Royal Terrace

This was a treat for my 16 year old dauhter who has just finished GCSE's. She thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the leisure facilities. I on the other hand found a few criticisms. On entering our room it was a double when I ordered a twin. Although we were moved to a twin we had to wait another 15 minutes & this was at 3.30pm. Glad we swapped though because the double was disappointing. The twin on the ground floor was much bigger & had better decor. Had to ask for hot drinks at breakfast. Not that good a selection but OK. No mini bar or room safe. May not be a big deal for a 3 star not to have these but a 4 star (& certainly not cheap) it was. For the money would go to a more central hotel. But I think this is probably a "british " thing. You can always seem to get 5 star alot cheaper abroad but not here. Anyway enjoyed the short break very much thank-you.

Michelle Wallis, Nottingham
Family with teenagers 12+

My partner and I stayed at the Royal Terrace in June whilst attending a friend's wedding near Edinburgh. We had a very enjoyable short (one night) stay. When we arrived we had not arranged early check-in as we did not know the check-in time and we had to get changed in time for the Wedding. The staff handled this very well and immediately found us another room to change in but before we had even started to unpack our stuff they called to say they had a room ready for us for our whole stay. The room is well decorated and bathroom is clean and modern enough whilst not at the expense of style. The breakfast buffet was of a high standard with a large variety of hot and cold, healthy and less healthy breakfast food. Would recommend this hotel.

Charlotte, London
Young Couple (18-35)

The hotel was lovely, the staff were very helpful and friendly and the food was good.

Laura, Royal Terrace
Other

I booked this hotel as a surprise for my boyfriend and to spend some quaility time together. It was perfect. The location is great for strolling into town. The staff at the front desk were so helpful and friendly. I would highly recommend this hotel to a friend for a stay in Edinburgh.

Zita Flanagan, Dublin, Ireland
Young Couple (18-35)

After dropping my wife off at the reception for our weekend break, I tried to find a space to park our car. On my return to the room i found that it was a four poster double not the twin that i had booked. Alas the look on my wife's face thinking i had booked this room for a romantic weekend meant i should keep quiet. The only minus with this room because of position of the telly there was always a post in front of the screen. However we enjoyed our stay, breakfasts very good, and Hotel position very handy for everywhere.

G&S. Temple, northumberland
Mature Couple (36+)

Super - excellent location for city centre, perfect for Playhouse Theatre, free weekend street parking. Rooms are spacious and bright, great facilities. Staff really friendly. Ace breakfast.

Anthony D Martin, Blairgowrie
Mature Couple (36+)

The hotel is situated in an ideal location on a street slightly set back from the busy roads and because it sits at the top of a small hill provides a pleasent view over parts of Edinburgh.  It is an easy amble up to Princes street and ideal to explore the city.  We only stayed the one night however it was comfortable nonetheless.  Good range of amenities including leisure centre and essential bar.  The staff were extremely courteous and always greeted with a smile.  One major plus had to be the cooked breakfast in the morning - very nice!
Only minor points of criticism were that the window in the bedroom looked as if it had never been cleaned, we were woken up at 8.30am in an attempt to clean the room (luckily we were already awake) and you have to pay for on street parking (£1/hour, 8.30-17.30).  Again these were minor points and did not significantly marr our enjoyable stay.

Stuart Nath, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Young Couple (18-35)

we arrived at the hotel at 11.45am on the saturday and our room was ready, reception staff were very helpfull and attentive. rooms were very clean and spacious - breakfast buffet was great every thing you need. had the swimming pool gym etc all to our selves. reception will keep your bags for you when you check out. the only wee thing was that with booking through alpharooms is that because you get the best price available anywhere you dont really get a room with a view. well done everyone we had a great time.

chris ettershank, arbroath
Young Couple (18-35)

Lovely hotel,convienent to Princes Street approx a 5-7 min walk via John Lewis & shopping centre.Our room was on the lower ground floor and obviously one of the refurbished rooms- very nice.

claire lyttle, belfast Northern ireland
Group of Mature Friends/Couples

Well, after a rather horrendous journey from Leeds to Edinburgh (won't bore you with the details but involved a very camp Virgin ticket man about to have a hissy fit and charging us £130 for the privilege of watching him...), I was fully expecting something horrendous to have happened with our hotel booking, you know the scene, Christmas, no room at the inn........

On arrival at the hotel there was, thankfully, a booking! hurrah!  The reception staff were really friendly and sorted out check in very quickly.  All OK so far, until we arrived at the first floor and stepped out of the lift - into a building site!!! No wallpaper on the wall, wires trailing everywhere. My heart sank.  I knew it was too good to be true.  We found our room, not expecting great things to be honest, but we were extremely pleasantly surprised!  The room was fantastic and the staff were so friendly it really made a difference.  They sorted out taxis for us, despite the language barrier of Yorkshire (with a cold!) to Scots, kept our bags after we'd checked out whilst we went shopping before our train, got us drinks after the bar had shut...  

The renovation work they were having done didn't affect our stay at all, no noise or disruption in any way.  I would definitely stay there again and would recommend anyone wanting a good quality hotel in Edinburgh to stay there.  Great location - 10 minutes easy walk to Princes Street, but nicely away from any noise from bars over the weekend.  It was worth the nightmare journey! Oh, and our friend's wedding was good too...!

Gina Bamforth

Gina Bamforth, Huddersfield
Young Couple (18-35)

This hotel looks great on the outside because it is set on a hill so you get a great view of Edinburgh, it is in the centre of town and it is in traditional stone.  When you go into the hotel they have clearly recently renovated the entrance lobby with a modern clean feel.  All this makes it a little dissappointing when you go into your bedroom to find that it could do with a lick of paint and a new bathroom.  The facilities were ok though and I would recommend staying here if you can get a good deal.

