Mercure Edinburgh Haymarket Hotel 38 Gardner's Crescent, Edinburgh EH3 8DQ

"Had a quick stop for a meal and some rest before continuing my journey. It was a clean and tidy hotel with very friendly receptionists. They give me a grand floor room but the water pressure was disappointing me. Annoying shower experience. I find a few housekeeping and maintenance issues, like the door needing some repairs and we find some hair in the toilet and bathroom. I find some leftover food in the fridge. It wasn’t nice in front of my girlfriend. We felt they didn’t have enough time to complete their work. Not enough toiletries like paper rolls, and shampoo. No conditioner no even soap. I went out and asked for it because the room’s phone didn’t work! £10 for the car park? Well done guys"

"I'm not usually the type to choose a hotel room over an Airbnb but the main purpose of this trip was to work remotely for a bit whilst also have the opportunity to explore the city in the evening. I chose this hotel mainly for its location, price and convenience. Beds were very comfortable and friendly staff. Close to many cafes and restaurants. We didn't make use of the transport or cars during our stay and we walked around to explore the city."

"Avoid this hotel. I will start off with the positives of this hotel: 1/ Central location means the city attractions are in walking distance. That's that out of the way. We booked a family weekend in Edinburgh and chose this hotel as we thought it offered a little extra than the budget hotels. We paid approx £350 for 2 nights including a Prestige upgrade which included bath robes newspaper daily and drinks in the fridge. (The drinks were 1 can of coke 1 can of lemonade and a bottle of sparkling water) So what did we find: 1/ The rooms are very small. Really small. 2/ There is little space to unpack and few shelves or drawers 3/ The toilet doors are sliding doors and offer little privacy. That's the moderately good bits. What did we experience: We checked in at approx 4pm on the Saturday and found the room was in a poor condition with the following issues: 1/ The most concerning issue was the dampness or moisture in the room which I believe was the result of the room not being aired properly and possibly linked to air con issues. The window was streaming with condensation, the cushions on the bed were damp to the touch and the carpet was damp. When we walked on the carpet bare foot our feet were picking up dirt from surface because it was damp. We fixed the issue on the second night by leaving the window open all day and the small radiator on. 2/ The air conditioning was clearly not working correctly. When we arrived the air con was set to 29 degrees centigrade. The system would never cope with this temp and this was probably set by the previous occupants when trying to get the heating working. We spoke to reception straight away and the staff member was helpful with an oil heater that we had seen on arrival in the corridor. The air con did not work properly throughout the stay. 3/ The toilet sliding door was broken and would not slide. This was partially fixed the first night but the bottom of the door was not secured to the ground and was quite dangerous. See attached photo. 4/ The toilet door lock was broken and the handle fell of when touched. See attached photo. 5/ The items that we were expecting to be in the room and which we paid for were not present e.g. bath robes. We had to ask for the bath robes. We believe there was a newspaper in the booking reservation but we did not receive a paper on either day. 6/ The bathroom extractor fan did not work and there was damp on the bathroom ceiling. See attached photo. 7/ The continental breakfast was good but the hot food was luke warm at best cold at worst. The electric Bain Marie's were not working or were not set to high enough temperatures to keep the food at a safe temperature. We avoided the cooked food on the second morning. 8/ In the main the staff tried to be helpful but on the Sunday morning I spoke to reception about the issues and possibly moving rooms. The receptionist said that our bags would need to be packed to move rooms but we were due at the Museum at 10.30 so didn't have time to pack. However I wrote my mobile number down and asked to be called if we could move rooms and I would return to pack. You guessed it, no phone call or contact was made by reception at any point. We wrote an email to the hotel after our stay to ask for a partial refund . We received a reply apologising and offering a future competitive rate but no compensation. Next time we will stick to Premier Lodge and save the money."

"The design of the room was nice and the bathroom lovely. However, the heating in our room never worked, we were never offered an alternative room and were instead given an oil radiator to use. Whilst this helped somewhat it still meant that we came back every evening to a freezing room. Furthermore, our room was never cleaned between the days despite requesting this twice to 2 distinct members of staff and being assured that they would be cleaned. For a hotel that isn’t very cheap this was frankly unacceptable."

"Very nice hotel, would stay again. We had a privilege room. I so wished we had a bath tub, I was under the impression we were getting a room with a tub. I think it might vary by room. We didn't eat breakfast there, we usually just grabbed a snack on the go. My only criticism is that in the corner of our room on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom, I don't know if there was a flood in the past? But it was a bit dingy of a corner and the carpet was pulled away from the wall and was discoloured. Also, there was a cobweb in the corner over there and there were some stains on the walls over in that corner, but also around the room like near the trash can. Bathroom was very clean and nice, though."