Advantages: Proximity to city, excellent rooms and brilliant staff
Disadvantages: none

...We visited Edinburgh on my hen night and I had previously stayed at the Apex City on buisness which is about 3 doors away from the Apex International. All of our guests were arriving at different times as travelling from far and wide. As the bride I arrived first at 8.30am as my flight was an early one. We checked in but our rooms were not ready, the hotel offered to take our bags and then suggested an excellent breakfast eatery located on the Royal Mile. As we had just landed in Edinburgh we did not have much of a clue how to navigate the city - the staff in reception were excellent and even gave us a free map whislt advising of the best sights to see!! Once we had had breakfast and done some sightseeing, we returned to the hotel to find that our rooms were ready (12.30) We were a party of 8 staying in 2 rooms!! The hotel... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Centrally located
Disadvantages: could be better for 4 stars hotel

...shelves would have done the job. The shower was up to a standard, apart from the glass door that could had been cleaned a bit more in depth. The bedroom itself was of a reasonable size with a desk, a table and few chairs. There was a mini-bar but no alcoholic drinks in it, just water. The room was a Standard however a DVD player was present along with the flat-screen TV without any foreign channels. The bedroom had three main faults I could not fail to notice: a stain on the blanket, two unstable boards of the wooden floors that would rise up every time I walked over them, and lastly the noise from the street getting through the closed doors facing the little terrace overlooking the Edinburgh castle. The Apex International hotel has two restaurants, one on the ground floor and another one, the Heights, on the 5th floor, overlooking the castle... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: PAL and NTSC playback, multi region, MP3 support
Disadvantages: problems with discs using seamless branching, some disc menus fail to work correctly

...Considering the price, I was impressed with the picture quality. While not the best I have seen, it was a lot better than I was expecting. I was also surprised with the speed of navigation through disc menus. Discs which seem to take an age to navigate on other players seem to fly on the Apex. The VCD support is good, and the Apex can also play music CD, CDR and CDW as well as MP3 files. However, in order to recognise the MP3 files, the CD must be 'burned' in a specific format. The Apex supports both PAL and NTSC discs, and can convert one playback standard to another. This along with a easy to access 'hidden menu' allowing the region coding to be bypassed or altered makes the Apex a true multi-region machine. There are a few problems - nothing is perfect. My version of the machine will not play some titles with seamless branching... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: everything
Disadvantages: nothing

...My husband and I decided to book this hotel to stay in while we were getting married in Edinburgh. We decided to book this hotel after looking at its website and I must say that many hotels are a letdown when you see them in reality but this one was just as good or even better than we expected. We booked four nights at the hotel in a Superior King room at a total cost of 517 pounds for 3 nights including breakfast. The Superior room included 1 King bed, an exceptional castle view with balcony together with room amenities of fridge, safe, walk in power shower with separate bath, bathrobes and slippers, savoury and sweet snacks, specially enhanced Yu Spa handmade toiletries,a large desk, ground coffee and selected teas, choice of pillows, iron and ironing board, and limited edition artwork, wireless internet access and a complimentary... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Cheap, very comfortable
Disadvantages: None.

...the Thursday I wanted (i.e. yesterday). Fine, I thought, a quick call to Lastminute and it'll be sorted. The hotel had said they had space, and it wasn't a problem, but Lastminute had to change it. Ok, no probs. Just call Lastminute. *Tears hair out* No chance of speaking to a human. You end up getting lost in a crazy computeried maze and the only way to speak to a human is to go to (you guessed it ) sales. All other requests ask you to go to the bloody website. Anyway, long story short Lastminute gave me short-shrift and said the hotel didn't have space. A lie. They did. I asked them. Apex to the rescue -------------------------- After 45 minutes of arguing with Lastminute, I spoke to the hotel, who very kindly offered to speak to them to sort out the whole sorry mess. To their credit, they did, and the booking was changed. It was then I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Good Pin Action
Disadvantages: May not suit dry lanes

...On the 11th June 2001 at Charrington Bowl using the APEX I bowled a perfect Game of 300. I have been bowling 22 years and the best I had was 11 strikes in a row. The strikes were all in the 1-3 pocket. When I got the first 10 strikes my legs became very wobbly and the last 2 strikes I could not beleive I got them. Well I guess if you persevere you will get there in the end. A report can be found at the Big A League web site. http://sites.netscape.net/bigaleague/ The scoresheet is at http://sites.netscape.net/bigaleague/news.htm The APEX was very good on the night. I managed to get a 729 series. This ball when handled well can achieve good scores. I beleive there is a newer APEX but I will check that out for next season. Thanks goes to Geoff Buck for the drilling and advice.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great viz, lovely scenery and loads of wrecks
Disadvantages: Cold and remote

...-boat in 35m (Unst) , the ill-fated oil tanker the Braer at Quendale and several galleons. The Orkney charter boats Karin and Jean-Elaine take divers up to Shetland, and the local charter boat Alluvion operates out of Lerwick. Lerwick has plenty of hotels and bed & breakfasts, as well as some good places to eat (Montys Bistro, The Great Wall and the Raba are all recommended). The night life is ok with live music on most nights of the week. Try Captain Flints if you're younger, the Lounge if you're older. I'm hovering between the two at present :-) The ferries sail nightly from Aberdeen, taking 14 hours to get here. Its about 100 pounds for a cabin, and a further 110 if you bring a vehicle. Alternatively a flight from Aberdeen costs 110 ukp apex and takes 50 minutes. If you fancy diving here ask on the usenet group uk.rec.scuba, several... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Lasts long time, good performance
Disadvantages: Lack of image playback and surround sound support.

...The APEX DVD player is basically what you get for your money. It offers the basic features of DVD playback but lacks some key features required in todays technology. The DVD player is capable of playing most DVD's however it is quite poor at picture disc playback as it often tells you that there is some form of error. It also lacks LCD display so it is hard to tell features such as time lapsed, chapter number and so on (unless you bring it up on on-screen display). I also found a problem when resuming a film. When you insert the same disc you have just played the player tells you to press the resume button to continue; when there is no such button on the remote or player itself. This DVD player however can take quite a bit of work and perform pretty well. Overall I would say that this DVD player is only recommended for 'cheap... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Very unusual building
Disadvantages: No

...The Pantheon is an interesting place in Rome. It is the best preserved ancient building in Rome, used to be a temple for pagan worshippers but it's now a catholic church. It has a very unusual design. It's circular and the walls roll up into a dome at the top. Dome is not uncommon in many European architecture but a hole in the apex of the dome is definitely worth going to have a look. There are no windows and the building sole's source of light comes from the opening at the dome's apex-which really stands out from other ancient monuments. It is the resting place of many King's of Italy and the famous artist Raphael. To all the Dan Brown fans, the Patheon is also feature in his work Angels and Demons.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: beautiful nature, very exclusive
Disadvantages: ridiculously expensive and tiresome to get there

...Sometimes we all feel like getting away from it all, find a small island, and live like Robinson in a small paradise of our own, if only for a short time. I thought I had found that spot on earth when I browsed through my favourite travel website, the exclusive and little known www.vladi-private-islands.de. Vladi advertised a small hotel and holiday cottages on Tresco, one of the five populated islands of the Isles of Scilly, off the coast of Cornwall. These islands have often been linked to the history of lost civilisations: are these maybe the mountain peaks of Atlantis, or the remains of the lost land of Lyonesse? Just the right mystical setting to follow the trail of another myth: Robinson's lonesome life on a distant island. Although, admittedly, I had not planned to stay there alone, or with a servant called Friday, but (knowing... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful