Cairn Hotel Edinburgh — Hotel in City of Edinburgh

We arrived almost at midnight, it was raining but we had to go back outside across the road for our room (cairn apartments - superior double room), I'm guessing that side is the fancier one. So basically the company owns 2 buildings which are not connected to each other. The room was a generous size, beautiful with a modern design, 5 different types of lightning in the room, huge ceilings, wardrobe, desk, kettle, compliment water, cookies and chips, hair dryer and several heaters and most importantly very clean. We loved the towel warmer in the bathroom and the shower set up. There is no A/C but I doubt you would need it in Edinburgh - we just opened the window. We didn't hear any neighbors unless they were passing by our door. Instead of 1 bed, there were 2 beds together. But they were bigger than singles- so like a king size all together. The mattress and the pillows were very comfy. What I disliked - it's hard to pass through to the other side of the room, as it's extremely narrow between the bed and the tv (big suitcases would not fit there). The closest outlet to the bathroom is by the entrance door, and the hair dryer cord is too short for me to be in the bathroom and close the door. So I had to use it as is in the room and of course my husband woke up from the noise. For a breakfast we had to go outside to the other building. The seating area is limited and you may have to wait at busy times. Overall the breakfast was poor (compared to even budget hotels in London). No fresh bread, just croissants in individual wrapper (not the best quality) and sandwich bread (the type that can be on the shelves for weeks). Ham and cheese, yogurt and a few hot (more like warm) items which were not very good. Eggs, beans, and some sausages, yogurt. And they were putting 6 bananas at the time. Why not put all, so the basket look full? The buffet area is very small and the employees were standing there and watching you. Also as other reviews mentioned, they do charge for the luggage storage ($1 per bag in a separate room) which is a very strange practice, usually all hotels do it for free. The hotel is already on the pricier side, over $200 on a Wednesday in May and the price is like $300+ on the weekend. For this price I can get a room in Florida right on the beach. Just cut corners on something else, like chips in the room (nobody like vinegar flavor anyway) and make the luggage storage free. At the check out, they give us a little box with 2 macaroons inside which is very sweet of them. Overall the hotel and the employees are very pleasant, I would stay here again but perhaps had breakfast elsewhere. P.S. We almost missed a train because no Uber, Bolt or regular taxi were available at 5pm mid week!? We had to run with suitecases...about 10-15 min to the waverly train station. So plan...

I felt like I was staying in a youth hostel but paying fancy hotel prices. ||The good: staff were welcoming, friendly, and helpful. Hotel was well-signed and easy to find from the outside. Not too far from the city center. Firm, comfortable mattress. ||The ok: clean enough, I guess. Everything had a fresh coat of paint, but looked kind of kicked up anyway. ||The bad: Seriously low on amenities. For $300 USD per night I expect the hotel to at least provide shampoo and conditioner. There wasn’t even a hook in the bathroom to hang up a robe or clean clothes. Shower drain backed up really fast so you had to limit your shower to 5 minutes or less or it would overflow. (To be fair, I did not request maintenance of this - maybe they would have fixed it but for just 2 nights I decided to deal with it). There were a couple of packets of tea and instant coffee in the room but no way to heat up water - was I supposed to use hot tap water?? ||Breakfast was as gross as any American motel breakfast. Packaged pasties, rubbery scrambled eggs, limp slices of ham, dispensers of cereal. Lots of mean signs around telling people not to do things like “don’t bring any food out of the breakfast room or we’ll charge you for it.” (I would make the case that anyone who can afford a $300/night hotel room doesn’t have to hoard breakfast cereal). I saw ZERO young, freeloading backpackers. It was all American and Eastern Europeans, aged 60+. Maybe the worst part of breakfast was the American country music they played over the loudspeakers. The second day we just skipped breakfast and went out for pastries. ||A room key had to be entered into a clip on the wall for the lighting or power to work - meaning you couldn’t leave your devices to charge while out of the room. Our room’s window looked directly out on the street on the ground floor, and next door was a foreign embassy, so there were constantly lines of people right out our window all day long. I felt I had to keep the blackout curtains shut in order to have any privacy. The lighting in the room was cold white LED light, the opposite of cozy. The room was so tiny that to walk between the end of the bed and the wall you had to turn sideways and scoot past like a crab. ||As a seasoned traveller, I’m embarrassed I was so completely bamboozled by the hotel’s...

We arrived at 1am - the clerk seemed to be in no hurry to book us in and dawdled with paperwork, it took over 30mins to check in. He did walk us to the gate of our apartment outside on the street which was good. We entered the apartment which despite on booking saying it was renovated, was not recently renovated. One of the three bathrooms was renovated, of the other two only one worked. The kitchen looked like it had been renovated at some stage however two kitchen doors were off the hinges, and even though an cook top was provided there were no cooking utensils with which to cook with which made it pointless having a kitchen. The washing machine had no detergent supplied and there was no where provided to hang up wet clothes. The bathrooms had no where to hang up damp towels. the blinds in the third bedroom were broken and the couch in the lounge was broken so when you sat on it you fell down to the ground. The matresses were lumpy. It was cold in the bedrooms regardless of the heating so we had to go to reception to request extra blankets. All the doors are self closing and there is a lot of doors. The lounge room/kitchen was very warm. The internet provided was hit and miss. only one tea bage and two coffee satchels were provided in a massive jar, so can only assume they usually provide some but hadnt filled it before we arrived. The bond was actually deducted from our credit card and took over a week for them to refund it - by then the exchange rate was different and so we lost out on $50AUD. Upon checking out the staff member asked how it was and I said well actually it was dissappointing - I was about to explain the above but before I could the staff member said "Well I guess this isnt the right accomodation for you" and walked off. At 688 Pounds I expected to be supplied with a working apartment, not much to ask. The...