Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel

First night of our stay we booked a double room and only offered a twin room as they were overbooked. We were told they have luggages custodian services for a charge but then told me not for overnight, we were struggled as we joined a 3 days tour to highland, luckily we could bring along the big and heavy luggages with us for the trip. When we came back from the trip we checked in the hostel again, and found that the utilities were not cleaned up from previous users.

Great

I’ve only stayed in a couple of hostels before and was attracted to this for the fact it was the only one I could find with separate-sex dorms (i.e. I was in an all female dorm). Plus, the bathrooms were in each room not one big communal bathroom. The rooms were clean, big for a hostel, the shared kitchen was big and clean, and it’s eco-friendly. It caters to large groups, including school groups, and is NOT a ‘backpackers’. The area is great and very accessible to any part of Edinburgh. I felt safe the whole time there and the staff were lovely. I would 100% stay here again or any other Hostelling Scotland sites.

We had booked a private room for three people, all confirmed in emails but we had TWICE in 12 hours' time other people accessing our room as the reception staff had allocated them a bed in pour room. One was after 4pm, staff apologised it being their mistake after I went to the reception and the woman a bed had been allocated in our room agreed to wait in the corridor, the time this happened was at 04.20am when we were fast asleep and my husband woke up when a woman (intoxicated or and/or on something else) dived into his bed and dug her hands into his ribcage! She refused to leave the room and climbed onto a upper bunk bed with all her clothes on (where we had our personal stuff including binoculars and a laptop) and refused to wait in the corridor as I dashed to the reception once again. Staff were helpful (were able to remove this lady from our room) and accepted it had been their mistake, once again. This left us feeling very unsafe and shaken and just wishing the morning came quickly and we would be able to speak with the manager and leave.The assistant manager in the morning was helpful and got in touch with the manager who promised us full refund as I stated this should not have happened, their computer system should be more up to date to allocate rooms and we are not willing to pay. Luckily it we were three adults and able to defend ourselves! Spacious room but only three chairs despite the room having five beds, draughty window by the double bed.

I had a private room at the hostel. The room was very basic, which is fine, but the biggest issue was the drains in the bathroom. The shower drain did not flow and I had to turn the shower off for shampooing to avoid water flowing out of the shower room. The water stayed on the floor for most of the night. Also, the bed was very small, which was fine by me (I'm 5'2"), but a taller person might struggle. The floors were also not very clean. It felt like a stripped down version of a school dorm room, so even for a hostel it was a bit bare. Location and staff were great however!