Prestonfield House

Very disappointing festive afternoon tea to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. It started reasonably well with a friendly welcome but went downhill rapidly with extremely slow service. The order for one of the festive afternoon teas to be vegan was forgotten, and two ordinary festive afternoon teas served instead. When this was pointed out, there was a chaotic removing of plates, my daughter was eventually given a regular savoury selection and I was informed that the kitchen were making the vegan items but I could make a start on the cakes instead. The savoury selection eventually arrived some 40 minutes later. The savoury and cakes /scone selection, the regular and the vegan selection, were okay but nothing particularly special. The recommended jasmine tea was lovely. The service unfortunately lacked any attention to detail, it would have been nice to be asked how everything was or whether we would like another pot of tea etc all very basic expectations of service in a 5-star hotel. When I booked the afternoon tea, I had noted that it would be my daughter’s birthday, however, there was absolutely no acknowledgment, not even a ‘happy birthday’, which was very disappointing.

This is my favourite hotel in Edinburgh and have been lucky enough to stay a few times. The decor, staff and attention to detail is outstanding and out of this world. Still pinching myself over last week’s overnight stay where I was upgraded to the resplendent Owners Suite. I cried happy tears at the most beautiful room I have ever stayed in. James Thomsons eye for fabrics, colours and decor is perfection. Thank you so much Prestonfield for making a wee dream come true. Future hotel rooms have now been ruined as none will come close xx

Hervorragend, tolle Karte! Auch spezielle Wünsche wurden erfüllt.

Die Hausschuhe waren für Männer definitiv zu eng und zu klein. Auch nach Reklamation konnte keine Abhilfe geschafft werden.

Staggeringly incompetent staff. I’ve stayed there twice but I will never be back. 1. I came down for breakfast, I was the only person in the breakfast room. I ordered a pot of tea from the lady with an eastern european accent and I got coffee! I WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE ROOM!!! And she cared so little, that she couldn’t even carry out the most simple order for a pot of tea!!! 2. I ordered the full Scottish breakfast. Nothing on the plate was cooked correctly. The haggis and black pudding were undercooked, grease soaked messes and they exploded out of me again later than morning. You don’t come to a fancy hotel to get explosive diarrhea! 3. The poached eggs were hard!!! Unforgiveable! Terrible service, disgusting food, atrocious cooking skills. They can’t even cook a basic poached egg. Incompetent front of house staff, incompetent back of house staff. 4. On my next stay in November 2025, I went down for dinner. I was shown to my table and left there for 20 minutes with nothing. When I eventually got up to find somebody, the asian lady who was supposed to be looking after me, told me that she hadn’t served any bread yet because it was still in the oven. When it eventually arrived, it was stone cold!!! I thought it had been in the oven? Either lying or incompetent. I say both! 5. Whilst eating that dinner, the east asian lady and a south asian man stood in the room talking to each other loudly that ruined my eating experience. I can tell you all about their work history, this was her first fine dining experience and he was going to HR about his working hours. They yapped throughout the entire dinner and ruined it. Please do not think this is a 5 star hotel. It’s absolutely not! Nor is the food “fine dining”. 6. The beef was hot and the broccoli was stone cold! Stone cold. 7. I booked afternoon tea 2 weeks before my birthday. I had the worst year of my life and came to this hotel to get away from it all. So I booked an afternoon tea in a private room as a little birthday treat to myself. When I came down at the appointed time, the room hadn’t even been set up. 8. I was then left in that room for 45 minutes with nothing but a pot of tea. No food. No scones, no sandwiches, no cakes. Absolutely nothing. And you know what? I kind of thought that these incompetents would leave me in that private room and forget about me and they did! 9. My birthday being ruined, I complained to a supposed manager who was as useful as a chocolate hot water bottle. She stood there like a lemon and offered me absolutely nothing to make up for the ruined birthday and the fiasco afternoon tea that never arrived. 10. Walking my dog in the grounds, I put the doggy bag in a bin at the front door. Minutes later the doorman shouted at me and handed me the bag of dog poo and told me to put it in a doggy bin on the other side of the grounds!!! He knew I was a repeat hotel guest and yet he still humiliated me. He was working in a hotel with over a hundred bins and yet he hands a bag of poo to a guest! Most of the staff are just useless here. Most are nice of course, courteous and smiley but they have no common sense and are unbelieveably incompetent. I would guess there is a high turnover of staff here as in the three months between my visits, there seemed to be a lot of new people. That’s a bad sign in a hotel. I travel all the time and stay in all kinds of hotels and never have I experienced such a useless bunch that can’t do the simplest thing right. Incompetent on so many levels. Nobody has apologised to me and the incredibly irritating woman who I checked out with said nothing about any incident, even though she knew of the debacles. There was no apologies. No refunds. Nothing comped. No good will. A beautiful hotel but the staff completely ruined it for me and I will never return. It may seem like first world problems, but I’m not rich. This is a very expensive hotel and I saved to come here are as a treat, and an experience that should have been wonderful was ruined by incompetent staff. I will follow up on this review shortly and let you know if the management (who will absolutely read this review) offer me anything in the way of a refund. Days later I am still so upset and angry about my experience because this is a beautiful hotel and I wanted to return here again and again and again. I’ve spent over £4000 in 2 visits and was going to return many times a year, but there’s zero chance of that now. A shout out to Remo was excellent in every respect.

Amazing location, decor and atmosphere! An absolute gem within the city of Edinburgh ❤️

Leaving!!

Relaxing, home from home with excellent friendly staff. They were preparing for Christmas and it looks sublime. Everyone working with enthusiasm and pride for the property. Our second visit to Prestonfield House and we will be back. Thanks to Jenny (reception) for your help and to Joaquin (excuse spelling) for your knowledge of the house and its contents!

This trip was for my partner s 60th birthday. From start to finish this was an amazing experience. The house was beautiful, the staff were so efficient and had a beautiful way with them, the grounds were looked after and well manicured. We had a ground floor room which was so well equipped there was nothing I couldn’t think of that was missing. Thankyou soooo very much to all of you that made our stay special. We shall hopefully be back.