A Lesson Not To Rush A Hotel Opening: 2 Nights At The Virgin Edinburgh

The Virgin brand — whether at sea, up in the sky or at its hotels — is known for trendy, youthful vibes with offbeat amenities galore.

Virgin’s latest hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland, might have all that … one day. However, a recent stay there, nearly four months after the hotel first opened its doors, revealed a property that feels like it opened prematurely.

Guest rooms are complete, but important chunks of the hotel were still under construction, with wishy-washy projections on the timeline for their openings.

While the room was comfortable and relatively affordable compared to a stay around the corner at the Gleneagles Townhouse, there were too many friction points when it came to service and even the appearance of the hotel to make up for its moderate price tag.

The issues ranged from first being assigned a guest room that clearly hadn’t been cleaned to design flaws like a minuscule check-in area (confined welcome areas do appear to be a burgeoning brand standard) for a hotel with more than 200 rooms.

Hopefully, the Virgin team will be able to address these faults as the brand begins to add more locations (future openings are planned for Glasgow, Scotland, New York City and Miami just to name a few).

That’s not to say the hotel, which officially opened June 1, doesn’t have the right ingredients for a successful run. The recipe just hasn’t been perfected yet.

Booking details

Virgin Hotels aren’t part of the major hotel chains, but most of them participate in the Virgin Red loyalty program as well as the hotel-specific The Know guest preference program. From there, it gets a little confusing — namely, you won’t earn Virgin Red points staying at the Edinburgh property. It isn’t clear why.

Virgin Red is the umbrella loyalty program across a variety of Virgin brands while The Know is Virgin Hotels’ personalized platform for loyalty and guest choices that keeps track of preferences on everything from needing a bowl for your dog to wanting a unique amenity sent up to a room for a special occasion. The Know is offered at Virgin Edinburgh.

The platforms do play off each other, as Virgin Red members can earn 2,000 Virgin points if they book a Virgin Hotel stay and sign up for The Know. Again, however, this wouldn’t apply to Virgin Edinburgh. While The Know is about preferences, for room upgrades and goodies like free cocktails at the hotel bar, Virgin Red is where you earn and redeem points for a variety of travel experiences.

I initially booked a nightly cash rate for a Chamber King room with a flexible cancellation policy for 316 British pounds per night ($366 at the time of my booking earlier this summer), which was the most affordable option, directly through the hotel’s site. Capital One cardholders benefit from Virgin Red becoming a transfer partner this year. You can also link your Virgin Red account to your Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account to combine rewards — not a bad option considering Flying Club is a transfer partner of other programs like American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Because the British pound dropped in value while the dollar remained strong during our stay, it ended up being cheaper than expected for a Grand King Chamber, two tiers up from the bottom category (a Chamber Balcony room between the two offerings wasn’t available the nights of our stay). By the time it got closer to check in, the rate for the Grand King Chamber was going for 327.60 pounds ($360) per night, so I changed my booking to that option to get a little more room for less than what I had originally planned to pay for a smaller room.

It should be noted that prices may not be as kind to American travelers who book a stay here in the future, based on currency fluctuations.

Getting there

The Virgin Edinburgh is a 10-minute walk from the Edinburgh Waverley train station, which features service to points throughout the U.K., like London to the south and Inverness to the north. There are also rental car facilities here if you’re wanting to drive to other parts of Scotland, like we did.

The hotel is about a half-hour drive from Edinburgh Airport, and a ride between it and the hotel costs about 20 pounds ($25).

Standout features

• The property gets high marks for its design scheme blending the historic and the cool, as this very trendy brand’s Edinburgh location is spread across three former city registry office buildings.
• There are no wasted spaces in the hotel. Even hidden corners are maximized as small sitting areas where you can unwind with a book or take a meal from the bar. The Virgin team clearly had fun selecting works from contemporary local artists for the decor, but the hotel still leans into its historic features, including plentiful wood paneling, a magisterial library and its location in the Old Town neighborhood, just a block off the Royal Mile.
• The staff skews younger, and it was fun to see how cheerful those staffing the Commons Club (the main hotel bar) were whenever we dropped by for a drink or a meal. They even remembered attractions we planned on visiting during the day and put us in a special private room for a quick bite to eat for dinner when other seating wasn’t available.

Drawbacks

• Why did this hotel open so soon and without everything ready to go? Signs throughout the Virgin Edinburgh directed guests to things that had yet to open. Didn’t anyone at Virgin ever hear the lesson “slow and steady wins the race?”
• A hotel this young shouldn’t be showing signs of wear and tear this early in its lifetime — especially when certain parts of the property still aren’t open. Along with an elevator panel held together with tape, the cold water tap in the bathroom in our room was already loose, and there were already snags on the closet curtain. For a hotel charging $360 a night, certain fixtures, including the toilet, felt generic and shoddy.
• Even simple requests or queries seemed to fluster the laid-back staff. The exception was at the Commons Club bar, where the manager clearly runs a tight ship while still having fun with her staff.
• Due to the limitations of building out a hotel within a historic space, getting to certain public spaces and amenities like the gym felt disjointed, and guest room layouts could be awkward, such as entering directly into a dressing area rather than a foyer or the main room.
• While I enjoyed the modern touches of the hotel, it probably isn’t for everybody — especially those looking for a high-end historic hotel in the heart of Edinburgh. The Balmoral or the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh — The Caledonian are around the corner for those kinds of travelers.

The vibe

The Virgin Edinburgh feels like staying with a fabulous, trendy friend who bought a historic townhouse, then did a gut renovation and redesign that wows many, but likely annoys the conservative neighbors who have lived on the same street for decades. The art is fun and, at times, risque. Hallways and other public spaces are begging to be shared on Instagram thanks to their funky design, and it all pulls together in an old-meets-new eclectic scheme that works.

The guest profile was all over the place during my stay, from a wedding group to airline crews to young couples and older guests. There were even a few buttoned-up travelers who appeared to be in the city for business.

It will be exciting to see this brand grow, and the Edinburgh property makes me wish the Virgin team would start doing more historical building renovations in the U.S. instead of their more recent and upcoming streak of modern glass buildings.