Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh City Centre
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About
A modern Edinburgh hotel in a Georgian building within walking distance of the city's top attractions
Holiday Inn Express® - Edinburgh City Centre hotel is a 10-minute walk from Edinburgh Waverley station in the city's New Town. It's a short stroll to the York Place tram stop, which has a direct connection to Edinburgh Airport (EDI). The Edinburgh Playhouse theatre and OMNI Edinburgh's restaurants and cinemas are right across the road. Princes Street and George Street's shops are a few minutes' walk away.
You can ramble over the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, 20 minutes' walk from the hotel. Or experience more royal flavour, less than a mile from the hotel, at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's official Scottish residence. Amble through the expansive Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, half an hour on foot from the hotel, or wander into Princes Street Gardens to spot the huge floral clock.
Business guests are on the doorstep of the financial district around St.
Location
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This was a nice property in a heritage building.
Our experience of Holiday Inn Express is that they have been consistently spotlessly clean and well located.
Pros
1) Location - Our car rental company was just across the road, mini mart a few steps next to the hotel. Attractions in the New Town and Royal Mile all within walking distance including the railway station and Winter Wonderland. Shopping centre, F&B outlets nearby
2) Housekeeping, toiletries, coffee/tea for four replenished daily (unlike being in an apartment)
3) Daily buffet breakfast included in rate
4) Very kindly provided luggage storage when we went away to the highlands for 3 days
Cons
Beds could be bigger, more comfortable; pillows could be better; it is pretty much self-service (lugging your luggage up and down the few steps when you arrive and depart; going to reception to collect complimentary toothpaste if you need) - minor nice-to-have's. For the overall value, it is excellent.
Check in was excellent, hand sanitiser provided, clean pen pot clearly labelled, as was used pen pot, which was reassuring. Hand sanitiser at lifts also. Our room was on 3rd floor opposite lifts overlooking OMNI Centre and Playhouse (the latter sadly closed). There are roadworks going on outside however, honestly any noise wasn’t even slightly intrusive.
Room and bathroom impeccably clean, same with bedding. Only issue I had was with the pillows which were like bags of cement to sleep on (only realised upon checking out, that I could have asked for softer feather pillows - which I’ll do next time for sure).
Breakfast was good - Cumberland sausage, bacon, beans and scrambled eggs if you wanted hot option, various cereals and individually wrapped croissants if you didn’t. There were buns so you could make a sandwich and bread for toast - I just wish they’d given an option here. It looked like seeded bread, I think most people would prefer either white or brown and a toaster would have been brilliant!
Check out was good, they rang a taxi to pick us up which was really helpful. All in all a pleasant stay, would recommend and would return.
I’ve stayed in endless hotels for both leisure and work over the years, but this has to be one of the worst.
The walls and ceilings of the hotel are paper thin, meaning you can hear every noise from the rooms around you. At one point it sounded like those next door to us were breaking into our room! Each time someone opens a door on the corridor, it sounded like they were opening our door. This made my wife extremely nervous.
The bed was uncomfortable and slanted to one side meaning that it felt like you needed to hold onto the edge of the bed so not to fall out. The sofa bed (apparently suitable for two 12 year old children) was small and uncomfortable.
I completely understand and appreciate that things are a lot different within hotels due to COVID-19 and the arrangements that they need to follow so I won’t comment on things that were different as a direct result of the new rules - but one thing I was particularly disturbed by was the fact hotel staff were not insistent on guests wearing face coverings in the public areas of the hotel - I mean, it was not even challenged or mentioned by a single member of staff during our stay.
At breakfast, people were wandering into the room, one person even sneezed at the door. In the reception area of the hotel, staff didn’t challenge guests when they walked into the hotel. I even saw people in the lifts without face coverings.
I am an IHG member and have been sent a large number of emails about the IHG promise in cleanliness, but the attitude of staff completely undermined this previously emailed ‘promise’.
This hotel must do better to be COVID secure.
The only problem is that there are not enough of them, they are run off their feet at breakfast time and never ever complained.
Our room was cleaned but smiling people.
The breakfast food was nice.
What could be better:
Noise reduction from other rooms would help.
Individual toiletries instead of bulk ones , how do I know the tubes were cleaned between guests?
