King James Thistle, Edinburgh

...Thistle is part of the King James Mall complex. This is at one end of Princes Street, the main road in the "New Town" of Edinburgh. It is very close to Waverley station and was very easy to find, although we had to ask a French guy running a stall outside the Mall where the entrance was. Although to be fair, we were very drunk by this point, having travelled up on the train with a bottle of vodka.

The main disadvantage to ...
...you would want to see in Edinburgh is uphill from the hotel, so even though it is quite centrally located, going anywhere did feel like a bit of a mission to me.

== Appearance ==

In a town full of history, The Thistle is part of a complex that represents a less shining period of British architecture, being a fine example of concrete Brutalism. Basically it's a box on top of the Mall with large square windows.
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Me and my partner stayed here recently for four nights on our pre-Xmas trip to Edinburgh. It is a four-star hotel.

Location

The Thistle is part of the King James Mall complex. This is at one end of Princes Street, the main road in the "New Town" of Edinburgh. It is very close to Waverley station and was very easy to find, although we had to ask a French guy running a stall outside the Mall where the entrance was. Although to be fair, we were very drunk by this point, having travelled up on the train with a bottle of vodka.

The main disadvantage to the location of the hotel is that much of what you would want to see in Edinburgh is uphill from the hotel, so even though it is quite centrally located, going anywhere did feel like a bit of a mission to me.

Appearance

In a town full of history, The Thistle is part of a complex that represents a less shining period of British architecture, being a fine example of concrete Brutalism. Basically it's a box on top of the Mall with large square windows.

Inside, an effort has been made to give the Thistle the appearance of a finer and older hotel, with wooden panelling and brass fixtures. Personally I found this jarring. I would have preferred something a little more retro rather an antiquated, to match the exterior.

Checking In

The lady on the reception desk was very nice. It was painless to check in as my boyfriend had pre-paid. He just had to run his credit card through for if we wanted to charge anything to the room. We were given two keycards for the room. Hotels don't always do this for couples so I appreciated it. She also gave us a map and tourist guide of Edinburgh, and marked a couple of locations on it we asked about.

The Room

Our room, a "Standard room", was on the fifth floor, with a view of the street outside and a building site. Decor wise it is typical quality-but-not-boutique hotel. I reckon it would have last been refurbed in the 1990s. The bed was large and took up a lot of the room. The room was equipped with a flat-screen TV which showed Freeview and some European channels. It was equipped with a ceiling fan and in the style of a nosey mother-in-law I stood on the bed and checked the top of the fan for dust. There wasn't any.

The bathroom was very clean and had a bath with a shower above. Still with my nosey-in-law hat on I noticed that there was more dirt ingrained into the floor tiles in the area that would be behind the door when it was open. But once in a hotel I had to ask to change rooms because there was pubes from previous guests in the sink, so this was a great bathroom really. There was an air vent on the wall that had the wind whistling down it all the time and made a somewhat spooky sound in the bathroom.

The facilities in the room were a hairdryer, an iron and fold-out ironing board, safe and the usual tea and coffee making kit, with shortbread biscuits.

My main issue with the room was that the central heating seemed to have a fixed idea of what temperature it should be, and was on contantly even though we tried to turn it off. There was no wall controls for heat as I have seen in some hotels, so we had to use the valves on the radiator. The room was warm and as I'm not used to central heating, I woke up every morning with dry lips and a sore throat.

We tried to keep the window open to lower the temperature, but of course as a hotel window it only opened one inch. Even with the window closed there was quite a lot of noise from the street below. I'm used to this as I live in a town centre, but combined with the softer-than-I'm used to bed, I didn't sleep particularly well while staying here.

Breakfast

This is served in Craig's restaurant. If you do not pay the B&B rate for the room then breakfast is charged at £12.95 per person. We didn't pay the B&B rate, as we're not fans of getting up in the morning, but on the last day we were there we opted to have breakfast. It is served from 0700-1000 weekdays and 0700-1100 weekends.

The breakfast is a buffet. We went down at 0930, half an hour before the end of breakfast time. There was a table with an assortment of cereals, a continental breakfast buffet and a fried breakfast buffet, pastries and fruit juices. As were getting fed before a long train journey, I decided to have a huge breakfast. I couldn't see any yoghurts, which was a bit disappointing as I like a yoghurt in the morning and it was listed on the menu. The staff were busying about and I didn't want to bother them, so there may well have been yoghurt I just missed in my bleary-eyed state.

From the cereal table I took a bowl of Special K. These were presented in large white jars and you dish up your portion with a ladle. I was a little perturbed to discover a few cornflakes in my Special K, as this implies they are not always washed between uses, just refilled. I also had a mini pain au chocolat and a croissant, both of which were nice.

From the fried breakfast bar I took a sausage, a fried egg, a fried potato scone and a hash brown. The sausage was okay, but the fried egg was undercooked to my taste, with lots of runny white and yolk. Everything was quite greasy.

We had white toast with our breakfast, although of course there was the option of wholemeal. The pats of butter were runny.

Conclusion

Thistle hotels always feel like upmarket Travelodge type accomodation to me. I have stayed in others and the chain is pretty consistent. There was nothing wrong with the accomodation, but it lacked the attention to detail you would get in a "proper posh hotel". I know there were posher rooms available, but it was things like the breakfast and the heating system that jarred me and these things would have been the same regardless of the class of room.

I notice on the Thistle website they are careful to show exterior photos which do not show the extent of the concrete box the hotel is.

I don't know if I would recommend the hotel for potential guests. It seems to me you should either save the money and stay in a Travelodge type hotel, or pay the extra and go all out for luxury in one of the old hotels in Edinburgh. But it wasn't horrible. As a base for explorations it was perfectly fine. But still.... I dunno. We plan to go back to Edinburgh, and will probably stay elsewhere. 

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