InterContinental Edinburgh the George, an IHG Hotel

We had a magnificent weekend stay at The George in early April, 2024. We booked our room through the Hotel Collection at American Express, and were stunned to be upgraded to a suite on our arrival (thanks The George, thanks AmEx!). Our room was large, with a large living area separate from the bedroom. The appointments were tasteful and attractive. What a wonderful place to spend a holiday weekend!||The quality of the accommodations was equaled by the excellence and graciousness of the hotel staff. The front desk staff were friendly and welcoming. Our concierge, Andrew, gave us excellent dining recommendations and made reservations at restaurants as well as the spectacular Edinburgh Castle (incidentally, every time we saw Andrew he was wearing a kilt on his 6' 5" frame!). ||The hotel has a perfect location in order to explore all that Edinburgh has to offer. We are very grateful that we chose to stay at this wonderful hotel and will happily return.

Our cruise company booked us a room pre-cruise as part of a group. Our room 219 was very small. The only window was over the rear of the hotel but the lower panes of glass were obscured. Part of the room was partitioned off to form a very tiny shower room. There was quite a high step up into the shower room and then a second step up into the shower - one assumes to accommodate pipe work. Overall the room had few if any endearing qualities. Thank goodness it was for one night only. Frankly, I would have expected better from an Intercontinental Hotel. My experience would not attract me to book at this chain in future. The hotel is well positioned in the shopping area and staff were helpful and pleasant.

My partner and myself stayed 4 days in the InterContinental during the Graduation Celebrations for the University of Edinburgh. We had a wonderful time staying in this beautiful building. The staff enhanced our stay with the warm treatment and we felt very welcomed. The location was perfect for walking around and for enjoying the city. I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone who visits Edinburgh and have a hotel cater to all your needs.

Loved the location of this hotel, easy to walk to everywhere. The rooms are nice, with the exception of the lighting in the bathroom, hard to see when shaving or putting on makeup. Our room was made up daily, always first class!||The breakfast selection is plentiful and the yummy croissants are not to be missed!||Everyone is super nice and helpful especially Andrew Boniwell, concierge. He helped with directions and reservations to wonderful restaurants. Thanks Andrew!

Perfect location to everything. The hotel is beautiful, and the service is beyond outstanding. We stayed in a premium king with a sofa and a suite, and both accommodations were outstanding. We also had the breakfast buffet, which was very good. We loved everything about our stay, but what made it the most special is the hotel staff, we can't recommend the George enough.

Great location if you want to visit Edinburgh. Close to the train station and all major attractions.|The service is impeccable. I had an issue with my room on my first night and the manager helped me in moving into another one. Rooms are all refurbished, very clean and the amenities are of high standards. I will certainly come back in the future.

Lovely hotel. Very helpful, friendly staff and great location. The building is a charming, beautifully renovated place to stay. The restaurants on offer all seemed very good but there was also lots of choice around. It always felt so nice going back there.

I've just returned from a overnight stay and the room, service and location were all l expected from a 5* hotel. By comparison to the Kimpton nearby, which is where l've previously stayed, l felt this hotel is better proportioned and more spacious, with the location being more central to the city. Service is very professional, kudos to Duty Manager Tomas, and there's a great range of quality items in the rooms to make the stay even more enjoyable. Gym is 24/7 and contains the basics, but with Edinburgh being so hilly, walking the city alone will be enough to get the heart rate up!

The good: le petit beef bar. Amazing food, excellent selection of gins and spirits The concierge desk and doormen. So courteous and friendly yet very professional. The bad: loud noises at night from late night revelers. Do not stay in low level. I was on floor 3 and was continually woken in the morning from restaurants emptying their recycle cans and the garbage trucks and then again at night from partiers who may have imbibed a wee bit too much

Lovely rooms, courtious staff, great location. Construction the floor below made our stay less than relaxing. My back is so stiff from the hammerdrill noise, that I can't find a chair or bed I can be comfortable. If this is luxury, I'll take a "Dewdrop Inn" for a third the cost.

