Edinburgh, Scotland: The Balmoral, Gleneagles Townhouse and The Witchery

Source: the three hotels’ own sites, except The Balmoral’s check-in times (MICHELIN Guide booking page) and the Keys (Michelin Guide list). “None stated” means we found nothing on that point, not that the hotel offers nothing.

None of the three hotels prints a nightly rate on its own site; a price appears only once you enter dates in the booking engine. The nearest thing to a published rate is the MICHELIN Guide’s hotel booking pages, which on 11 November 2026 opened with one adult and the night of 9 to 10 December already selected:

The two figures are not like for like: the Balmoral rate can be cancelled free until 7 December, the Gleneagles Townhouse rate cannot be refunded, and neither is the hotel’s own rate. Treat them as an order of magnitude for a December weeknight, not a quote: one channel, one date, the cheapest room. The page does not say whether its “taxes & fees” include the visitor levy or Gleneagles Townhouse’s service charge.

What it costs: published prices and charges

All read on official pages on 11 November 2026.

How to check a rate for your dates

1. Enter your dates and two adults on each hotel’s own booking page, and note which room category the first price belongs to.
2. Check what the total includes. The Gleneagles Townhouse offer rate includes VAT and the 5% levy; The Witchery says its rates are “subject to applicable taxes and fees”. If the levy is not shown, add 5% of the room cost for each paid night, up to five nights in a row.
3. Add the discretionary charges. At Gleneagles Townhouse that is 5% on the room rate. A price from another channel, such as the MICHELIN Guide figure, already includes taxes and fees, so ask the hotel whether the charge is added to a rate booked there.
4. Read the deposit before you pay: the first night under the Gleneagles Townhouse offer, £100 a night at The Witchery. The Balmoral’s pages publish none.
5. Set the price against the hotel’s own offers above, and against the same night on a second channel such as the MICHELIN Guide page.
6. Ask in writing what the rate includes. Outside its offer, Gleneagles Townhouse does not say whether breakfast is part of the rate, and The Witchery does not say whether rates booked elsewhere include it.

At 1 Princes Street, under its clock tower, The Balmoral calls itself “a symbol of its city” and promises “4 AA Rosette dining, French-Scottish bistro fare, award-winning afternoon tea and a serene urban spa”, along with whisky ambassadors and 500 malts. It does not say which restaurant holds the Rosettes. Its dining pages are Number One, Brasserie Prince, Bar Prince, Palm Court, where afternoon tea is served from noon to 5pm, and the bar SCOTCH.

The hotel counts 167 rooms and 20 suites, which makes it by far the largest of the three. Rooms start at 19 m² for a Classic Room with a queen bed and a courtyard view; most categories have a king bed that can be twinned, and the largest suite listed, the Glamis, measures 105 m².

It is also the one of the three built for families. The hotel welcomes children of all ages, sets rooms up with cots, offers extra beds and interconnecting rooms on request and takes 50% off children’s menus. Its Family Room joins two Executive View rooms: 50 m² for four guests.

The Irene Forte Spa has an indoor lap pool, a sauna and steam room, five treatment rooms and a gym, open daily from 7am to 10pm, and a spa membership brings “full access to the facilities”. What the hotel does not say is whether that access comes with a room, so put the question when you book.

The practical terms: valet parking at £45 a night with a space guaranteed, dogs under 20 lb at £50 per stay, one per room, and airport transfers, a 25-minute drive by the hotel’s reckoning. Check-in and check-out times are not on the hotel pages we read; the MICHELIN Guide booking page gives 3pm and noon.

Gleneagles’ first city outpost sits at No. 39 St Andrew Square. It has 33 guestrooms, “shaped by the spirit of our Georgian home”, an all-day restaurant and bar called The Spence, and a members’ club. “Members and hotel guests get the keys to our rooftop bar for skyline cocktails,” the hotel says of Lamplighters; it gives no hours and does not say whether you need to book.

The rooms come in four categories. The hotel states the sizes as ranges, and they overlap:

Every room sleeps two at most. If a bath matters, ask for it by name when you book: only the Master Bedroom is listed with one throughout.

The wellness space, The Strong Rooms, has a gym and studios, a cryotherapy chamber and infrared saunas. The hotel lists “over 60 complementary classes” (its spelling) and says they “are available for members and hotel guests to book”. The gym is less clear, because the hotel’s own pages disagree. The room page says house guests have access to the gym and wellness spaces; the FAQ says residents are welcome if they “have a treatment or class booked”; the wellness page, titled “Members’ Gym & Spa”, carries the caption “The Strong Rooms - Members Only” above its gym section; and the Twice as Nice offer lists access to The Strong Rooms among its inclusions. Ask which applies to your stay.

