I absolutely loved my stay at castle rock. I would absolutely come back every time I visit…read moreEdinburgh. It's close to Waverly station and you can get lots of places from there. The hostel is just in the shadow of Edinburgh castle (I included a photo I took from the sidewalk). Couldn't ask for a better location. The staff was kind and hospitable, and the vibe was very chill. I WILL SAY THIS. the bathrooms are not gendered, so you'll be showering/pooping (in private stalls of course) with both sexes, so if that's not your tea, be aware of that--but it didn't bother me. LOVE LOVE LOVE CASTLE ROCK!!!!!!

The location is amazing, the staff is so helpful and so kind. The rooms are fine, very small. My…read more"roommates" were extraordinarily messy so if I got up during the night I tripped over all their crap. I ended up leaving a couple days early because I hardly slept a wink. The building is old and very creaky with every step someone takes. Doors slam at all hours. I could hear someone snoring so loudly from next door the last two nights. It would be nice if halls lights dimmed at night so that when people come in at 4am it isn't so bright. Take earplugs and an eye mask. I mean, there is nothing staff can do about the many guests always coming through. It's just if you want a good night's sleep I wouldn't stay here. The showers are fine, hot water and mostly clean. There were contacts in one of the showers for four days so I don't know often they are cleaned. But I felt very safe and the location cannot be beat. Lots of great activities offered.

We stopped by the back garden area to sit outside and distance, slightly, from the throngs of…read morepeople. This was a pay at your table and have drinks brought to you. Cool vibe, nice crowd, good drinks including a non alcoholic cider.

Cant think of anything i didnt like, really. My boyfriend and I were in a six person mixed-sex…read moreroom. Most of the bathrooms are also unisex which is fine because the doors are full length. One shower had only a curtain but the rest also had doors. The water was hot and pressure was good. The food was filling and cheap. It was centered right in the middle of town, right by the castle and shops. There is laundry on site but only two washer dryers so gotta get there early. I guess it kinda sucked going up to the top floor because there was no elevator but exercise is always good. In the rooms there were lockers if you brought your own lock but i just left my stuff on the bed and it was fine. On the bottom floor there is a 1£/day luggage storage. We fit all of our bags in one. Though we wasted one pound fiddling with the lock at first haha. The card keys were a bit iffy sometimes is the only thing i found annoying i guess. But i had a somewhat negative idea of what hostels were so this was my first one and it was great!

This was one of the better hostels I've stayed in! The rooms were smaller, only 6 beds, and the…read morebeds were more comfortable than many. The downstairs room was fun. I would stay here again.

There were many things we loved about High Street…read more The location is amazing. You truly can't get better. You are right off the Royal Mile, which makes your stay quiet, but close enough to everything you want to see! The building is gorgeous. It is over 400 years old and it is beautiful with stone and rustic lodging. This makes the stay so special. There are many stairs, but you know that before booking. The wifi is great, and everything is clean! You can rent a towel for only 1 pound. The hostel offers events and breakfast, though we didn't get to try either. The staff is very friendly and helpful. The only reason I'm taking off a star is that our room was TINY. There are bigger private rooms, so I'm not sure how we got unlucky and got the small private room. Overall, I would definitely tell people to stay here!

I stayed here with a group of friends on a weekend trip to Edinburgh, and we loved this hostel! The…read morelocation was perfect, right on the Royal Mile and within walking distance of everything we wanted to do, and it was only a 10-minute walk to the Edinburgh Waverly train station. The rooms and bathrooms were clean, and the pods were comfortable. Each pod comes with a locker, hanging rack, a shelf, and USB ports. The staff were friendly, and the lobby has books and games available to borrow, as well as a variety of drinks and snacks to purchase. Breakfast is available for £6. If you are looking for a place to stay in the middle of Old Town, look no further!

Extended my stay here because I loved it so much. Smack middle of Edinburgh. Walking distance to…read moreall the great places. Clean restrooms, laundry facilities, amazing staff and would absolutely come back.

I thought this hostel was pretty good. It's clean, has a modern look, and the rooms are very…read morehabitable. There's free wifi, and plenty of space downstairs to hang out, shoot pool, or cook your own meal. There's a bar too, though I didn't get anything from there. The location is pretty good, it's right in the middle of old town in the heart of the city. Easy walk from Waverly. In my room of 8 there were only 4 of us, and there are also 2 toilets and 2 showers. Nice. Oh, and towels are provided. One gripe: there are lockers in the rooms for each bed, but they don't take standard padlocks... the hole is too small. Come on now, seriously?

The Smart City Hostel is about a 10 minute walk from Princess Street and the Downtown area…read more The rooms are clean and so are the showers and bathrooms. They have have coin operated laundry which was very helpful. The free wifi was a huge help. I would defiantly stay here again.

This was the perfect hotel for a two night stay in Edinburgh. It's super centrally located and well…read morepriced. We were able to drop off our bags at 7 am and the room was ready by 12:30 pm. One of the major benefits for me is that they let you borrow a straightener from the front desk. My hair was so grateful!! The rooms are tiny but that's to be expected in Europe! The WiFi wasn't fantastic either but we really didn't need it much.

