wottravel

Thanks for adding the two pictures. Appreciate work keeps you from adding more at the moment, but what you have posted and said does give a very good impression.

The location, if you want to be just outside of Edinburgh, looks amazing and the views are spectacular. I know f the location having driven past it a couple of times, so I'm looking forward to staying there at some point.

Safe travels and a Happy New Year. Hope you had a great Hogmanay!

lifetimeblue

A bit belated... but I can confirm you will receive points and stay credit when staying at this hotel (assuming you book via the normal Hilton channels).

Just about to stick my photos and review up now.

lifetimeblue

Hi All,

Apologies for this being seriously tardy, I've been swamped with work recently.
I hope you find this useful, give me a shout if there are any questions.
You can get more and higher resolution images on the blog post link I've included below.

The Hotel



The Queensferry Hotel is currently an affiliate hotel of Hilton HHonors which is destined to be a Doubletree by Hilton following a full renovation in 2016.

The hotel was bought over by the Cairn Group of Hotels in 2013 following the previous management company, Delight Hotels, being ousted by the then owner of the property.
Delight Hotels appear to have ran the hotel into the groud and left quite a mess for Cairn Hotels to clear up including unpaid staff salaries and utility bills (see here for more details: https://www.thecaterer.com/articles/...say-new-owners).

Cairn Hotel Group also own the Doubletree by Hilton Newcastle Airport which is a well regarded hotel.

Refurbishment



The refurbishment of the hotel is ongoing, but was not intrusive during our stay.
All of the bedrooms have now been fully refurbished to a high standard. There has also been a soft refurbishment completed of reception, restaurant and some other common areas. Cairn Group also plan on adding additional bedrooms to the property with a new extension, along with a leisure centre and new restaurant and bar.
I think they have done a fantastic job getting the place up to scratch thus far, with even the areas that have only had a soft refurbishment looking pretty good (I've been in far worse looking Hilton Hotels recently, particularly in Scotland).

Location



The hotel is nestled in the hillside immediately to the left of the Forth Road Bridge (if you are heading northbound).

Access is easy enough from the A90. There is also direct pedestrian access to the hotel grounds from the Forth Road Bridge. I can't vouch for public transport links, however their website suggests there is a local bus service to Edinburgh. There is also a train station in North Queensferry with train links to Edinburgh.

Checkin



Reception is on the first floor, accessed via a small entrance hall on the ground floor which has stairs or a lift up to the first floor.

Checkin went smoothly and all of the staff were friendly. The staff were very much still learning the Hilton computer system which they had only been switched over to a few days previous to our stay, so things took a little longer than normal but nothing excessive.

All of the paperwork and room key sleeves were Cairn Group branded, so no mention of Doubletree by Hilton on anything, no cookie either which I expected with it only being an affiliate hotel at this stage.

Room



Our room was in the newer part of the hotel which has just had a full refurbishment of the rooms and corridors.
The rooms have been refurbished to a very high standard and offer fantastic views of the bridges and river (assuming you are in a deluxe riverview, otherwise you'll be onto the back of the hotel).

The room had plenty of storage, a fridge (for your own use), ample amount of sockets (including USB for phone charging), a large desk with the flat screen TV mounted on the wall and most importantly a massive and very comfortable king sized bed.

Nicely done lighting with a variety of options, including a floor level night light which was great for guiding yourself to the toilet during the night without disturbing the other half.

The rooms have absolutely nothing in terms of hotel information/documentation, which I found odd. I suspect they are waiting until the Doubletree rebrand to introduce these, but they really could do with something for now, even if it were just a basic information sheet with items such as breakfast times, checkout times, room service options etc. on there.

Bathroom


(You can see more images on my blog by clicking here: http://offonone.co.uk/2015/12/double...nsferry-hotel/ )

Bathroom is on the small side, but modern and clean. There was no bath, only a shower, but it was a large double one with great pressure. Like many of the newer hotels, the shower screen isn't great and makes it very easy to flood the place if you aren't careful.