The noise from the bats below were horrible. From the recycle bottles being trashed to late night revelers shouting down the street/close/alley. They need double or triple paned glass windows on that side of the hotel. When I spoke of this at check out, all i got was a, oh sorry. The door to the rooms need to be sanded as they don't close well or easily so everyone ends of slamming their doors shut. On the good side, Le Petit BeefBar offers a nice selection of drinks and food. The mini bao are sublime and the Cesar Salad is the best I've ever had. Delicate baby gem salad nestles a light dressing and is drenched with finely shredded cheese that is so delicious. The Conceirge desk is very helpful and the doormen were always polite and welcoming us "back home:.

For the positives, the location is terrific. It is walking distance to the Royal Mile and has tons of good restaurants near. The service is quite good. We arrived very early and had to check our bags but wanted to exchange some things before we went out. Trevor kindly let us use the Library to shuffle things around. The Concierge was helpful and knowledgeable. The room was spacious and comfortable. For the negatives, we have stayed at several IC hotels and this one falls short in a few places. The breakfast is pretty bad. Although breakfast was included, after awhile, we stopped eating there. The sound insulation is poor. My wife warned me of the danger of the tub-shower which has an angled end that truncates the amount of flat space to get into the bath. While YMMV both of us had a backache after sleeping in the bed.

For years, Intercontinental has been the brand that my wife and I choose for special occasions. And this being our first visit to Edinburgh, we booked a Premium King room with confidence that it would be a really great weekend. Boy were we wrong. First the good bits: The hotel is very well located, and the building itself is beautiful, especially the exterior and the lobby. But our stay went south quickly upon arrival. After checking in, we went to our room and were surprised to see that someone was already staying in there. We went back to the desk assuming it was just a mixup with the room number, but the woman working there simply did not believe us. "That's impossible," she said, as if we had a reason to make up a story. We got the concierge to also check and verify our story (we asked him, not her), and then she says, "well that's the only room we have available." So we're supposed to share? After considerable back and forth, she gave us a much smaller room that was in a very sad state of disrepair. Once we saw the new room, we looked online, and they were advertising larger King suites available for that very weekend at a price significantly lower than what we had paid in advance. When we brought this to the manager's attention, he said he could move us the next day to a better room, and he did. While the new room was consistent with what we had booked, the air conditioner was broken. We gave up at that point and just opened the windows. (It was a warm Summer night, but not miserably hot.) To add just one more final insult, the manager said he would refund 25% of our stay -- and then never followed through even after being reminded twice. None of this is what I expect from an Intercontinental hotel, and frankly, I think we're probably done with the brand. Apparently it just doesn't mean what it used to.

It's good, but it's not worth the obscene price. The staff was very welcoming and helpful. Our room had a good but not spectacular view.

Location location location! In one of the greatest cities in the world! I love the kilts and during Christmas time, the decorations on the facade are gorgeous!

This is a very nice hotel and excellent location for exploring Edinburgh. The staff was warm and friendly. We even arrived very early in the morning and check in was no problem. The room was a nice size, fashionable, and comfortable. Breakfast was included in our stay and you had a choice to order off the menu, enjoy their full breakfast buffet, or both, whatever you like. We even enjoyed a fine dinner one night in their restaurant which was exceptional. I would highly recommend a stay here when you find yourself visiting Edinburgh.

I took my two daughters to Scotland to celebrate birthday's 21 & 18 and a graduation. I reached out to the hotel before and told they the occasions we were celebrating and they had an amazing surprise set up for us upon arrival. The breakfast was scrumptious (I need to learn how to make the potato scones) and we were full for our daily adventures. The staff was amazing and quick to meet our every need. The drinks at the end of the night were the perfect way to end the day. Such a beautiful hotel with so much history.

This is a first-rate hotel with a staff so professional it's difficult to sufficiently praise them. I would like to give special praise to Gisele and Jessica at the front desk for being total professionals. The concierges Hal and Andrew were excellent with their tourist and restaurant suggestions. Overall this is a terrific place.

Gorgeous hotel in a convenient part of town. The interiors are first class, clean, luxurious, and cozy. I would highly suggest a visit during the Christmas season, as they do a beautiful job decorating! Everyone we talked to there was knowledgeable, friendly, and quite professional. They made our stay even better, gave us advice during our stay regarding the best shops to try, helped us hail cabs daily, and are now graciously helping me retrieve a pillow I'd left behind in a rush. As you've probably seen in other reviews, the only thing not to love is the continental breakfast. Mostly lukewarm stuff without much to recommend it. Eat elsewhere, Edinburgh is full of delicious food just waiting to be explored!

