Has anyone stayed at Joppa Rocks Guest House? Any information on how difficult to get to city centre, type of rooms, things within walking distance is appreciated. Thanks for your help.

Greg: <BR>I just got back from Edinburgh and stayed in Joppa, altho not at Joppa Rocks -- we stayed at Joppa Turrets Guest House (http://www.joppaturrets.demon.co.uk/) -- which was wonderful, right on the beach and I highly recommend it! I do remember seeing Joppa Rocks -- and altho it is not on the water, it is just a short walk. There is a bus stop within walking distance of Joppa Rocks that takes you straight into the city center (90 pounds each way) and it takes about 15 minutes. I didn't find the bus system to be very user friendly, but your hosts will be able to tell you which route to take, etc. There isn't much in the Joppa area -- we really enjoyed walking on the beach (great shells!) and there are some small restaurants, and shops, but we didn't find anything terribly exciting. Spent most of our time in the city. Please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions!

I hope you won't mind a frank reply. We stayed at Joppa Rocks last year for two nights. I do not know why the tourist board gave them 3 stars. When we arrived, we were given some keys and told our rooms were upstairs. The owner motioned us to the stairs. We went up to the second floor by ourselves, where there were two rooms with the doors open. After dragging our cases in and looking around one of the rooms, we realized from the clothing, shoes and private documents (cash, passports, etc) on the tables that this particular room was obviously taken- but the staff had left it unlocked and the door wide open! We figured out on our own that our other room was on the third floor. As you might guess, this was just the beginning. We had 2 of 3 lights broken in our room, when inquiring for some fresh light bulbs, we were told maybe the next morning- we never did get them. We could not read anything past sundown and had no bathroom lights! Reservation listings with clients' credit card numbers and expiry dates were in a pile on the front table. We removed ours - the owner never seemed to notice. Breakfast was extremely sparse; there wasn't enough milk for the 1/3 cup of cereal in our bowls. There was enough coffee in our table thermos for 2 cups (there were three of us). The owner or any other staff were no where to be found. The couple at the next table (whose room we had been in the day before!) kindly gave us their table's coffee. We tried desperately to find other accomodation for the second night (our final night before fying home) but everything was booked. Needless to say, on our second morning we packed up our things, skipped breakfast (?!) and left. We had spent 19 nights staying in B&B's all over Scotland and Ireland, and could not believe how wonderful they all were. Joppa Rocks really was an amazing experience. I would also add that I did not appreciate seeing the owner smoking at the tables which were already set for the next day's breakfast or the cat climbing on them!

As somebody who's just done a lot of looking for Scottish B&Bs online, I was intrigued by Tina's comment "I don't know why the tourist board gave them three stars." Their listing on some commercial B&B sites says that the tourist board gave them three stars and that the Automobile Ass'n gave them three Qs. However, I couldn't find them on the Scottish Tourist Board or Edinburgh and Lothians Tourist Board site, nor on the AA site. And a homepage I found for them just says "rated" by the tourist board, without a rating. Hmmm.... <BR> <BR>Now, there are perfectly nice B&Bs that don't make it into the AA listings and don't get evaluated by the tourist board. I've stayed in some of them. (I've heard that it costs money to get evaluated, which is why some places don't bother; others decide not to get rated for some other reason.) <BR> <BR>But it's a little odd that they say in one place that they've got ratings from organizations that don't seem to list them. It could be just an innocent mix-up; it could be that those ratings are old and haven't been renewed; it could be misrepresentation. Who knows?

Hello, it's Tina again. What an interesting thing to point out, KT. I remember seeing the sign near the front door with the blue oval shape and the 3 stars, which I believe is the identifying mark of the Scottish Tourist Board. In any case, we had such a wonderful time overall - it was June last year so now every day I keep thinking exactly where we were at the time. Many, many better memories to focus on!

Tina, I'm sorry you had such a bad time at the joppa rocks guest house. I hope your bad experience didn't put you off our beautiful city. There are many good quality guest houses and b&bs here, it seems a shame they should be dragged down by one unconsiderate and greedy landlord. You may wish to write to the scottish tourist board to advise them of your experience. <BR>Stacy,I feel I should correct you on the matter of the bus fare, I think you'll find it is 90 pence($1.30)each way and not 90 pounds ($130).

In Feb., our family stayed at the Camus Guest House in Joppa. Our room had a lovely view of the Firth; we were right across the street from the "rocks", beach and puffins; bus into Edinburgh was easy; breakfast was delicious; and the price was right. Edinburgh being our only stop in Scotland, I thought it a great way for the family (3 kids) to be in Edinburgh while at the same time getting a flavor of being outside the city.