Ivy House is a wonderful little 1-bedroom flat in a great location offering easy access to downtown, shopping, pubs and restaurants.
It has all of the basic necessities for self-catering plus a washer, dryer and fireplace.
The bathroom has been redone and is fully modern. The rest of the flat looks good, is well decorated and is quite comfortable.
This has all the makings of a property which should get a five star rating, however the owner works through a management company and the communication with either of them is horrid.
We were arriving into Kirkwall on the 11 PM Ferry so required instructions as to how to get into the flat as well as where to park our car. We requested instructions, by email to the owner, on the day prior to arrival and again on the day of arrival from the manager.
We received instructions which seemed reasonable but which were not really that useful when we actually arrived. The flat is in the rear of a building which faces onto a narrow one-way street with no parking so driving to the address is pretty much useless. Add to this the fact that there is no building number on the building and you have some real inconvenience.
The instructions indicated that parking would be available in the Albert Street Parkade, however no indication was given as to where this was or how to locate it.
Once the Albert Street Parkade was located, with the assistance of locals on the street, this was in fact where the instructions should have directed us as we could pa