The practical terms are plainer. Check-in is from 3pm and check-out by 11am. Breakfast is served in The Spence from 7am to 10.30am Monday to Friday and from 8am to 10.30am at weekends, except on the last weekend of each month, when it runs from 7.30am to 10am because of the Spence Brunch Club. Cots are available on request, but there are no extra beds. The MICHELIN Guide listing says the opposite about cots, so if you need one, have it confirmed in writing. Dogs up to the size of a Labrador are accepted, two per room at most, at £100 per dog, per night. There is no on-site parking or valet; the hotel has a limited number of private spaces in St James Quarter at £28.20 a day, to be requested at least 48 hours ahead.

On Castlehill, on the Royal Mile, The Witchery keeps nine suites above its restaurant in buildings dating back to 1595; in the hotel’s words they “scream romance with a capital ‘R’”. Each has a name: The Vestry, The Sempill, The Old Rectory, The Library, The Inner Sanctum, The Heriot, The Guardroom, The Armoury and The Turret.

The limits that the site’s banner leaves vague are spelled out in its FAQs and terms:

• Suites: “designed for two adults sharing a UK king-sized bed”. Every suite has one king-size bed, and the hotel cannot add another. Guests aged 10 and over may stay when sharing a suite with an accompanying adult; younger children, infants included, may not.
• Dining rooms: parties of up to six, and children aged 10 and over. The hotel encourages smart dress.
• Breakfast: for suite guests only, in the Original Dining Room or as a hamper brought to the suite.
• Arrival: check-in after 2:30pm, check-out before 11:30am. The Witchery has no car park of its own (the nearest NCP is a 5-minute walk, at the corner of Johnston Terrace and Castle Terrace) and does not take dogs.

The prices it does publish are for its dining rooms, not its suites: a set lunch at £39.50 for two courses or £49.50 for three, served daily from noon until 4:30pm, and afternoon tea from £60 per person, Monday to Friday from 2:30pm to 3:30pm, except in August and from 21 to 23 December.

Its sister property, Prestonfield House, was awarded a Michelin Key for 2026 and is a Relais & Châteaux member, according to The Witchery’s site.

The Balmoral and The Witchery both use “5-Star” in their page titles, and neither page names who awarded the stars. It cannot be a current VisitScotland grade: VisitScotland retired its Quality Assurance grading on 31 March 2025. The AA still awards professionally inspected star ratings, published on its RatedTrips site, but those listings would not open for us, so we cannot say whether either hotel holds one. Gleneagles Townhouse states no stars on the pages we read. One independent mark we could read: Forbes Travel Guide’s listing for The Balmoral carries its 2026 Five-Star badge.

Michelin’s 2026 list for Great Britain and Ireland, published 18 September 2026, gives Two Keys to The Balmoral and to Gleneagles Townhouse, the latter new this year. The Witchery is not on that list. The selection runs to 11 Three-Key, 47 Two-Key and 92 One-Key hotels. It is the 2026 list, so check the current one before you lean on it.

For another label, and what it does and does not tell you, see our page on Paris Palace hotels.

By train from London

LNER said in September 2025 that its timetable from December 2025 would bring London King’s Cross to Edinburgh down to around four hours and ten minutes on many of the fastest services; check the current timetable for your train. Trains arrive at Edinburgh Waverley. Gleneagles Townhouse puts the station a two-minute walk away, and the MICHELIN Guide notes that The Balmoral opened in 1902 as the North British Hotel, a railway hotel next to Waverley. The Witchery gives no walking directions; it describes itself as “perched on Castlehill just steps from the gates to Edinburgh Castle”.

By air from London

Edinburgh Airport lists these London airports among its destinations:

The list shows neither season nor days of operation, so check the airline’s schedule before you book the hotel.

From Edinburgh Airport

Edinburgh Trams run between the airport and the city centre in 30 minutes, according to Edinburgh Airport: every seven minutes from 6:30am to 7pm and every ten minutes early and late, with the first tram from the airport at 06:30 and the last at 22:52. The route has stops named Princes Street and St Andrew Square, the street and the square where The Balmoral and Gleneagles Townhouse have their addresses; no stop is named for Castlehill. An adult airport single costs £7.90. By road, The Balmoral puts the airport 25 minutes away and lists airport transfers; Gleneagles Townhouse says about 30 minutes and arranges transfers with 48 hours’ notice.

If you are visiting from abroad

Unless you hold a British or Irish passport, you will usually need an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) rather than a visa if you come from Europe, the USA, Australia, Canada or certain other countries. It costs £20 and lasts two years or until your passport expires, and each traveller needs one, babies and children included.