The location of The Scotsman is perfect, it couldn't be better next to both the old and the new town, Waverley station, airport coaches and Edinburgh Castle. As a first time visitor to Edinburgh it was great to receive upcoming emails to my visit with the hotel's tips about the town. However - they missed one big thing! We arrived with train to the station and just when we jumped off the train we saw the hotel. We took our bags and realized that the entrance was located above the bridge, several steps and hard carrier of bags to the reception. It was actually cool because we took the Fleshmarket Close (famous from Ian Rankin's books) but - I was glad my parents wasn't traveling with us. It was really annoying to realize the hotel had an entrance from the street but you had to be a pre-registered guest! Come on - why don't inform us about this earlier?? No information at the hotels own webpage, LHW or in the up-coming emails.
Check in was splendid as well as the porter service. Just after check-in we reciveed a fruit basket and a gift from the management (a very nice touch). The room itself was lovely scottish with good details but also annoying, fx. it wasn't possible to see the TV perfect from the bed, the wardrobe doors couldn't be full open because the bed was in the way to it, as well as the bed wasn't closed located to the wall! The bathroom was nice, but we didn't appreciate the Cowsheed pumps - I would prefer individual amenities and not such pumps the previous guests also used. Gladely we had some small bottles of Molton Brown with us, so we didn't need to used this. I would expect this from a hotel with this standard.
The building is cool, you can get lost very easy - specially on your way to breakfast or spa. The continental breakfast was so poor so I was very happy it was included in the room rate, al'a carte breakfast was nice and homemade but you can only have one choice of these items. If you would like to have both pancakes and a full Scottish breakfast it would be in your dreams or you have to pay extra. Service was also terrible and in the breakfast room as well as the surroundings (a conference room). We found several other salons they could use for breakfast which was so much nicer!
We had room-service which was awful. A dried hamburger and a well-burned pizza. If we wasn't to sleepy we should go for Pizza Hut instead around the corner! However - it wasn't so expensive. We had a dinner at the North bridge Brasserie located in the hotel - this was a success with very well composed menu. One of the best desserts I ever had was the "Earl Grey tea mousse", If I wasn't to full I would go for two!
A very nice advantage of the Scotsman is the spa and the fitness center. Really nice property and the swimming pool with a steel bassin was a new experience. We had to treatments in the spa which was good and not so expensive. I can recommend this!
We had a great deal B&B for 126 pounds which was much less then ex. the Radisson SAS Hotel (4 star). I would stay at The Scotsman again, but not if it was a better rate then the Radisson SAS (which are located just around the corner from Scotsman and looked very nice). For standard rates around 300 pounds I would definitely consider if the Scotsman is worth it.