiful beaches at Uisken, etc etc. W/ a car you could see it all.

If I had a choice between staying in Oban and day tripping to Mull -- or staying on Mull and really exploring w/o depending on the buses -- I'd choose staying on Mull every time. I'd stay in Fionnphort both nights -- but 1 night in Fionnphort and 1 in Tobermory would be OK too,

Hello Janis! Nice to meet you and thanks for joining the party.

Your analysis deserves full consideration. My first concern is that I don't really have .5 + 1 + .5 days. We'll be arriving in the Oban area after driving from Portree via the ferry to Mallaig, the beautiful road to the Isles and Fort Williams. We like to stop and look and enjoy the scenery, and in any case, I couldn't hurry my wife up even if her life depended on it. So, (here you know better than me) when will we arrive in Oban? If it's after 5 PM, that's not a half a day and I don't think I will want to deal with the ferry and drive on to Fionnphort, as attractive as that might seem as an option.

On the day after the full day on Mull (day 11) we want to drive to Stirling via Glencoe and visit Stirling castle, if possible. If I use up a half a day on Mull, when will we arrive in Stirling?

I know that staying on Mull would probably be more exciting, but \I just don't think the circumstances allow it. Now, if we had another night...

Is Fionnphort more interesting than Tobermory, or did you recommend it only because of its proximity to Iona?

Janis is spot on, as usual, except I'd stay in Tobermory instead of Fionnphort - although Fionnphort is convenient for Iona, Tobermory is just much nicer, IMO, and also has better eating/drinking opportunities :-) http://www.tobermory.co.uk/

Oh, my... I'm clearly not equipped to argue with both of you on this point. :-) However, I think I need another night on Mull in order to justify staying there, considering that we will arrive late on our arrival day.

I can't add a day to the overall itinerary so I have to look for a night to cut out elsewhere. I'm open to any suggestions you might have, but the one place I see where it would be possible is day 5, by eliminating the night at Plockton. This would mean driving from Grantown-on-Spey all the way to Portree on Skye. Is that too long of a drive considering that we plan to drive the length of Loch Ness and visit Castle Urquhart? It would probably mean bypassing Plockton and Eilean Donan Castle.
Does this change sound reasonable? Perhaps one of you can suggest a different night to cut?

You could cut out Plockton, and I don't see why you can't drive Grantown to Portree. We drove Inverness to Broadford, just a little shorter - and stopped at Loch Ness and Eilian Donan - on my first trip. We got in Broadford about 2pm. No worries :)

We enjoyed our visit to Plockton. Nice hotel, good restaurants and to see those flowers and palm trees on the NW Scottish coast is amazing. But I think it's skippable. (One has to make such hard decisions when itinerary planning.)

We stopped at Eilean Donan just to take pictures from afar. Got the general consensus that a tour wasn't worth it. But a quick stop is a must.

Likewise, taking your time on the Road from the Isles, Mallaig to Fort William, is a must-do. We stopped at Glenfinnan, at both the church and the historic exhibition. Wish we stopped more, especially at Arisaig and Morar.

We had a long drive the day we left Skye, so we had reservations on the first ferry out of Armadale. You might want to do the same.

(Waiting for the ferry at Armadale, the area reminded me very much of home, the Seattle area. Where we also have lots of islands, water and boats, douglas fir trees, and ferry boats with adjacent espresso stands at the dock.)

Mimar:

Where were you headed the day you left Skye?

Just a few quick comments - gotta run out for a few hours --

• I haven't driven from Portree to Mull -- but I have driven from Mull to Portree or Sligachan 3 times on 2 different routes and it is not an all day drive even w/ lots of stops/photo ops.

• Plockton is a nice stop but doesn't warrant an overnight IMO (unless you several more days to play around w/

• and finally - you will be there in mid June. Even if you don't drop Plockton you will have a lot more time than you think. It will not be dark until around 11PM (and light again at 3:30 AM - but that's a different story :) ) Castles and visitors centers have opening/closing hours - but the scenery doesn't. Even IF you did get the last ferry of the day to Mull at 4PM- you'd still have 6+ hours of full daylight to explore on the isle (not that you'd necessarily want to be walking on the beach at 10:30 at night - but I've done just that many times). Then you'd have all the next day for Iona/Staffa etc.

Dropping Plockton would give you even more time for Mull, or in and around Stirling/the Trossachas

sssteve, when do you plan to leave Armadale? I think the first ferry departs about 8:50 and arrives in Mallaig some 25/30 minutes later. This departure would mean you'd probably have time to do the sightseeing you want along the way and arrive in Oban mid/early-afternoon?

You have received a lot of different advice and keep in mind that none of it is bad/wrong, at least IMO, but you'll need to decide which plan works the best for you.

I believe there are ferry departures to Craignure, Mull at 14:00 & 16:00.The trip takes about 45 minutes. The 16:00 departure really doesn't give you enough time to visit either castle.The closing times for the castles are usually about 6:00pm. The last departure from Craignure is 19:00. You could stay at Tobermory and spend the next day exploring Mull. If you arrive late in the afternoon, I'd stay in Oban and spend the next day on Mull. The following night could be either Tobermory or back to Oban, depending on your attitude towards one night stays.

My advice would be to get an idea of the time you want to spend enroute to Oban, check travel times and then select the best option for your needs/wants.

As far as staying on Mull, I'd prefer Tobermory over Fionnphort. One reason is it's a bit closer to Craignure for ferry departures and although Fionnphort has at least one good B&B,IMO, it's just not as 'charming' as Tobermory.

janis does have a good point about having plenty of daylight hours to explore Mull even with the castles you want to visit being closed. Assuming you aren't too tired, you could easliy see a great deal of Mull and without the usual traffic that is often a problem during the day. Several options for you to consider.

I'm well aware that the days are long in June. I'm not worried about the evening hours on Mull on the first day we arrive. I'm only concerned about missing the last ferry and getting stuck in Oban. I like to reserve almost every place in advance, so missing a ferry can really screw up plans.

As for leaving Armadale, after 2 full days on Skye, we'll be ready and able to get on an early ferry in order to get to Oban in time.

When you reserve a ferry crossing in advance, I assume you also pay in advance. What happens if you miss the ferry?

How about going for the Lochaline/Fishnish ferry instead? That leaves about 10 times a day, doesn't require a reservation, and only takes about 20 minutes. Fishnish is just north of Craignure, so you end up in the same place - and then take the ferry back to Oban. This is what we did when traveling from Skye.

Green:
We would still want to do the "road to the Isles" to Fort William. After Fort William, we could still drive to Lochaline for the ferry to Fishnish. That turns out to be 270 KM.
Is a ferry with no reservations an advantage or a disadvantage?

Staying on Mull also seriously lengthens the ride to Stirling at the end of our stay on Mull which would start in Tobermory and would now include a ferry ride.

I'd get a CalMac #22 Hopscotch. It covers Armadale/Mallaig, Locahaline/Fishnish, and Craignure/Oban all on one ticket.

&quot;<i>Staying on Mull also seriously lengthens the ride to Stirling at the end of our stay on Mull which would start in Tobermory and would now include a ferry ride.</i>&quot;

Not if you ditch the night in Plockton - you'd have an extra full day for your puttering around the Trossachs/Stirling.

If you travel down the west side of Loch Lihnne, you can get to Localine in about the same time as it would take to get to Oban.

But it sounds like you'd really prefer staying in Oban than to explore Mull, which is fine. We're just trying to show how you can actually do it all w/o messing up the rest of your plans.

Bookmarking for the fantastic info in this thread.

We will also be in Scotland mid June - toot and wave if you see us sssteve!