Kimpton Charlotte Square Hotel — Hotel in City of Edinburgh

I’ll list here everything that needs improvement. Not because there’s nothing positive, but because the positives are fairly obvious for a five-star hotel and, at this price point, they’re simply expected. Nothing particularly noteworthy.|Instead, I would urge the hotel management to carefully review each of these points. The property has strong potential, but it must be run with a true excellence mindset. Right now, it clearly isn’t.||My review may sound especially harsh because we had just come from another five-star stay elsewhere in Scotland. Same price range, but in every measurable dimension, the quality was on a completely different level.||Positives|Breakfast is excellent: abundant, with attentive service and good quality. Some of the staff (not all) stand out for their kindness. The room size is reasonably generous for a city-center hotel. And the interior design choices are original and interesting.|Unfortunately, all of this gets drowned out by the long list of shortcomings.||Check-in|We arrived at 2:00 pm. Official check-in is 3:00 pm. Fair enough, we didn’t complain and sat at the bar to wait, ordering (and paying for) drinks. In any proper five-star, staff would at least try to prioritize the room. Not here: we got the room at 3:05 pm. To add insult, the bar waiter actually came to kick us out of our table just before 3:00 because the area had to close.||Pool|With two kids, we booked this hotel because it had a pool. Only on arrival did we learn that from August 1st children are allowed in the pool only three one-hour slots per day, one of which overlaps with breakfast and another with lunch… That’s misleading, to say the least.|Even setting that aside, the pool itself is underwhelming: small, poorly lit, not especially clean (see photo of the white foam floating on the surface). No loungers, no proper chairs – just two damp fabric benches against the wall. When I raised the foam issue with the manager, the explanation (“just air bubbles”) was frankly implausible.||Steam room & sauna|Neither was set up correctly. For example, sauna humidity should stay below 20%, here it was well above 30% (see photo). Both facilities are tiny, with usable floor space barely a couple of square meters. Hygiene is questionable: the steam room drain had paper scraps, hair, and debris.||Room|In the wardrobe cabinet with cups and tray, there were sticky remnants and dried stains of some unidentified substance, with a rancid smell. Thankfully, we had sanitizing wipes with us. Again, something you’d never expect at this level.||Bathroom|Far too small for a five-star, especially a family room. No proper shower, only a small bathtub (see photo). Simply not acceptable. To their credit, staff offered us a room swap, but the alternative was so cramped that, with both beds open, you could barely move around. The only “upgrade” was having a shower. At a five-star, you shouldn’t have to choose between decent space and a shower.||Wi-Fi|Coverage is good, but the line drops literally every 10 minutes. Constantly reconnecting is unacceptable in 2025.||Decorative cushions|It’s 2025. No upscale hotel should still place old, dirty decorative cushions on freshly made and clean beds. Industry best practice has long moved on from this. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect in a cheap roadside inn, not here.||Room chairs|Again, for this category and price point, stained upholstery is a complete no-go. Everything should be spotless. See photos.||Common areas|Throughout the day, cleaning equipment and supplies were left lying around the corridors. Not catastrophic for a two-star. For a four- or five-star, totally...

I very much enjoyed our stay at the Kimpton Charlotte Square. I have written a list of pros and cons for the hotel below as most of my readers find this helpful, but my overall sensus is that the hotel is one of the best in Edinburgh - excellent location, rooms, design, and staff!

Pros

The general design of the hotel is second to none - particularly the quriky Garden restaurant and inner seating areas are very nice and elevate the aesthetic of the hotel; we really liked the design of the room too, and the bathroom.

The 'social hour' (free wine and soft drinks at 5-6) was an especially delightful thing to see; although we felt that the service was a little lacking here (ie staff a bit all over the place) the idea of the hour was nice and we were of course very happy to receive a free drink before dinner.

The COVID-19 response was absolutely excellent at this hotel - this included key card sanitation, lack of in-room amenities that were not necessarily clean (e.g. coffee machine, but these could be supplied on request), and social distancing reminders. Having stayed at the Tigerlily the night before, I thought that the rules and guidelines had been executed better at this hotel, so a big thumbs up there.

The TV in the room is massive and this ranks among the long list of luxury amenities available in the room; this included a nice big hairdryer, a lot of wardrobe space, and several products for the shower. Also, if you were missing other items, they advertised that they were happy to supply them on demand.