The bathroom has a built in speaker linked to the TV in the bedroom, with a volume control on the inside of the bathroom.

The toiletries on offer are very basic, not the normal Doubletree ones and could do with being improved.

Breakfast



Breakfast was served in the North Shore restaurant just down from reception. It was very busy as there was a few Christmas party nights on during our stay.

Breakfast is served from 7.00am - 10.00am at the weekend, 6.30am - 9.30am midweek.

It was the normal buffet idea with a reasonably selection, but maybe slightly smaller than the normal Doubletree offering. The food was all of decent quality.
Tea/Coffee and toast was ordered at your table and brought over by the staff.

Bars & Restaurants



We ate in the North Shore restaurant for both Lunch and Dinner during our stay and were impressed with the food, value and service on both occasions. I've also since visited the restaurant a number of times for meals and had the same positive experience.

If you place your order before 6pm they have a "Twenty's Plenty" deal in which you get two mains and two soft or alcoholic drinks for �20 which I found to be very good value.
Their chuck steak burger was seriously nice, with lovely hand cut chips and a homemade tomato sauce.

Their main menu in the evening is also reasonably priced and well presented. I had the Confit Duck Leg which was nice, but a bit too salty in my opinion.
Their house wine is reasonably priced at around �15 for a bottle which was nice enough.

Both menus are on the small side, but I found the selection they have to work well and all of the dishes I've sampled to be well executed and presented.

You can view both of their menus on the hotels own website at http://www.queensferryfifehotel.co.u...page-2288.html

Parking

There is ample parking at the front of the hotel which is not charged for. Some of the car park is currently closed off due to the renovation work, but there is still plenty.

HHonors Benefits

Hhonors benefits are all very vague at the moment with it not being a Doubletree yet.

You earn HHonors points on your room rate and incidentals as you would at any Doubletree by Hilton along with stay credit.

We received a full breakfast as Gold on a rate that didn't include breakfast, so I assume this means the breakfast benefit is being honoured.
I also asked for a late checkout of one hour which was honoured as their standard checkout time is 11am. Unfortunately no one told housekeeping I had requested this, so in the morning I had a mildly irate head housekeeper knocking at my door at 11.15am asking when I was going to leave.
On a stay following this one later in December, I also recieved a room upgrade from a standard room to a deluxe with river view on a points and cash rate, so room upgrades do happen.

Hopefully Cairn Group will duplicate what they have done at their other hotel Doubletree by Hilton Newcastle Airport where they treat Gold and Diamond members well. In Newcastle, Golds get free breakfast, room upgrade (almost all of the time), 2 x drinks vouchers on arrival as standard along with a few other benefits.

Conclusion



This hotel is the makings of a fantastic Doubletree. It is a great hotel for a one or two night stopover, for business and leisure with it just being off the A90 and only around 15 minutes drive from Edinburgh Airport. The room rates (both cash and points) are normally very reasonable.

You need to bear in mind though that this isn't a full blown Doubletree by Hilton just yet. Most of the hard product is now up to standard, but some of the service offerings aren't quite where they need to be. For example, I don't think room service is available and small things like the toiletries lacking I know will be offputting to some.

You can get more info and full size images on my blog by clicking on the this link: http://offonone.co.uk/2015/12/double...nsferry-hotel/

hugolover

Thanks for your review. As Diamond two drink vouchers were provided for my stay last month.

lifetimeblue

They actually forgot to give me my breakfast vouchers (I didn't know you got these until they added the breakfast charge to my bill), so Golds may well get them too as they do in Newcastle.

What did you think of the rooms?

chrism20

I was here in December attending a party night. I never posted anything at the time as the visit resulted in the mother of all complaints to Cairn Group regarding the party night. In short the function was managed in such a poor manner from the moment we arrived. My advice is to avoid attending any function in the place if at all possible. It was such a shame as we have had several events there over the years and never had any problems but due to this we will never hold another function there.