Salma Rizvi, Lichfield / England
Group of Mature Friends/Couples

There is building work on-going at the moment, but no disruption.  Rooms were good for city centre standard and the breakfast was excellent with a wide range.  Good hotel at a great price.

Brian, Edinburgh
Young Couple (18-35)

Excellent Hotel would highly recommend, food superb ***

Michael Surtees, Sunderland/England
Family with Children 11 and Under

Fab hotel, great location, friendly staff, comfy and tasteful rooms - bed was lovely and bathroom gorgeous!

Only disappointment: swimming pool and gym being refurbished during my stay!

Helen Brazier, London
Solo Traveller

great location.nice park.the hotel was a bit dirty and old for a 4*.the leisure was closed.to expensive for the low quality it offers.

jean, france
Young Couple (18-35)

Although we were informed beforehand there was extensive renovation work going on in the hotel we did not see any of it apart from 2 skips outside the hotel front.  We did stay on a Saturday night so maybe they are only working Mon-Fri.  Our twin room was a good size, the bathroom was in need of a bit of renovation the sink was cracked and the grouting could have done with a good clean around the shower area although the shower above the bath was a goood powerful shower and the spa bath was very nice.
The leisure facilities were out of order but alpharooms emailed us beforehand and said the hotel would offer free entance into holmes place gym which was great but we did have to asked for it at the hotel .
Breakfast was good and hotel staff very helpful and friendly
Have stayed at this hotel several years ago and found it very good then would stay again ideal for the playhouse theatre.  the leisure facilitie are going to be out of action for a few month so take advantage of the holmes place in the omni centre
a 25mtr pool much bigger than the hotel one which is tiny unless the renovations are make it bigger.

Dawn, Cleveland England
Other

Excellent Hotel. Very friendly and helpful staff.
Very nice room and quality food! The room we stayed in was a double on the third floor. It was very spacious with eveything you would expect from a top class hotel. Would use again!

Henry Yau, Cardiff
Young Couple (18-35)

The Royal Terrace is a superb hotel with very helpful staff. It is close enough to the center of Edinburgh to be handy but far enough out to be quiet, although we did encounter a few hen nights/stag parties which arrived home very early in the morning!
Would definitely return though.

Fiona Foster, Skipton/North Yorkshire
Other

For the price I payed I found the Royal Terrace distinctly average. The size of the room was small to say the least, the bath far from clean on arrival and the bathroom ceiling came complete with a dangerously large crack. The service was also, on the whole average. One member of staff felt it was his duty to speak to customers as though they were 5-year old children, even swearing and shouting in front of other hotel guests. The hotels only redeeming feature was the surroundings, ie; the rest of the city. I would discourage anyone from booking accommodation at the Royal Terrace, better service and value for money could be found at a Travel Lodge or local B&B.

Tristan Meadows, Lomdon/England
Young Couple (18-35)

We booked a room for three nights over the internet. Upon arrival and to our surprise we were given a suite, complete with King size bed, fireplace and lounge suite. The bathroom was central to the room, with glass walls and wooden Venetian blinds for privacy.
We used the restaurants for dinner and breakfast and found the standards equal to that of a cruise liner.
Our only criticisms were that the hair dryer would not work, and we thought the drinks in the bar were expensive.

Richard Stevens, Bath, Somerset
Mature Couple (36+)

My husband & I were looking forward to a special anniversary weekend away (without the children!) & have to say that we were very disappointed with various aspects of the hotel.  The hotel website shows misleading pictures of both the leisure and terrace facilities. The decor in the swimming pool area is now barbie pink! The jacuzzi was only half full at the time of our visit & the sauna is nothing more than a messy storage room.  The terrace area was uninviting with plant pots either empty or overgrown with weeds.  Access is gained through a fire exit door, wedged open by a building brick. The messy restaurant storage area is also in full view.
We don't want to appear trivial but as our weekends away are few and far between we expect a 4* hotel to have 4* standards.  Please find below a more few points giving details of our 3 night stay in Sept 2005.

1. Upon arriving at the hotel we were informed there were no hotel car parking facilities.  Pay & display @ £1 per hour or a 5 minuite walk to free parking in a residential area.

2.  The standard room was adequate enough although the plug mechanism did not release the water in the bathroom basin.  This was mentioned to reception on two occassions during our stay. We also noticed that the bath release didn't work either, none of the faults were rectified during our stay.

3. We went into the bar on our first evening and had to wait at least 10 minutes for a bar staff to arrive.  The bar area is very small and I don't expect a 4* hotel to be showing the Simpson's on a wide screen TV at such a high volume!

4.  The bottle of white wine, ordered with our evening meal arrived warm.  When a replacement was requested we were told we could have more ice added to our ice bucket! We refused and asked for a bottle of red instead.  The food was served on cold plates and the starters were luke warm on arrival.

5.  The breakfast room air conditioning was faulty at the time of our visit, the room is in the basement with no windows and the self service facility threw off a lot of heat.  Eating a full breakfast was very uncomfortable in these conditions, So much so we decided to have room service the following day.

6.  One of my biggest shocks was to hear the house keeping staff F***ing & blinding on the corridors.

Mr & Mrs Thomas, Accrington, Lancashire
Mature Couple (36+)

We booked the Royal Terrace at the last minute & were delighted by the centrally-placed location within easy walking of all major shopping areas.  Rooms were bright & comfortable with an excellent view of Edinburgh, bathroom was tastefully minimalist.  Breakfast was decidedly average, although service was attentive.  Only downside was our stay coincided with Wales v Scotland 6 Nations - very noisy, loud supporters all night!

Jan, Liverpool/England
Other