The service at the hotel was impeccable. We felt at home because from the moment we checked in the staff went above and beyond to make sure we enjoyed our stay, so we want to thank you for that!

There was an express check-in and check-out option - this meant that during times like these, it was really easy to check out particularly, and get on our way home when we left the hotel in the morning. Also, the check-out time (as standard; no additional charge) was midday, which, especially at the moment, was excellent, and we really appreciated this extra time!

Cons - note that these are very small things and didn't affect our stay largely, but just worth noting!

Some parts of the hotel are beginning to look a little tired (e.g. the extractor fan in our room looked like it was about to fall down). Unfortunately, just a bit of TLC is needed despite the new design and refurbishment of the hotel. However, again, this was largely not a big factor.

The rooms were on the small side - if you brought a pet (the hotel is pet-friendly), stayed with kids, or were disabled, the rooms would not provide the desired space, however, for the most part, they were perfectly fine for two people, and so not complaining really here.

The breakfast service was a bit expensive (17.95 fixed rate per person with drinks) but this did include unlimited drinks and large hot meals, despite the fact that the menu was a bit more limited than I would have liked. Overall, however, the breakfast service was nice.

So, as you can see, this product is amongst the best in Edinburgh, and has gladly taken the spot of my 'go-to' Edinburgh hotel for when we stay; simply because of the lovely rooms, impeccable service, and great location, we will be staying here whenever we return to Edinburgh! Thank you for making our stay so enjoyable.

Recommended to anyone staying - the rates are pretty reasonable for a hotel of this standard (cheaper than most others...

My partner and I decided to spend the bank holiday weekend in Edinburgh and after previously staying at Kimpton Fitzory and having been to the Blythswood a few times we thought we would give Charlotte Square a try as we were always impressed with our Kimpton stays. I booked and prepaid through my American Express account as we also get some benefits which is obviously nice. We arrived at the hotel around 130pm as we had requested early check in. On arrival our room was ready but we were offered an upgrade, which wasn't quite ready, of course we accepted the upgrade and were happy to wait and were told we were being made a priority, lovely! Decided to go for a walk and as we stepped outside the hotel I received a call from reception saying they had mistakingly charged me again for the cost of our stay, apologies were given and assured this had been reversed, no problem mistakes happen and it had been caught. We returned to the hotel around 315pm expecting the room to be ready, we were met with unfortunately a rather surly receptionist who informed us it was not. Not wanting to venture far, we sat in the bar to wait, wasn't until 4pm that our room was ready. As we had a booking at the johnnie walker bar we were now rushing to get to the room. On going in to the room, someone else's luggage and bags were in the room with ours nowhere to be seen. Back down to reception, the reception/concierge seemed flustered and went off to find our luggage. After 5/10 minutes, girl came back with our luggage apologising and was generally helpful, she informed us she would have to come back up with us to remove the 'other' luggage, we then had to stand outside the room as the wrong luggage was removed. There was no obvious sign the room given was an upgrade on what I had booked and if we knew the wait was going to be 2 and a half hours we would have stuck with the original room, also, the room seemed as if it was rushed to be ready as there were long dark hairs on bathroom floor, rubbish on a bedside table, slippers lying on floor where previous guest had left them along with robe thrown on a hook, again, looking like it had been left from a previous guest and the remote control did not work. Due to the delay we were late for our bar booking and rushed out. The room was on 1st floor and looked on to the busy rose street which we found odd for an upgrade, because of this the room was noisy. The room was 'turned down' which I have to say (with all due respect) is the poorest turndown service I have came back to. Bed was ruffled like a toddler had been crawling on it and not folded down as expected, room was in darkness and obviously no music on tv as the control didn't work. On check out my bill was £24, no issue as this was correct. On the Monday looking at my amex statement I noticed I had been charged AGAIN on day of check out for my stay. I sent an email Tues morning explaining the extra charge on my statement to which there was no response, I called the hotel the following day at 5pm where I spoke to three different members of staff before being told I would be called back. No call was received I then called again the following afternoon and was informed it had been passed to a member of management who was suppose to have called... still waiting on call back. Not one to complain but very disappointing and not the service or...