Inside Edinburgh’s ‘boatel’: What it is like to remain within the ship that is been named the UK’s ‘finest luxurious lodge’ for 2024

It’s a hotel that would almost certainly float your boat.

For starters, it’s a boat. Then there’s the fact that it has been named the UK’s best luxury hotel in the 2024 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards. 

Forget any ideas about sailing the Seven Seas, though, because this 62-year-old vessel isn’t going anywhere – it’s permanently berthed on the Port of Leith’s vibrant waterfront, close to the similarly static Royal Yacht Britannia. The trust that owns Queen Elizabeth’s retired ship bought MV Fingal in 2014, converting it over several years into a five-star hotel.

In its former life, Fingal was a Clyde-built tender that, for 30 years, roamed the North and Irish Seas for the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB), ferrying lighthouse keepers and supplies to Scotland’s perilous rocky outcrops.

Fingal the hotel has just 22 rooms, one of which is the Skerryvore suite, a luxurious space repurposed and much expanded from a sparse cabin once slept in by Princess Anne, NLB’s patron since 1993. Her Royal Highness stayed nights on board the work-a-day ship during resupply missions, and she has also slept in the Skerryvore suite following Fingal’s £5million conversion.

Carlton Reid checked in to a luxury duplex suite at Fingal – a Clyde-built tender named the UK’s best luxury hotel in the 2024 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards 

The ship, pictured here, spent 30 years roaming ‘the North and Irish Seas for the Northern Lighthouse Board’, notes Carlton

The ship’s decommissioned engine is displayed behind glass on both sides of a panoramic walkway (above)

The suite has outdoor seating on a private deck, but, because of Leith’s aggressive seagulls, if you’re going to order a room service meal, it’s recommended to eat it at the eight-person dining table indoors rather than risk going al fresco.

Rooms are named for 22 of the 200 lighthouses that the Fingal once visited. 

We stayed in Ornsay, a luxury duplex suite. 

This has an upper sitting area linked to the bedroom below with a spiral staircase. The curved outer wall of our bedroom reminded us that this space was once the ship’s hull.

Beyond is a luxurious bathroom with a freestanding bath and a gargantuan shower cubicle. 

Noble Isle toiletries are complemented by the Scottish seaweed-based cosmetics brand Ishga. In addition to smellies, there was an Ishga sea-salt scrub and the company’s £39 bag of natural Hebridean seaweed. After exfoliating with the scrub we placed the seaweed under running water for an aromatic bath. (That aroma, of course, is salty seashore.)

‘Rooms are named for 22 of the 200 lighthouses that the Fingal once visited,’ says Carlton. Above is the Kinnaird duplex

Carlton stayed in the ‘Ornsay’ suite (above) and says: ‘The curved outer wall of our bedroom reminded us this space was once the ship’s hull’

Above – Carlton’s ensuite toiletries 

Bath taps on Fingal are made from knurled brass, with the ship sporting many other nautical and lighthouse-themed fixtures and fittings. 

There are coat pegs shaped like anchors, leather-bound chairs modelled on the ship’s original navigator’s chair, and a circular lift beside the reception that resembles a lighthouse lamp’s lens. 

For originalists there are MV Fingal log books on display on the ship’s bridge, and, down below, the ship’s decommissioned engine is displayed behind glass on both sides of a panoramic walkway.

Throws and cushions on the beds are fashioned from a Fingal-specific yellow-accented tartan by Scottish designer Araminta Campbell. At the head of each bed, there’s a contoured needlepoint suede map of the lighthouse locale for which each room is named.

Fingal’s Art Deco Lighthouse restaurant (pictured) offers ‘outstanding food’

MV Fingal log books are on display on the ship’s former bridge

The ballroom (above) on Fingal, which opened in 2019, features a gallery for musicians

Fingal’s Art Deco Lighthouse restaurant offers outstanding food, including Wester Ross salmon smoked in the ship’s onboard smokehouse. 

As an aperitif, it would be rude not to sample a G&T made with Fingal Gin, which features orange blossom, grapefruit, and a dash of Fingal’s own tea.

Fingal opened in 2019 with 23 rooms. One of them was later turned into a large supplies cupboard. 

I mention this mundane detail because space is at a premium on board and – with the hotel often booked up months in advance — an extra room would be a nice little earner, but the thinking of the Fingal’s management goes that it’s better to have one fewer room and more space to service the needs of the boutique hotel’s discerning guests.

This emphasis on customer care explains how Fingal not only landed this year’s Tripadvisor award, but last year’s AA Scottish Hotel of the Year gong.

Stay here and you’ll soon understand why Leith’s ‘boatel’ keeps hauling in these awards.