Stayed for three nights, the hotel was fine the room was nice and big however found the staff and management very strange. Location was ok but a bit out of town. Breakfast was poor.

Located very close to Haymarket railway station and the bus stop for the airport shuttle. Plenty of restaurants and coffee houses nearby yet only a 15-20min walk to Princes St. The hotel is tastefully decorated, retaining much of its Georgian splendour. The staircase and the breakfast room are a treat. Breakfast was continental, with a wide choice of cereals, meats and fresh rolls. (Full breakfast on request). Has a comfortable lounge/bar that opens on request. Friendly staff. Would recommend highly.

We booked to stay here for 5 nights. On arrival at the hotel on Friday night and after paying the bill upfront, we were then informed that the hotel was not available to us for 5 nights and that we would have to move to their sister hotel on York Place on Monday morning for our last 2 nights. I found this extremely cheeky. Why we weren't we informed of this before we arrived and more importantly before we had handed over the money for the entire stay? I was unsettled by this act of sneakiness. We were advised that a taxi would be made available at the hotel's expense to transfer us to the other hotel and that we would need to be ready to move at 10am on the Monday. As requested we were ready by 10am only to be advised that the boss was not available to drive us to the new hotel until 12.30. We immediately told the staff member that we had been advised that a taxi would be transferring us and that we were not prepared to waste over 2 hours of our day waiting to be moved. There was alot of back and forth and eventually Beena collected us at 10.15. She was anything but friendly leaving us to feel almost like it was our fault for putting her out. I still cannot believe that they were not prepared to pay the taxi fare which would have been less than £10 to move us!
I am completely surprised at the positive comments and reviews which refer to friendly staff. At no point in our 3 night stay did we witness any such friendliness. One reviewer has already commented that there are no lifts in the hotel. We were staying on the very top floor and although there was a strong enough looking guy working there the night we checked in, not once were we offered any assistance with our bags and instead were left to lug them by ourselves up endless flights of steep stairs!
The showers have already been commented on by a number of reviewers. They were horrendous. A bare trickle at most. For the price we were paying to stay there, we at the very least expected a decent shower.
While the hotel building itself is lovely, it is a shame that it is not being run by friendlier people more dedicated to good customer service. I would never stay there again and would never recommend it to anyone.

Stayed at the Ballantrae for two nights in December for our wedding anniversary, the hotel is very nice, clean, fantastic sized room. Staff are very friendly, breakfast was excellent. Plenty tea / coffee etc in the room. Nice bar downstairs with reasonable prices. The only drawback we found was the car parking, the only spaces available were for permit holders, we found a car park at the Conference Centre ( 10 min walk ) and paid £12 from Friday till Sunday, so not so bad. Princess street is only a 10 min walk away from the hotel so position is ideal. We enjoyed a great weekend and have no hesitation to return