Nice enough property marred by poor service...
At the outset, the apartment itself is quite nice and cosy despite some glitches (the front door is somewhat hard to lock, the bathroom door does not have a lock at all, the stove in the kitchen can only be lighted with a matchstick/lighter which is not very safe…). Do be aware that this property is a 15-20 bus ride + 10-15 minute walk from the city centre. I have only visited Edinburgh twice so am by no means an expert on the city, but as a group of young students we also did not get the impression that the neighbourhood was the nicest.
What unfortunately really killed the experience was the service. Before arrival, we had specifically been told that salt and pepper would be provided in the apartment. On our first day in Edinburgh, we stopped by at the local Sainsbury's before checking in to pick up groceries for dinner. Since we had been told the kitchen had salt and pepper, we did not buy any. Upon checking in, we discovered that the kitchen did not in fact have any salt and pepper. I called the host’s team (you do not interact individually with the host since the day-to-day managing of guests and the property has been outsourced) and explained that having been up and out since 4am, we could not reasonably be expected to go back to the store and buy salt and pepper. I was then told we would be reimbursed for ordering salt and pepper through Uber Eats/Deliveroo, which is exactly what I did.
We were however, only reimbursed for the paltry value of the actual salt and pepper itself and not the significant delivery/small order fees we had incurred from two separate orders. It is well known that ordering through online services involves delivery fees, and there is no way the member of the team who talked to me could not have been aware of this. On following up, we only received standard corporate-speak responses, with absolutely no acknowledgement of the fact that the host’s line of argument was disingenuous and in fact deceitful. As university students on a budget having to deal with this for no fault of ours was just distasteful.