As a guest however I would recommend staying in the hotel. As lifetimeblue has said a lot of money has been spent on the accommodation and the rooms are very comfortable whilst breakfast was of good quality it just a shame the event I attended was managed like a school disco.

hugolover

It looked good on the surface but it wasn't that clean in places. There is a runner across the desk that was caked in dirt from all the crumbs that had fallen down over the years because I think it was the original and had not been replaced. The shower head was loose in the bathroom. There is also no where to put your shower products while using the shower except the floor which is a clear oversight and was quite annoying! I forgot to feed this back actually.

Staff were nice enough, especially the night manager who reopened the bar to give us our free drinks.

There was no issue in getting a complimentary Guardian as part of the HHonors bennies.

I would return. I think my criticisms can easily be resolved if they haven't already.

lifetimeblue

Thinking about it... I did noticed some less than clean corners in the bathroom on both of our visits. Our shower head also had weird marks all over it.

Hopefully it is just teething issues which will be resolved before the changeover to DT.

lifetimeblue

Quick update - on my last visit I received the below welcome letter as HHonors Gold, which is a new thing.

It at least clarifies the benefits they are offering, but it doesn't mention room upgrades which from experience do happen.

adobbing

Any recent experiences here, wondering how the transition to Hilton is going?

chrism20

I haven't stayed but passed it on the way up to Aberdeen on Tuesday. The frame for the new building/extension is now complete by the look of it. I'd say it will be about another six to eight months for the new rooms to come online, I'm not sure if the changeover is not going to happen until then or whether it will happen beforehand.

ScubaRoo

Called in there today for a quick look, considering using after flying back into EDI on a long haul. Driving north the next day.

Looks good there's a public bus 747 that you can catch from the north side of the bridge.

New wing open April/May

Restaurant upgraded by January.

Nice staff, you can tell they seem happy about the development.

I'll be making a booking.

adobbing

Sounds interesting may now give it a whirl.

It's run by Cairn, who operate the very good doubletree at Newcastle airport.
They are also about to open the new Hotel Indigo on princess street in Edinburgh on the 14th November.

ScubaRoo

Approx 30 mins to the airport (assuming traffic runs ok) on the 747

�8.20 each

https://www.stagecoachbus.com/routes/east-scotland/747/halbeath-park-ride-edinburgh-airport/xhao747.o

Taxi approx �26..

:D!

Stayed here once in June and once in October.

Apart from the cookie it's pretty much what you'd expect from a Doubletree, comparable to e.g. the Dundee one

Got the same letter as posted above by lifetimeblue.

Construction and refurbishment had progressed well since June. In June the corridors and walls were covered with floorboards and the room was basically empty, without even a pen and notepad (though there was a bathrobe with slippers), but in October it was fine. My wife particularly liked the numerous power points at the bedside. There were bottles of water and lemonade and chocolate bars in the room.

Note, the �8.20 airport bus fare (bus 747) mentioned above is for a same day return, but a single is �5.90 and a return within a month is �11.

From the same stops the X55 bus goes to and comes from Edinburgh for �4.50 single. Alternatively a 10 minute strenuous walk (steep climbs / descents) to North Queensferry rail station, fare is �4.70 to Edinburgh. The bus is very convenient on the way back as it stops right outside the hotel, but the other way you have to go underneath the road which may be difficult for those less mobile. On weekday mornings traffic across the bridge is bad and the train may be preferable if no luggage.

If staying out late in the city, the N55 night bus can be used too, however, I just missed one bus and rather than waiting an hour I hailed an empty cab and he agreed to take me to the hotel for �30 (not using the meter)

However, as the current Forth road bridge is due to be replaced (you can see the new bridge from the rooms you're likely to get as a Hilton elite), not sure what is going to happen to the bus routes.