“Room with no view.”

My daughter and I had a very clean, two bed room on the third floor, up the narrowest of stairways (of course, no lift), but there was NO WINDOW! Just an attic skylight. The bathroom was nice enough, but the walls were so flimsy, you could hear the chap next door scratching (and who needs that!!!) I asked to be changed, but they were very full, and the location was good, so we stayed, but it was disappointing. By standing on the bed, I could just see out, and the view was quite nice!!! The breakfast was also disappointing - good and plentiful (meats, cheeses, buns, cereals, toast, juice etc), but not the fabulous bed & breakfast "breakfast" I had been salivating over - no eggs, toast or black pudding - nothing hot at all, in fact. I asked about it, and they said they didn't have a license to cook food. I couldn't recommend the hotel for anyone who wants a sense of Scotland - a bit of a Scottish experience - but I can say that if you are looking for straightforward, good , clean honest value, in a decent location, for a budget price, then this lives up to that expectyation.

“Least pleasant ever.”

This is the least pleasant hotel we have ever stayed in worldwide. The two houses adapted into one hotel resulted for us in a labyrinthine journey up one double flight of stairs (the hotel has no lifts), corridors smelling of stale cooking and stagnant air, lobbies and landings, down two flights and along more narrow corridors with sprung fire doors. Ill painted walls and stairs. The room we were given was in a basement corner so dark that we had to check through the filthy window out onto a yard like a WW2 air raid shelter to see if it was still daylight. The door locks were virtually hanging off and looked as if they had been forced at some time. Brown and beige walls banged about and shabby. The ceiling was coming down in one corner, curtains were khaki nylon, carpets so bad I would have been afraid to walk barefoot, and a single naked economy lightbulb. It was like a gulag interrogation cell. The only other available room was in a sub-basement, barred windows but at least you could tell day from night, same shabby décor - furniture so old and battered that the wardrobe had a labelled compartment for collars and cuffs. Edinburgh on any weekend night is full, and early evening offered us no realistic possibility to change. Clean bathroom - shower only just drained, one small tablet of gritty soap. Not even a toothmug. Breakfast in a mock Tudor windowless stuffy basement – plastic bread, ham, salami and cheese – with electric cables hanging from the ceiling.