EDINBURGH LUXURY BOUTIQUE HOTEL – The Principal George Street

Okay, it’s Luxury Fred and our adventure here in Edinburgh, Scotland continues. We have left the Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh, The Caledonia and now we are going to spend a few nights here at a very full new boutique property called The Principal. The Principal, and we are here on George Street, which I have not explored before. We are down the street from a big statue. There’s a big very cool looking church nextdoor, and another Georgian building over there and I think the building the hotel was in, was a bank.

Okay, so here we go into The Principal Edinburgh.

And I am wearing this cool antique top hat, because it came with this beautiful suite here at The Principal Edinburgh, George Street. So I’m going to give you a tour of my suite, which is number 103. I’m going to take off the hat.

So again, I’m here in Edinburgh, Scotland and this is a very cool boutique hotel. The immediate vibe I got from this hotel as soon as I started talking with them about visiting was excellent. The minute I walked in the door the vibe I got was excellent, that this is a great, cool, hip boutique hotel, beautiful accommodations and most importantly, staffed with people who both enjoy their job and care about their job, and care about focusing on one thing, which is providing each guest, no matter what their agenda, what they’re here for, leisure, pleasure, business, whatever, family, to make sure that that guest has the best experience possible. I really got that vibe. I got that feeling as soon as I walked in the front door here.

So again, this is my suite. This is suite number 103. The hotel is divided into two sections. The main central part, which I’ll be showing you some other video as part of this tour, the main part is a former insurance bank building, built in 1880. There is a wing of about 220 rooms that was built in the 1970s, kind of a modern wing. And then I am in the suites and junior suites which were created from three probably Regency period townhouses. So, this room retains the period molding and details and fireplace, and really kind of reflects the history of Edinburgh and of this specific property. Again, these were three private mansions that have now been combined to form part of this hotel.

This painting of this lovely lady is not specifically been identified, but they believe … They found this in one of the townhouses when it was converted into a hotel and they believe this was one of the former residents of one of the townhouses.

So again let me give you a tour. This is suite 103. So we have this large living area. Very stylish and contemporary, very high quality furniture. You know the couch isn’t saggy and things like that. Everything is really nicely done. This hotel was renovated under when … I believe it was about an eighteen month long renovation and just re-opened in November of 2016. So we have cute little touches that remind us we’re in Scotland, like this silhouette of Scottish dogs. We have the tartan on the pillow here and then we have, I believe this is a representation of the thistle, which is the flower, the national flower of Scotland. We also have a print of Robert Bruce, one of the countries great poets and writers. We have these two cool display cases with antique books, some antique drink decanters and some other kind of knick nacks that again bring the history of the building and this area into the room, including the andirons and that box down there.

Trying to think what to show you first. So we have another one of these display cases here. Again, this is The Principal, Edinburgh, George Street and it’s called that because as you can see here, we are right on George Street, which is one of Edinburgh’s main shopping and restaurants and clubs and things like that. Kind of one of the city’s main commercial streets and it’s a beautiful sunny day outside and a lot of people out exploring the city.

So again, we have this nice seating area, kind of in the living room here. Over here we have this nice hamper of local products that the hotel has kindly left for me. We have some pastries and cookies and chocolate that’s made in Scotland and apple and marrow chutney and this is some kind of interesting soda and a very nice note from the general manager. And the general manager gave me a great tour of the entire property top to bottom and explained the history of everything and it’s always great when I visit a hotel, as I was saying before, where the people that work at the hotel, whether it’s the housekeeper all the way up to the general manager, have a passion, a passion for the property, for making sure it’s the best it can be. And again as I said before, for making sure that each guest has that perfect experience regardless of why they’re in Edinburgh. And the hotel also heard that I liked red wine, so they left me some nice bottle of Pinot Noir.

So we have a work desk over here. Again, some cool antique suitcases as well as some antique books on the desk. And I was looking through these. These are actually fascinating natural history books from the middle of the nineteenth century, 1892, with all kinds of animals and plants in them.

