Gabrielle Q.

In early Mar2014, I made a hotel booking via Booking.com and prepaid a one night stay at Stay Edinburgh City Apartments - Royal Mile. I paid GBP71 for 1 room for 2 persons for 1 night. The hotel had good reviews on Booking.com and was rated Very Good with Four Stars at 8.5 (a score from 531 reviews). The address and contact details given to us were as follows:-
Stay Edinburgh City Apartments - Royal Mile
Address: Crest of Edinburgh, 217 High Street, The Royal Mile, Old Town, Edinburgh EH1 1PE, United Kingdom
Phone: *******585

When we arrived on 25Mar2014, we made our way from the Waverley Train Station to the hotel. To our horror, the Crest of Edinburgh was a small souvenir shop and there was a side door within the shop. We asked for help from the shopkeeper to confirm that we were at the right place. Their reply was "just ring the doorbell and someone will come up from the basement. We are separate from them". We did that but no one came. After a while, a man came to the door and he said he was expecting us and we are to collect our hotel room keys from their basement office. He introduced himself as Harry.

We followed Harry to collect our room keys. Then he asked us to follow him to our apartment. We took a short walk to an apartment block along Hunter Square (not far from the shop). It was a 4 storey building which looked dark, dirty and old from the outside. He had a main door key, a lift key and then our apartment key. Inside the apartment, it was very rundown and appalling. He brought us to the 3rd floor. There were 4 doors on the 3rd floor and all looked deserted. I asked about the other 3 apartments and whether they were occupied. He said they only operate 2 of the 4 apartments so he is not sure. The inside of our apartment looked as bad as the outside and nothing like a 4 star ie. It was not even decent.