The Hilton Edinburgh Carlton is a huge, impressive hotel on North Bridge, halfway along the Royal Mile between the Castle and Holyrood Palace, and right between the Old Town and New Town, making it quite possibly the most perfect location in Edinburgh for easy access to…… well, everything. Looking for souvenir shops, whisky, restaurants of any kind, tour meeting points, trains and buses? It’s all right here. I was happy to spend 50,000 Hilton Honors points per night in this hotel, making the first half of my trip pretty much free.
As soon as check in was available on my Hilton Honors app, I popped in to see what rooms were available for me. I snagged the only available room on the 5th floor, the highest, and ended up with an amazing view overlooking the Northbridge, Waverley train station, with the Balmoral Hotel looming in the background. I could see as far west as the Scott Monument, and as far east as Calton Hill. Wow!
Here is the view looking back from on top of the Scott Monument:
Room 534 was a perfect home base for me as a solo traveler. A standard room reward of 50,000 points gets you a standard queen or king room. I enjoyed the king size bed, plush bathroom, and lots of USB charging plugs for devices! It was a little small, with just enough room for skirting around the edge of the bed, but it was fine with me. I certainly wasn’t there much other than for sleeping and showering!
Here’s a look at the bathroom:
In addition to the great location, the next best thing about this hotel was the incredible hot breakfast which was included with my Gold Status. Every morning I looked forward to this fantastic spread of hot foods. I am absolutely in love with the Scottish breakfast: bacon, sausage, beans, haggis and black pudding, eggs…… oh my!
I just realized how consistent I am (predictable?) These two breakfasts were on two different days, and yet I made my plate in almost the exact same arrangement. I will spare you the photo of the 3rd day’s breakfast (maybe you can guess what it looks like).
The coffee, the service, everything was delightful. And the fact that I paid for my stay with points making it free was just incredible.
Here was the view from my room:
