First up, allow me to praise the staff at this IHG location, all were extremely friendly, polite and pleasant but a special mention to Mikey & Zubair at reception. Both guys were friendly, chatty and very helpful with any questions or help we needed. Also a huge thanks to Anathalie Nicolas, whom we never actually met but looked after our important request for a specific type of room plus his advice on using public transport to get from the airport to the hotel was an absolute huge help On arrival at Edinburgh airport, we took the tram to the hotel. The Hotel stop is "Picardy Place" and is in fact, directly outside the hotel, and I mean directly outside! Tram fares between the Airport and City centre are: Single adult £7.50 Single child £3.80 Adult open return £9.50 Child open return £5 Our check in was quick, friendly and efficient with Mikey & Zubair offering lots of suggestions from a tourist point of view. My requested quiet room request was allocated and it was perfect Room 412, on the 4th floor was at the end of a corridor with near perfect soundproofing and no ambient noise from either outside or from other guests. Although the room was not as big as we would have liked, it was perfectly adequate. The large TV worked really well and lots of channels but a channel list would have been nice in the room. The room had enough power points around it including at bedside with standard 3 pin (UK) sockets and USB points. As other reviews have alluded to ... the bed was quite comfortable ensuring we had a great nights sleep. Tea / Coffee was also supplied in the room with a small kettle Many "value" hotels tend to have bathrooms with poor shower pressure, however this Holiday Inn Express had one of the best water shower pressure I have encountered Overall the room experience was excellent but one small issue was with housekeeping. We had requested a "Top Sheet" for the bed and after the first nights stay, housekeeping removed it, meaning we had to go looking again to have it replaced, which in fairness was no issue for staff, but it should not have been removed. In relation to towels, although there were 2 bath-towels, only one small hand towel was in the room, we asked and received a second one, but once again, the extra towel was removed by housekeeping ... in fairness, these were not serious issues in our opinion, just a tad annoying On each of our 3 mornings we had breakfast in the hotel . Each morning was very busy, the hotel has a "Traffic light" sign in the lifts explaining the expected busy times. Breakfast is self service buffet style but laid out in a "U" shape., this made it difficult to access some items if you just wanted to get milk for tea / coffee or croissants as guests getting breakfast would be in your way Food quality was OK, but the "Hash Browns" had a strange texture to them and very pale colour , bacon was excellent, sausages were fine but the scrambled egg was very flaky and easily broke up. We had tea each morning, I enjoy a strong cup and the supplied Twinings tea-bags were a joy to drink. Staff at breakfast were constantly cleaning up and worked really hard. Breakfast was available weekday 0630-1000 and weekend from 0630-1030 In the reception area, there was coffee / tea facilities, a welcome sight after a long day sightseeing. Also here is the hotel bar with plenty of choice for those that enjoy a tipple The hotel location is perfect, its a 5 or 10 minute walk to Princess Street and the Hop-On bus tours at Waterloo place Would I return ..... absolutely! Not one of my negative comments are serious enough to stop me returning. The outstanding thing for me was the hotel staff. A word for management ... any chance of changing the shape of the breakfast area from a "U" shape to a full length one and those hash browns, lets have them cooked to a dark brown colour…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.