This is a hotel that will almost certainly float your boat.
For starters, it’s a boat. Then there’s the fact that it was voted the UK’s best luxury hotel in the 2024 Tripadvisor Traveler’s Choice Awards.
Forget any notions about sailing the Seven Seas, though, because this 62-year-old vessel isn’t going anywhere – it’s permanently moored on the harbor 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 and converted it into a five-star hotel over several years.
In its former life, Fingal was a Clyde-built tender that roamed the North and Irish Seas for 30 years for the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB), transporting lighthouse keepers and supplies to Scotland’s dangerous rocky outcrops.
The Fingal hotel has just 22 rooms, one of which is the Skerryvore Suite, a luxury space that has been repurposed and greatly expanded from a sparse cabin that once slept in. Princess AnneNLB’s patron since 1993. Her Royal Highness stayed nights on board the work-a-day ship during resupply missions, and she also slept in the Skerryvore suite after Fingal’s £5m conversion.
Carlton Reid checked into 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, roamed ‘the North and Irish Seas for the Northern Lighthouse Board’ for 30 years, notes Carlton
The decommissioned ship’s engine is displayed behind glass on both sides of a panoramic walkway (above)
The suite has outdoor seating on a private deck, but due to Leith’s aggressive seagulls, if you’re going to order a room service meal, it’s recommended to eat it indoors at the eight-person dining table rather than venture inside. to go al fresco.
Rooms are named after 22 of the 200 lighthouses that the Fingal once visited.
We stayed in Ornsay, a luxury duplex suite.
It has an upper sitting area which is connected to the downstairs bedroom by a spiral staircase. The curved exterior wall of our bedroom reminded us that this space is the ship’s hull.
Beyond is a luxurious bathroom with a freestanding bath and a giant shower cubicle.
Noble Isle toiletries are complemented by Scottish seaweed-based cosmetics brand Ishga. As well as smelts, 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 is salty sea beach, of course.)
“Rooms are named after 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 that this space is the ship’s hull’
Above – Carlton’s ensuite toiletries
Bath taps on Fingal are made of knurled brass, with the ship featuring many other nautical and lighthouse themed fixtures and fittings.
There are capes shaped like anchors, leather-bound chairs modeled on the ship’s original navigator’s chair, and a circular elevator next to reception that looks like the lens of a lighthouse lamp.
For original artists, there are MV Fingal logs on display on the ship’s bridge, and below, the ship’s decommissioned engine is displayed behind glass on either side of a panoramic walkway.
Throws and cushions on the beds are made from a Fingal-specific yellow-accented tartan by Scottish designer Araminta Campbell. At the top of each bed is a needlepoint suede map with outlines of the lighthouse location after which each room is named.
Fingal’s Art Deco Lighthouse restaurant (pictured) offers ‘outstanding food’
MV Fingal logs are displayed on the ship’s former bridge
The ballroom (above) at Fingal, which opened in 2019, features a gallery for musicians
Fingal’s Art Deco Lighthouse restaurant offers excellent food, including Wester Ross salmon smoked in the ship’s on-board 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 splash of Fingal’s own tea.
Fingal opened in 2019 with 23 rooms. One of them was later turned into a large storage cupboard.
I mention this mundane detail because space on board is at a premium and – with the hotel often booked months in advance – an extra room would be a nice little earner, but the thinking of the Fingal’s management is that it’s better is to have one less room and more space to meet 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 ‘boattel’ continues to rack up these accolades.
