Edinburgh City Guesthouse

Don't be fooled by the well shot photographs on this B&B's listings, sadly I fell for it and in hindsight I would recommend that if you want a true taste of Scottish hospitality that you choose a traditional place. One run by a guy called Gerald is apparently very nice and you're given a free bottle of red on arrival and the breakfast is immense apparently. The Edinburgh City is more of a hostel than a B&B, although not unclean it wasn't spanking and some grubbiness on the shower fittings, a button missing with crusted limescale etc which put me off - I know this may sound pretty fussy of me, it's quite hard when leaving a not so good review not to sound mean, but for the price there are better things around in Edinburgh and ones that come with breakfast included in the price. We had a random third bed in our room that wasn't made, it was just there, I guess for kids but it looked a bit odd, as I say, more of a hostel. That goes down to arrival and departure too, the lady we spoke with showed us to our room on arrival which was nice and she was friendly, but when we were leaving she was on the phone, looked at us and nodded 'see ya' and that was the lasting impression of my stay.

When we arrived there was no one on the premises to meet us we had to phone the owner to be let in. We had requested a twin room, this was not organised by the owner. We were offered a double room each, we declined, there was a single bed in the double room, he said that we could have the linen off the bed in the other room if we wished to use the single bed but we would have to make it up ourselves. We left the premises on returning we could not get into our own room having been given the wrong key again had to phone the owner who arrived to let us in the room. The rooms and bedding were spotless, newly decorated. The on suite bathroom unfortunatley did not have any complimentry bars of soap or soap dispenser, there was no hot water, and the only way to switch the electric shower on was by using the main switch on the exterior wall. We could not move the shower head up or down there was black tape holding it in place. The tea and coffee facilities were "help yourself, in the kitchen down stairs". There was not any literature to inform us at what time breakfast was to be served and in which room. So breakfast was bought out of the bakers across th road. I am not aware of any management being on the premises during the overnight stay.