nho9504

Can anyone know about the differences between the 2 airport locations? And if the in-town location convenient to get to and leave? On our upcoming trip in Sept, we would take train from London to Edinburgh, if GNER ever issue the purchasable itinerary for Sept 10! (They are planning engineering work on that weekend and so far no departure is purchasable online). On day 3 we will take a rental from Avis for 4 days, then return the car at Liverpool where we will fly out to Paris the following day. Looking at Avis site, here are the 3 locations they listed for Edinburgh. Not knowing anything I have booked our car for EDI, but there is another airport location at Terminal Building - does that mean that one is more convenient?!
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3 Rental Locations Found for edinburgh, United Kingdom


Edinburg Airport Choice - JL1
Terminal Building, Edinburgh, EH12 9DN , United Kingdom
0131 3443900
Sun 09:00AM-11:30PM; Mon-Fri 07:00AM-11:30PM; Sat 08:00AM-11:30PM

Edinburgh Airport - EDI
Almond Avenue, Edinburgh, EH12 9DN , United Kingdom
(44) 0131 3443900
Sun 09:00AM-11:30PM; Mon-Fri 07:00AM-11:30PM; Sat 08:00AM-11:30PM

Avis - EDD
Dalry Road (5 West Park Place), Edinburgh, EH11 2DP , United Kingdom
(44) 0870 153 9103
Sun 09:00AM-12:00PM; Mon-Fri 08:00AM-06:00PM; Sat 08:00AM-01:00PM

alanRow

The 2 offices in the airport are actually the same office - the terminal building one is a sub office dealing with people coming off flights, the other one is where you actually pick up the vehicle.

The Dalry Road one is about half a mile west of the west end of Princes Street & takes about 10 minutes on a bus to get to from Waverley station or a few minutes walk from Haymarket rail station

nho9504

Thank you Alan. Since we need to take a bus to pick up the car anyway, would you suggest the airport location or the in-town location?

We will stay at Holiday Inn Express City Center, if this information helps.

Again, thank you for quick reply.

alanRow

The HI is beyond the east end of Princes Street and you can get the 25 bus to Dalry Road from there. It'll cost £1.

Going to the airport will probably mean walking to Waverley Station & geting the airport bus at a cost of £3

See www.lothianbuses.com

nho9504

What would be your suggestion, if after taking the car, we are heading out of Edinburgh for good?

Going North along the coastal route towards Aberdeen area but our first night would stop at Invernesse. (A big loop)

janisj

Have you driven in the UK before? If not I <u>definitely</u> recommend picking up the car at the airport. You would avoid having to drive out through a pretty congested Edinburgh road system.

EDI is right off the motorway you'll use to head north across the bridge.

Even if you have driven in the UK before - unless you are pretty familiar w/ Edinburgh roads - you will have an easier time out of the airport.

meks

Edinburgh Express Holiday Inn in Picardy Place is on a major city centre roundabout and is easily accessible by taking the Airport bus into the Waverly Bridge (&pound;5 return ticket) and then a two minute taxi down Leith Street to the Holiday Inn . (Recent review on tripadvisor.com not encouraging)
I would suggest using the return part of yor Airport bus ticket, when you intend departing Edinburgh to take the bus to the Airport and pick up your Avis car there. As janisj states The airport is out of town and on the right side of the city to enable you to travel on dual carriageway roads from there.
Driving in and around Picardy Place is a nightmare if you do not know your car or the layout at that roundabout.
Another alternative to consider would be to use Hertz car rental as they have a depot next door to the Holiday Inn in Picardy Place - the problem with that is driving out of the city because as soon as you leave that car rental you are straight into heavy and busy city centre traffic.

alanRow

I thought poster was travelling by train, therefore they won't have a return ticket from the airport.

Alternative is just to get one of the (many) buses to Princes Street &amp; then onto the airport bus

caroline_edinburgh

meks, you beat me to it : I was going to say does it have to be Avis, as Hertz is right next door to the Holiday Inn Express. nho9504, where are you driving to when you leave Edinburgh ? Picardy Place is on a main throughfare through the city; so although the traffic will be busy, it could be quite a convenient starting place for finding your way out of Edinburgh.

Viajero2

For what is worth, we walked to a HERTZ car rental location from the Waverley Train Station in Edinburgh. Really convenient to pick/drop off if using in combination with train travel.

meks

AlanRow thanks for the reminding me that they are arriving by train. As they will have luggage it would be easier to take the taxi the short distance to the Hotel.
Depending if they are sticking by Avis then it would be easier and more convenient to take the Airport bus - &pound;3 single journey ticket to the airport to collect the hire car.

caroline_edinburgh

Sorry, just realised you did say where you're going after Edinburgh - I think. &quot;Going North along the coastal route towards Aberdeen area but our first night would stop at Invernesse. (A big loop)&quot;.

Do you mean you're planning on going round the Fife coast, then to Aberdeen, then Inverness - in one go ? That seemed like a long &amp; roundabout drive to me, so I tried a sample route on the AA website (obviously not knowing exactly where you want to go) &amp; got this :-

From: Edinburgh
Via: Crail,Anstruther
Via: City Of Aberdeen
To: Inverness,Highlands
Distance: 245.9 miles
Time: 5 hr 35 min

(www.theaa.com)

I usually find AA driving times too short so I'd add on at least another hour - and that's without stopping. Is that what you are thinking to do ?

janisj

Oh - gosh - I totally missed the itinerary. Do you actually mean to drive from Edinburgh along the coast to Aberdeen and then on to Inverness??

The AA routemaster Caroline mentions may say 5.5 hours (and she is right about that being too short) - but for a tourist you would be adding at <u>least</u> 5 or 6 more hours.