Something cool here at The Principal, now The Principal, they have I think it’s three or four other properties in the UK. They have a property that they’re working on in Glasgow and I think they have hotels that are open in York and Manchester and then they’re about to open one in London. So again, they’re all The Principal London, The Principal York, The Principal Manchester and they have a couple more that are about to open up. All kind of historic, grand beautiful hotels that have been totally modernised and done in a stylish way as well.

Something cool here at The Principal is they have the red phone, the hotline. And instead of a bunch of different buttons for room service and valet and housekeeping and this and that and the other thing, all you do, you pick up the phone and you hit zero and it’s a single point of contact for whatever it is you need. You need something brought to your room that you forgot, you hit zero and they take care of it. You want room service, they take care of that. Anything is just through that simple, single point of contact to make everything easier. And I just had a fabulous Caesar salad for lunch.

Something else that’s cool in all the different guest rooms is this thing called a tuck box. And here in the UK, tuck means to kind of snack on things. And so this is free, complimentary little cookies and snacks and candies and things like that. So instead of putting them in the mini-bar and charging them for you, they’re all complimentary. You of course have a fancy tea service including a tea caddy to keep your tea warm, and something else that I’ve learned is that these Principal … The Principal coffee mugs have images that reflect the different cities where The Principal hotels are. So this is horseracing … Yeah, I think that’s horseracing. Then this is a ship and I’m not sure which Principal cities those two represent.

Coming back into the foyer here, kind of the entryway, again this is suite 103, we have a big closet here with a large safe and then additional storage space under here. Something interesting that I just learned is that there’s been some celebrity guests in this suite, including recently George Clooney stayed here.

So moving along into the little hallway here, again we have this beautiful oil painting of a mystery lady. We step into the fancy, stylish bathroom. Look at that nice antique style soaking tub, have the lavatory over there, stylish vanity. At The Principal they use ELEMIS amenities and this large marble shower here with the head, big shower head up there as well as the one on the wall. And again, beautiful marble walls and this is a very cool floor tile that almost looks like wood, but it’s tile I think.

And they we have wide planked hardwood floors here. And then moving into the bedroom of my beautiful suite here, you can see that we have these great views again overlooking George Street, right across from The HardRock Café over there. You can see the tour buses going by. Windows are double glazed so it’s very quiet. Can’t hear the traffic outside at all. And hopefully in the introduction to this video you saw a beautiful drone shot of the façade of this neo-classical building.

The center building here used to be a insurance company building and so we have these grand Roman columns across the front of the building along with a row of flags.

Big, comfortable bed. Again, reminding you that you’re in Scotland with the artwork showing, I believe that’s the Scottish Highlands, possibly Loch Ness and a nice, comfortable bed with three, six, eight, ten pillows. Ten pillows. And again, the hotline phone right there. We have a cool, kind of a little ladies dressing table here and this comes up with a mirror so you can do your makeup or you hair. For guys or gals. Not just ladies.

Then over here, we have a seat and my luggage. We have a nice framed flat screen TV and then in the bedroom here, we have another wardrobe which includes a Dyson fancy fan if it gets too hot, although the room does have very nice air conditioning. And there’s my drone which created the beautiful façade shot that hopefully you’ve already seen as the introduction to this video.

So again, very stylish, large, elegant, yet comfortable bedroom here. Suite 103, The Principal, Edinburgh, George Street. And as I had showed you before, one of the cool accessories is this antique beaver felt, which is the strange fur on the outside, hat, which to me looks more Regency, like the early 1800’s. The hat came in this very cool traveling hat box and the hat fits in there and then this goes on top. And if you were rich traveling with your hat in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, you have a brass plate up the top there, and your hat fits in this, which you can see was in the Royal … Was on a steamship in the cabin and so very cool antique traveling hat case.

So that concludes the tour. Suite 103 here at The Principal, Edinburgh, George Street.

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