Trust me - all will be revealed in the fullness of time!!!!!!!!!

LOCATION
Their claim of being bang in the centre of Edinburgh was a little bit of a shock, as we only managed to find one pub within relatively easy walking distance. The hotel has 190 rooms and has recently benefited from an £8 million refurbishment programme, apparently, according the website, the hotel been a both a department store and a hospital in a former like.

There is a newsagents, Boots store and Pizza hut directly opposite the hotel for those last minute emergencies and midnight feasts.

Lifts are thankfully plentiful as the hotel is spread out over 5 floors, although I didn’t witness any concierge staff bouncing around begging to help with my luggage. Mind you the following day they were in abundance offering to store our luggage, and sluggishly slow at returning it to us at the end of the day – bang went their tip.

The TV was remote controlled and had the usual selection of terrestrial and digital channels including Sky Sport and BBC3, although the remote control did not work well from the bed. All rooms are kitted out with air-conditioning, but from memory this didn't make much of an impact.

The room had a computerised mini-bars meaning that it was difficult to inspect the contents; anyone who has encountered one of these will know that reception staff will require physical proof in the form of taking any drinks not purchased to reception to prove you have not consumed them.

Interestingly, and this is a new one on me (hence the title), the bathroom doors are glass, and not frosted. They have panels of white, interspersed with gaps of about 1 inch wide where you can easily peer through into the bathroom and see your other half in all their glory in the bath or on the loo – mmmmm, not convinced about this, thankfully I was alone.

THE FOOD
Being an overnight conference delegate, what the Carlton did, and did very well, was feed us. The menu was “Table D’Hote” rather than “a la carte”, which always gives me nightmares because of my food allergies, although on this occasion, I was to be pleasantly surprised. For starters I had Chicken terrine, which reminded me of the awful cheapo meats we used to buy years ago from the cold meat counters in the local shop, for main course (considerably better), beef, green beans and potatoes (although the potatoes turned up after the meat had been eaten) and for desert some form of fruit compote with cold custard.

The breakfast and lunch, however, were buffet style, with an absolutely superlative choice of hot and cold meat and veggie options which saw myself and my colleagues probably putting on more than a few pounds for a single day.

This is quite steep for a weekend stay – although during the Edinburgh festival in August prices were coming in at a staggering £1200 for a three night stay for a family of three – I could have a week abroad for that prices – you would be better off staying at the Jury’s hotel in Glasgow for a cool £35 per room, hiring a car and making your own way over to the city.

As delegates of an overnight conference, we paid a cool (or at least the organisers did) £144 per delegate (the website is currently quoting £170 per delegate) – not bad considering it included use of all the facilities (the fact that we didn’t have time is not their problem) and included the overnight room, breakfast, lunch and evening meal plus use of one of their conference suites and liquid refreshments and biscuits for three scheduled breaks. The biscuits were rather nice, being primarily shortbread and coffee that resembled mud (and I like it strong) and ran out before we had finished queuing.

There is a bar at the hotel which is not particularly cheap, although certainly reasonable compared to the Copthorne in Cardiff at around £3 for a Gin and Tonic.

After breakfast, upon returning to my room, I requested an iron from reception – very simpy, despite three repeat calls it never turned up, thankfully I had a un-matching but crease free blouse in the suitcase – as one of my colleagues agreed, when you stay away from home, it is the little things in life that make you stay pleasurable, and in this area, I am afraid to say that the Carlton Hotel, Edinburgh is sadly lacking.