This hotel is located in the Grassmarket area of Edinburg. It's just steps away from Old Town and…read morethe Royal Mile. Edinburg Castle is about a 15 minute walk. There is a restaurant in the hotel but there are a LOT of restaurants within walking distance. We had asked for a room with two beds thinking they would be single beds. (Our last experience with hotels in Europe was not a great one. We had a tiny room and a tiny bed,) When we got our room it was bigger than we expected. It had two beds-one was a king and the other a queen. What a nice surprise! There is no air conditioning in most hotels in Europe. With the windows open and a fan I was quite comfortable because the temp was around 60° the three nights we were there. The hubby who likes it much colder said it was bearable. The staff was friendly. The hotel was clean. I don't remember if breakfast is included in the price. There is a buffet breakfast or you can order off the menu. The last morning I ordered the smoked salmon, poached eggs, and sourdough toast off the hot menu. It was delicious. Had to have smoked salmon before I left Scotland...wish I would have ordered it sooner. Yummy. Would have given it 4 stars but with the lack of ac and having to climb several sets of stairs before you get to the elevator I'm giving it 3 stars. In all fairness, on occasion I did use the hotel ramp to get into or leave the hotel but that entailed walking through the rain. It did, however, lead you directly to the elevator.

I stayed here for one night back in May 2017. I had booked 1 bed in a 4-bed mixed dorm for about…read more£30. I arrived in Edinburgh at around 8 in the morning and was able to leave my belongings in a locker for a small fee; the staff were nice and explained the locker process well. I left for the day and returned to the hostel in the evening. The hostel was conveniently located, not a long walk from the city center or the Waverley station. At check in, I was assigned bed #2 in my room. The dorm I was staying in was reasonably clean and I didn't notice anything remarkable about the bathroom. However, there was not a single outlet in view in the dorm (allegedly there was one behind one of the bunk beds, but in any case it was not accessible, according to the girl who found it), which was a huge inconvenience, as I tend to rely on my phone a great deal when I'm traveling. As a result, I wound up charging my phone in the common room, which had a good number of outlets. There was a sufficient amount of seating in the common area, as well as a microwave where some of the other customers were able to heat up food. However, there wasn't much atmosphere and my impression was that the common room was rather dark. When I returned, I noticed another person had put some of their belongings on my bed. I thought this was probably due to a misunderstanding, and moved the belongings onto the 1 remaining free bed in the room and went to sleep, thinking no more of it. A few hours later, a Chinese girl woke me up saying that I was in her bed; upon examination of both of our check-in cards, we found that we had both been assigned bed #2 in the same room. Since there was still 1 bed available in the dorm, we concluded that reception had simply written the wrong number on one of our cards, and the Chinese girl was happy to take the available bed #4. Again, I went to sleep, thinking no more of it. Around 3 in the morning, I awoke to the sound of a hostel employee telling the Chinese girl that she was in the wrong bed; it appeared that a 5th girl had checked in and was assigned bed #4 in our dorm, which now already had 4 people occupying it. The Chinese girl explained that she had been assigned bed #2 but that it was taken when she arrived, and an Australian girl in our room who had witnessed the whole thing explained to the hostel employee that both of us had erroneously been assigned the same bed. I had not yet rolled over so the hostel employee thought I was still asleep; he approached my bed and "awoke" me; the first words out of his mouth were that I had taken someone else's bed, and his tone was pretty accusatory. I was pretty angry that this was the first thing he said to me, as the Australian girl had already explained to him that it was an error on the hostel's part. Only after I showed him my check-in card did he accept that it was the hostel's fault. Thankfully, the hostel apparently has made allowances in case of an emergency and keeps an extra bed free at all times, so the 5th girl was still able to stay at the hostel. I'm sure other people have had perfectly acceptable experiences at this hostel, and I was impressed that they had an extra bed in case of emergencies. I also heard from a girl in the common room that her dorm had outlets. However, the fact that the specific dorm I was staying in had no outlets and the whole debacle over the beds really soured my experience and made me happy I wasn't staying longer than 1 night.

I just looked the definition of Passable on the dictionary. This hostel is an example…read more It's definitely not bad. Yes, I would stay here again. The staff is nice, cheers to them, but it seems a tad overworked. Rooms are clean, it's ok, the minor defects and bumps are to be expected, this is an old building, old infrastructure (the lift is slooooow) The wifi works ok, the chill-room is a bit cavernous, the breakfast is what's expected from a hostel breakfast (I've had better breakfasts in hostels, but it wasn't free), and there are two pubs attached to it for your convenience! The location is excellent. Airlink from the airport takes you to the proverbial "stone's throw" of it.

6 of us stayed here in 3 rooms - the rooms were clean and tidy. Small breakfast worth it but not…read morethe big breakfast. Was a bit noisy due to large group of young people staying -but over all would stay here again- was nice place to simply walk And see the sights

I wish I'd found places like this when I was backpacking this time last year! It offers "5 Star…read moreBudget Accomodation", if that's not a complete contradiction of itself, or in other words it's just a cross between a very upmarket youth hostel and an ok hotel. I even spotted a conference suite when I was here, which surely isn't something that the majority of youth hostel cientele are going to need, and instead of a bar where you can order food they have a Bistro. Is that really necessary?! In fact, it's so ridiculously high-spec as far as youth hostels go that it's hard to find much to criticise about the place. It was really clean, it was modern yet comfortable, the staff were great and it wasn't expensive. So why only 4 stars? I think to call itself "Central" is a little bit of a claim and not really that accurate. Central would be in the Grassmarket in the Old Town, or around Princes Street like most of the other hostels in the city. Not in Leith.

Location and staff were lovely. Stayed in the pods, if you're sensitive to heat and air flow I…read morewouldn't recommend them, woke up many times feeling sick from the heat.

Very clean, friendly staff, perfect location (right next to Edinburgh castle & everything), free…read morewifi, attached cafe, quiet, and best priced drinks in town in the hostel bar. Highly recommend.