Why are you taking the coastal route - presumeably because you want to see coastal scenery. So you will be stopping often along the route - not even counting the castles you'll pass and meal breaks.

Have you worked out your plans? It sounds like you are taking 4 days from Edinburgh to Liverpool by way of Aberdeen and Inverness. Simply not reasonable.

nho9504

Let me clarify a few things:

1) The initial plan is to take GNER up so we can take in the coastal scenery while riding the train. However, GNER chose the weekend of Sept 9 &amp; 10 to do engineering work between Darlington and New Castle - thus make our Sept 10 travel date extremely inconvenient if going by train. We have 2 options - to move the date to Sept 11, Monday and since GNER published the purchasable fares for Sept 11, presumably the engineering work will be done and Monday Sept 11 will be fine. The other option is to pay 3 times more to take a BA flight from LHR or somewhat cheaper EasyJet flight from Luton - both involved lots of down time to get to airport in London and without the chance to see the coastal scenery. Still weighing the pro and con on these 2 options. Your comments are all welcome.

2) The route between EDI and INV is not crafted in stone - in general we would go up to Aberdeen, then traverse the Highland to INV - if time allows we would even try to go up to Thurso and back, but will overnight at INV.

As for drive - driving at the other side is not an issue for us at all, we are also quite accustom to driving long distance. As for the stopping and sightseeing, this part of the world to us would be mainly the natural beauty - not too much interested in the history, nor shopping, etc so we wont stop too much time for all the ruins, castles, museums, quaint villages etc etc I know it would be different for those who go to Scotland for her rich history. For us, we just want to see the Highland and the rugged terrain, and the Lochs.

3) From INV, the next night will be at GLA.

4) From GLA, the next night will be at Lake District, originally. However, if we are forced to take the Sept 11 train, we may go back to EDI for that night, instead of spending it in Lake District.

5) Then either from EDI, or from Lake District, we drive to LPL for the night. Fly to CDG next day around noon.

6) The schedule is a bit tighter than we would like - but since we most likely wont spend much time for all the castles etc, we probably would just be fine.
The &quot;must see&quot; list is short for us, other than EDI, the other place might be Stirling. Other than that, the drive between Dingwall and Kyle? A832 and A890? and still debating if we should go to Skye.

7) The reason we have Avis is Avis price with the AWD is almost 40% less than Hertz. I would search around to see if I can find a decent code to reduce Hertz price.

8) The Holiday Inn Express City Center is used because it would be free for us to use award nights. I haven't thought about the Hertz/HIX location relationship - may worth to investigate. If we do return to EDI after GLA, for one day/night, we would have to stay at Holiday Inn Express Waterfront, as they have free parking.

Hope the above clarify the situation.

Please comment if we should still take the train on Sept 11, or ditch it and take the plane on Sept 10 instead. As that would affect the hotel bookings.

All our 13 nights (the one in Lake District is up in air) are award nights from 3 hotel chains with 2 Hilton nights (GLA &amp; LPL) I cannot change as Hilton has raised the pt requirements by 2 to 3 categories UP since June 1.

nho9504

Further clarify - we will travel very light - one backpack and one warm outerwear for each of us. No luggage to lug around. We can do a 14day Panama crossing cruise with 4 formal nights and 4 semi-formal nights with only one rolleraboard each. Recently we finished a 14 day Hawaii trip with basically one rolleraboard for both of us - If I did not have to bring snorkel gears, it would be down to 2 backpacks.

janisj

Luggage isn't an issue w/ this itinerary. <u>Distance</u> is. Edinburgh to Aberdeen to Inverness to Thurso to Inverness in one day?? It sounds like you are just determined to drive to certain places and use your hotel points w/o any consideration to what is reasonable/possible/sensible.

(It also seems you have your mind fairly set, so don't know what other advice you would use)

nho9504

You got it wrong, re both the distance and the hotel points.

The distance may seem a lot to others, but not to us - as I have said, driving in UK is not a problem - I doubt many on this board have done a month long camping trip in Europe and UK, and we have done it. Long distance? After you live in Texas for a few years, nothing is long distance. (I am half-joking).

The hotels are chosen based on the stopping points we plotted we would get at the end of each day.

Point being, most people would spend a lot of time on the history part of Scotland, stopping at all the castles and ruins and churches, etc etc shopping also might take up a good chunk of time. Such activities are not in our interest. We go to Scotland because we want to see Highlands and the rugged coast line, not the historical aspect of it. Different approach. Ours just is not the mainstream approach.

After all, the whole UK from North to South is no more than 1000 miles, how big a deal it is?

BTW, never understand why some make driving on the other side such a big deal.

janisj

you have no idea -- I am from California and can and do drive hundreds of miles on a weekend. I also lived in the UK for 5 years and gone back more than 25 times - some trips of over 6 weeks. I have driven in every county in England and Scotland and most in Wales. Most many, many times.

1000 miles may be &quot;nothing&quot; in TX or CA - but it is a very big deal in the UK. . . . . .

You intend to drive from Edinburgh to Aberdeen along the coast, then to Inverness then to Thurso then back to Inverness - in one day. That is simply crazy . . . . .

janisj

meant to add &quot;<i> I doubt many on this board have done a month long camping trip in Europe and UK</i>&quot;

There are people on this board who have done that and much, MUCH more. You will find them some of the most experienced travelers on any travel forum anywhere . . . . .

alanRow

&lt;&lt; After all, the whole UK from North to South is no more than 1000 miles, how big a deal it is? &gt;&gt;

Edinburgh to Inverness via Aberdeen &amp; Thurso is the thick end of 500 miles &amp; 12 hours BY THE MOST DIRECT ROUTE &amp; without stopping. Daylight hours in September are around 12 hours - do the math