Lovely location just near St. Andrews Square in Edinburgh. I had a lovely double room which had a queen size bed. Upon check in I was greeted with a welcome note, fruit and sweet treats. In addition the room had a little 'tuck box' filled with snacks that would be replenished daily if necessary. The Room had a decent closet, safe, refrigerator, tea kettle, iron and ironing board, hairdryer, soap, shampoo, conditioner and hand lotion, heated towel rack and windows that opened for fresh air. The staff was lovely and attentive. The lobby was often bustling but the bellmen were always available to help! Breakfast buffet or a le carte menu were both plentiful but specialty coffees were an extra charge, as they were made in the adjacent coffee house - worth the charge. We also had dinner in the restaurant one night. We had three different fish options and the lamb burger. Everyone raved about their fish and vegetables. Burger was cooked well done per house policy. It was good just not my favorite way to be prepared. The hotel has a small gym but it had everything I needed from free weights to various machines. There were some minor issues with noise from a wedding and one of our rooms was clearly situated near a dumpster as we could hear bottles being dumped from time to time. But neither of these were terrible distractions. One odd thing about the hotel is that you must use the elevator they tell you to get to your room as they are all in seemingly different buildings. I would definitely stay at this Principal again! I have colleagues who have stayed in both this location and the Charlotte Square location as well and have been happy with both. I may try the Charlotte Square location next time!

Our stay in Edinburgh at the InterContinental George was a comedy of errors. Our complaints have yet to be satisfactorily resolved by InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). When I spoke to a manager on-site about everything that had gone wrong, he bought me a soda and said, "It's the least I can do." You bet it was. I traveled with my sister and a friend. Here are but A FEW of the problems we encountered: *Upon arrival, we were told that our rooms had not been prepaid and were charged accordingly -- $1,066 on each of our credit cards. We had paid for the hotel before we left New York. *I went to my room and discovered there was a tub/shower combination in the bathroom, and the entry was three steps down. This was a surprise, as I had requested a stall shower because I have mobility issues and cannot safely climb into a tub enclosure to bathe. I called the front desk and told them my accommodations were unacceptable. They could come up with no satisfactory solution. Finally, I just switched rooms with my sister, who I found out DID have a stall shower. *Because one of the people I was traveling with was slightly under the weather, she had dinner earlier than my sister and me. When she tried to sign for the bill with her room number, the staff did not recognize her name, as all the rooms were registered under mine. This was in spite of the fact that we had each checked in with our individual personal credit cards only a few hours before. She had to pay cash. This problem has followed us home. Over the past few weeks, IHG has mentioned several times in their emails that no rooms were registered in my traveling companions' names - only in mine, so IHG could not possibly issue a refund to them. *We were all less than delighted to discover that our rooms either looked directly into walls or dilapidated rooftops. They were cave-like and extremely dark, even at high noon. And I had an added bonus in my room -- 111. It was permeated with cooking smells from very early in the morning (about 1 am) until well past 10 am. Plus, Room 118 was up an additional flight of narrow steps. I will happily provide you with photos if you need them. *Apparently because we switched rooms (and yes, the front desk was promptly informed when we did so), I got my sister's wake-up call at 6 am the next morning. It was my intention to sleep in. *The last night at the hotel, we asked that the concierge print our boarding passes. Two of them posed no problem, but mine proved to be quite frustrating. We had to wait for some time to speak to the only concierge on duty (he was ether helping other guests or had disappeared entirely). Then my friend, who had volunteered to help me get my documents because of my mobility issues, was obliged to go downstairs to the computer to print it out. The computer malfunctioned, so she had to come back upstairs again to try to print it on the concierge's computer. Except that he was still among the missing and the printer was out of paper. And around and around we went, until, fully 30-45 minutes later, I finally got my boarding pass, thanks to a person at the front desk whom I had asked for help. The upshot of the whole thing was that some issues were resolved while others were not. After prompting from our travel agency, the charges for the rooms were removed from our cards; the room-switch situation was resolved by me, and I got my boarding pass after a protracted battle with the computer. The staff at The George could not have been more agreeable or welcoming, but they appeared to be almost totally incapable of resolving the issues that arose during our stay. The hotel is lovely, and the décor is understated but luxurious. That said, it's the little things that leave a bad taste in your mouth. It was a really unpleasant visit. Since I contacted IHG on October 17, 2019, I and my traveling companions have been emailed by no less than six people in "guest relations." They offered me a less-than-adequate refund but refused to reimburse my two traveling companions. One "guest relations" person, Danica, even went so far as to say that one of my friends would get nothing, as IHG had already settled with me, and my friend and I had stayed in the same room together. This is completely false (and insulting, as it implies that our goal was to cheat them). We each stayed in separate rooms. My sister has been told that she will receive no compensation whatsoever. I will NEVER book The George Hotel in Edinburgh again. IHG customer service is astonishingly bad. After weeks of repetitive emails between myself and IHG, I am beginning to suspect that I am dealing with an automated system at IHG "guest relations" (is that a thing now? Robots?). Either that, or I am in touch with actual people who have had the humanity successfully trained out of them.

