In the heart of the city: King James Thistle Hotel
We booked 3 double rooms in the King James Thistle (next to St. James shopping centre) in Oct. 2011 for ourselves and 2 other couples who were travelling with us. We chose this hotel because of its central location and their relative competitive pricing (a difficult-to-find combination for hotels in Edinburgh, after all!)
The hotel is nothing special to look at: a bland concrete block that was built for functionality above charm. But staff at reception were courteous, and so were staff at breakfast.
The rooms were clean and comfortable... our bed was particularly comfy! We were lucky enough to have a room facing the back of the hotel: this meant that our view what that of another building / back of the shopping mall, but this also meant far less noise from the busy Leith street below. Our friends did complain that their rooms at the front of the hotel were quite noisy, even with the windows shut... this wasn't too much of a problem in October, but I could imagine that during the Edinburgh Festival (August, annual) noise could become an issue for hotel guests.
Unique Quality: The breakfast buffet wasn't very exciting, but at least it was quite big with many different choices... scrambled or fried eggs, plenty of different breads, cereals, yoghurts, fresh fruit, sweet pastries, baked beans, bacon, sausages and some rather sad-looking mini Haggis pieces... surely, this isn't the way to introduce tourists to the mighty Haggis, is it? :-)
We read that there is a "Scottish evening" with dinner and performances by dancers and musicians every evening in the hotel, but we didn't take part (this might be interesting for first-time visitors to Scotland who don't have a lot of time to soak-up the local culture and heritage, but we've done plenty of "soaking-up" over the past few years ;-)
An important thing to note is that the hotel doesn't have a lot of private parking, and the parking is not free: it is charged at an additional £15.00 per 24 hours at a first-come-first-serve basis, so if you are travelling to Edinburgh by car make sure to keep this in mind.
In October 2011 we paid £85.00 per room per night plus £17.00 VAT. Check-in is at 02:00pm, check-out is at midday.
Basically, at this hotel what you see is what you pay for, and what you pay for is what you get. We found it a comfortable-enough base to explore the city, basically a bed and a shower with a generous breakfast to set you up for a day of sightseeing. If you are looking for something with a bit more "flair", history or that warm fuzzy hospitable feeling, you'll need to stay elsewhere. This hotel does what it says on the label: central, affordable, etc.
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