Covid restrictions:
The signs for covid restrictions were there but guests were ignoring them , especially at breakfast. The poor staff didn't even have time to help at breakfast time let alone remind guests to social distance and wear masks. It is not the staffs fault that some people ignored covid advice but it was pretty scary and stressful at breakfast because of it. No wonder the UKs covid case numbers are so high. As I said this is not a reflection on the staff.
Improvements:
Employ extra staff so they can both support people at breakfast time , clean tables and remind people of covid advice. Families with young children having to sit apart with other people is not acceptable.
Extend weekend breakfast time to 11am. People don't want to get up at 7/8 to have a stress free breakfast at weekends. Maybe just extend the upstairs breakfast room if the downstairs room has to be cleared earlier.
Holiday Inn is a big company and scrimping on staff is not acceptable. Your staff will burn out if they work the way they have this weekend.
Sorry but I won't be returning because I found the breakfast experience to stressful . I will be taking a lateral flow test on Tuesday to check I haven't caught covid from the crowds in the breakfast room. Again I do not blame the staff for the crowds , I blame the 10am breakfast finishing time.
Alarm bells started ringing at check in as they didn't have my name correct on the booking, kept asking if I'd booked under a different name. Receptionist called a manager who sorted it out blaming Booking.com for adding my middle initial to my surname.
Room was a decent size and as expected in a city centre hotel the view was of a building just across the road. No biggie as we didn't plan to spend much time looking out a window.
The bed was far too soft & appeared to be sloping upwards towards the foot of the bed, felt like we were going to fall off the sides of it as it was so soft. Not a pleasant nights sleep.
In the bathroom (a wet room) there was a very small shower curtain (although there were hooks for a second curtain). This meant that you could either stop the water hitting the bathroom door OR splashing all over the toilet and bogroll. Would it really break the bank to put in a larger or second curtain? There was nowhere to hang your clothes in the bathroom either whilst showering, a hook would have been handy.
The tea/coffee facilities in the room were a bit meagre. Only decaf coffee or tea. 2 sachets of sweetener and 1 sugar. There wasn't even a biscuit in there. The dish they were in could do with a clean as there was sugar and crumbs in the bottom of it.
The fan in the bathroom is on constantly and is quite noisy when you're trying to sleep. It is also quite ineffective at removing water vapour from the bathroom. Also, if anyone wants to do their make-up they have to do it BEFORE they take a shower!
Lets now talk about the breakfast. At Scotch Corner there was a proper FULL cooked breakfast at the servery. The breakfast we got at your establishment was sausage, barely cooked, rubbery bacon, beans and scrambled egg (YUCK). When I asked about a fried egg I was told you don't do fried eggs! The air conditioning was blowing cold which doesn't help either as it makes the warm (not hot) food go cold even quicker. The room wasn't so warm as require a cold breeze. Also people just out of bed feel the chill in the air.
Having had such a nice stay at the Holiday Inn Scotch Corner, I had high hopes for my stay in Edinburgh. Perhaps the Manager at your establishment could take a trip and see how to run the place to an equally high standard?
The hotel is fantastically located with many bars and restaurants a short stroll away.
Rooms are very compact which you expect for this super cheap price. No issues with the room for the price we paid, only downside is we were their for 4 nights and were told housekeeping would not attend during the whole stay, which was disappointing as it meant doing your own turndown and when towels are needed visit the reception which was inconvenient.
The hotel had a nice bar atmosphere and average breakdown but was expecting cold cuts and cheeses looking at pictures, so maybe doing a reduced breakfast menu at the moment.
Great highlight were the staff. All very kind and helpful, Andrea was a delight to deal with along with all of the staff. They are clearly working extremely hard this is visible.
Would visit again purely based on the price and location along with the great customer service.
8/10
@thefury01
Breakfast was also quite disappointing. A very limited selection of hot food meant no fried eggs or vegetables except baked beans.
All in all it just seems tired and outdated. I felt it was expensive for what it was, and would prefer to use one of the other chains next time I'm in Edinburgh. I'd steer clear of the brand in future.
"If you travel by car don’t worry is a parking nee’r by . Bring comfortable shoes you will need it and book your accommodation with time !"Read full review
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