Very nice adaptive reuse of a historic office building on a great street in central Edinburgh. Handsome lobby. Pleasant and competent front desk staff. Small but modern and very clean room. Neal's Yard toiletries. Breakfast buffet was quite good and included in my corporate rate (which was VERY reasonable). Highly recommend The Principal (which was the George when I stayed there in October 2016).

My husband and I stayed here for our honeymoon and it's possibly the best hotel I've ever stayed in. Staff is attentive and so friendly, especially Mark! He was so helpful and just plain NICE. My husband and I talked about how nice he was the whole way up to the room hahah! Breakfast was also a hilight. The location is phenomenal as well. Overall such a great stay, couldn't imagine staying anywhere else if ever we return to Edinburgh!

Great hotel.Very stylish, clean and higher end hotel. The room which I had was amazing. Room 109 looked over George St. The separate living are was well decorated, the bed comfy and an awesome bathroom. I heard a little bit of noise from 12-2am coming from the night club over the road but It was very minimal. Looking at the rooms at the back of the property they were much smaller but more modern. Check-in was quick and they were very friendly. The elevator up button did not work so we had to hit the down button. The hotel has a great coffee shop, and 2 bar down the hallway to the left. Both bars have a large selection of cocktails and beers. One weird thing is to reach rooms down the back of the property if you're on floor zero, you need to take the first lift up to 1 and then walk down to another lift and take it back to zero. One negative thing is that it was near impossible to pull up out front to just drop our bags off. People were double parked and triple parked and for a while. It took probably 20 minutes of driving back and forth to finally find somewhere to park for 2 mins. Despite that it's a Nice place.I would stay here again and would recommend it to others.

I haven't written a review for several years, but I just had to tell this story. My husband and I checked into The Principal on our last night in Scotland after a 12 day holiday. Given that it is regarded as somewhat of an Edinburgh institution, I was shocked at the small, dark room in all grey tones which vaguely resembled a chic prison cell (or spacious closet). No even bottled water or coffee in the room. No turn down service. We left for the evening and the front desk staff promised to deliver some water to our room, but never did so. The front desk attendant told us that we were on our own to find parking. Overall highly disappointing and definitely the low point of an otherwise glorious trip with excellent hospitality. I would caution anyone against this establishment.

We have been on a holiday in Ireland and Scotland. This was our last stay and by far the best! Staff was so friendly - I felt like I was with a very welcoming family. Our first room was beautiful but we are very warm nature and got hot the first night. They very graciously offered to move us to an air conditioned room. I could go on and on but you will love this place.

We loved the Principal, better known as the George. We had a lovely suite that was comfortable and private. The coffee shop was excellent with a great location and a very short walk from Waverly train station and all of the sites in city. Peter, the concierge was extremely helpful in helping us plan a day trip to St Andrews and for whiskey tasting at the Deanston distillery. We had a wonderful time in Edinburgh and hope to return soon.

This hotel is simply amazing, their service is great and their restaurants are equally so, our stay here was easily the best we have had in Scotland, one thing I would like to see them fix is their air conditioning as only some rooms have em, and others have an unnecessary heater, with no way to effectively cool the room down, other than that, this is a MUST for a hotel

Outstanding hotel. Great location, very warm, pleasant and knowledgable staff. The rooms and common areas are decorated with top notch appointments. We had a very comfortable and enjoyable stay at the Principal - George Street.