It was a good excursion. I would have liked a little more time at the castle. We were allowed about an hour and 15-20 minutes and I felt rushed. Lunch in Loch Lomond was very nice. Our guide was very entertaining and personable.

Great time. Beautiful scenery. Lots of stops.

Stirling Castle is beautiful; this was the highlight of my trip to Scotland. The scenery around the castle was amazing. The castle felt really authentic; I much preferred it to Edinburgh Castle, which is very big and hard to take in. It is really interesting in Stirling that they are trying to restore some of the rooms, and in the kitchens there are a lot of displays of food and fish, which gave you a real feel for the place and how it would have looked when it was worked in. The only problem is that the time is short, so you really need to walk around quickly to take it all in. Loch Lomond was nice, but Loch Ness is a lot more spectacular.

We got to the bus terminal early, as we were told on the confirmation. The bus was about 45 minutes late with no explanation. We had to keep calling the company to ask as they kept giving us different time frames and being that it was a fair-sized terminal with buses coming and going often we thought we might have missed it or that it might have changed spots. No one at the bus station seemed to know anything about it. When the bus arrived, we were surprised because we were expecting a smaller bus, maybe a 16 passenger or something, but not a large coach.
Our driver needed some driving lessons!! We got honked at a number of times because of poor driving. I also thought it would be the driver interacting with us more and telling us about all of the things along the way but instead we all got headsets and a GPS programmed tour, not as personal as I would have liked. Stirling Castle was great to see!! If we were to do it again though, we would probably just take a bus there from Edinburgh direct then we could spend more time at the castle, and around the little town. We didn't find Loch Lomond to be all that interesting. Then again, we didn't do the boat ride due to one of us not feeling too well and opted for the other option presented, heading by the shops which was basically a small mall with few shops and nothing very nice at all. It was not worth it. We did hear rave reviews from the folks who did the boat ride.

The tour provided what was described. We would have liked longer in Stirling so that we could have had lunch as well as visiting the castle. More time at the other stop Aberfoyle would have been good too. Included admission to the Loch Lomond cruise would have been nice.