Ballantrae Hotel  

The location.

This is more like a hostel than a hotel. Very little in the way of service. Not the luxury that I had been led to expect on the website, or by the price. Lots of potential of the building with high ceilings and great views, but they need to up their game. Reception shabby and youth hostel-Y. Staff pleasant but absent service-wise. Too busy surfing the net to give a real welcome. Especially since there are loads of stairs and no lifts! No offer to take bags up! And was on the fourth floor! The rooms are slightly shabby and a few vital errors - no plugs for the bedside lamps - they appear to be for show. No plug for the kettle - had to boil it on the floor. Broken wardrobe. No shower caps - and no bath - a bad combination if you don't want to get your hair wet. The worse thing for me was that they made me change rooms half way through my stay, insisting I leave the first room by check-out time (even though I wasn't checking out!). Considering the whole objective of my booking a hotel was to relax on this business trip (and as a comedian I was working well into the night), this was ruined by this lack of consideration. And no apology. In hindsight, I should have demanded a refund. No 'Do Not Disturb' signs either - which I was in vital need of by the end of my stay. Constant disturbances by cleaning staff.

This small hotel is in an excellent location - within easy walking distance to Princes Street and to the Royal Mile and Waverley Station (if you aren't into walking there is a bus stop only metres from the hotel door). There is a 24 hour doorperson, and the continental breakfast of cereal, yoghurt, toast, juice and fruit is more than adequate. The cleanliness of the room was to a high standard and the decor of the room was very nice. We had a double room and it was barely noticeable that the bed was two twins beds locked together.

Wifi is available, but you have to go down to the ground floor to access it which is a bit inconvenient. This is an old building and the floor of our room was on a slope (but that is not a reason not to stay at this hotel - just making this comment so that readers understand this is an older type hotel). There is no elevator so you must be fit enough to walk up several flights of stairs (good exercise for us, but this might not suit some people).

I had a mixed experience: I had booked at the Ballantrae York Place, where my room was poor. It had an external bathroom - not what I'd booked - and the room was tiny, and worst of all extremely noisy. I was disappointed as I had booked well in advance and had stayed there last year and been very happy. The desk staff however, were great, admitting straight away that there'd been a mistake ( the manager had switched my room for unspecified reasons and in fact he never appeared) and got me moved for the next 2 nights to their Grosvenor Place hotel in the West End, where I had a much nicer, quiet room, with huge windows and a good view.

You would need to be careful at the York Place hotel and request not to be on the ground floor at the front, where it is very noisy.

Sited close to all city attractions.

Website states that in the apartments there are bath robes & slippers; there weren't. It also stated that there was a music system; there was but it didn't work. Numerous cracked tiles on the bathroom floor. Unless you read the information provided straightaway you would be unaware that a cooked breakfast had to be ordered the previous night. The apartments are graded as 4star - I would think this is out of date based on our experience.

One staff member was nice but spent most of his time on his mobile. Felt for him, must be bored out of his head.

Awful first impression - duvets in the hallway as we walked in, messy frontage. No attention to detail or awareness of how to greet new visitors, staff looked like travellers, we couldn't tell who was in charge. We got the impression the owner didn't care. Breakfast was awful, low budget food. We couldn't order a cooked breakfast in the morning, told we needed to do it morning before!!! Staff could not understand basic English like 'could I have some croissants please' Room facilities poor, no iron, no hairdryer, ample tea and coffee was only good thing. Overall very poor value for money. We didn't mind what we paid - just a bit of tlc and caring would have felt nice.

Dirty. Shoddy. Miserable. Not secure. Naff equipment. They are having a laff. No wonder they take the money up front.

Staff were very pleasant but then again I have to say I found most Edinburgh people to be very nice anyway. A nice cheap clean hotel. . Location is good, nice and central.

Breakfast was a bit mediocre but for the price you cant really complain

Friendly, helpful staff. Good location close to city centre and transport. The hotel has single rooms at single rates, unlike the well known chains who inflict heavy subsidies.

Guests should be aware that some rooms are below ground level and therefore have restricted view.

I didn't like anything in this hotel. The reception was not even a real reception, it was just a table in the middle of a corridor. There was no warm water and the hotel staff even didn't want to do something about this. It was not "their fault"... the hotel manager said... well please explain me who's fault it is when there is no warm water in the showers!? We had to wash in a very small sink so... not happy and the hotel again didn't want to do something, not even a small discount or offering a breakfast... anything like that!? If you can avoid this hotel, please try to do it, there are enough much better alternatives in Edinburgh.

The staff were very helpfull.breakfast was good and the area it was situated was to are needs would stay again

Location and there was car parking at the hotel

Very good accommodation, big and comfortable. Not excellent, but nice breakfast.

breakfast is not good.