Playing the Old Course at St Andrews 1.2

Publish Date 09/23/2024

Post 1.2 - Trip Tips About Lodging and Restaurants in St Andrews

As promised in my first post about visiting St Andrews, next I will cover where you can stay and where to eat there.  For lodging options, you have only to sign into booking.com, which is my favorite search and book engine on the web for two reasons, which are:

1.    Booking.com will have listed about 90% of all hotel options available plus they now list apartment rentals (like VRBO).  If you have 3 or 4 guys making the trip, renting an apartment can be an excellent option if you are inclined to cook a few meals together and save on food cost.

2.    This web site will also typically provide you with an option to book a room with no credit card charge and allow room cancellation up until about 48 hours prior to arrival.

One important thing to pay attention to on booking.com is they will often lead with a       non-cancellable room rate.  For example, on their search page, you may see a hotel with a room rate of $149 per night (for this and later posts I decided to just quote prices in US Dollars, you can do the math). Once you click on that hotel, it will feature that room rate, but then ask you to select your room.  After you hit select room, the first option is typically the $149 room, but look to see if it says non-cancellable.  That means your credit card will be charged immediately and the room cannot be cancelled for any reason.

This same $149 room will also show a cancellable room rate which will be higher, perhaps something like $169.  I always book at the higher cancellable rate as that give me two options:

1.    For any reason, I can cancel this room up to 48 hours in advance if I have to cancel my trip or move my dates.

2.    Booking.com will frequently offer rooms at discounted sale rates.  If hotels are seeing low occupancy for a certain week or month, they will lower the rate (some offer a 25% discount) to ensure the hotel sells more rooms.  When you are looking at a room for $200 a night, a 25% discount saves you $50.  If you are booking for 4 nights, you just got one night free.

Booking.com web site

Well in advance of my trip, I will typically book a lower priced room at an okay hotel using a cancellable rate option.  Then weekly, I will check booking.com to see if any upscale hotel is having a rate sale.  If a hotel that I like better offers a sale rate, I now have the freedom to book that hotel and then cancel my first booking. 

When selecting a hotel, I always like to go to TripAdvisor.com and read some reviews from recent customers.  These reviews are unedited and give the honest feedback and opinions from real people who recently stayed in this hotel.  TripAdvisor reviews weigh heavily into my choice of hotels.  Look for a lot of positive comments.  Don’t let one negative review sway you, when 20 other reviews are positive.

Tripadvisor web site

When selecting my choice of hotels for St Andrews…….. room rate, location and customer reviews were my primary consideration.  As St Andrews is a very small walkable town, location wasn’t much of a factor.  Booking.com will offer rooms outside of town, but just check on the hotel’s ad page for the distance from city center/downtown.  If the distance is over 1.0 mile, you may want to look at a closer option.  If you are only planning to play some of the St Andrews Links courses (there are 7 owned by the town), you shouldn’t need a car.  Everything is walkable.

Once I zeroed in on hotels within 1 mile, my next consideration was rate. You can book some B&B’s outside of town for about $120 per night if you have a car.   Anything walkable in town will start at about $200 per night.  There are a few 5-star hotels with rates starting at $800 per night (the Old Course Hotel being the best - see photo above).  We were only going to be in St Andrews for 2 nights and 3 days and my target room rate was set in my mind as $250 to $300 per night.  In checking booking.com, I found several hotels in my price range and picked 3 that sounded okay and their gallery photos looked good.

My next step was to read the reviews for each hotel on TripAdvisor.  After reading the reviews I was locked in on The Greyfriars Inn.  The rate was acceptable and the customer reviews just sounded like a fun place to stay.

The Greyfriars Inn

To summarize Greyfriars in one sentence, it’s a place for golfers to eat, sleep, drink and talk golf.  The hotel is located exactly 3 blocks from the 18th green of the Old Course.  There is a grocery store just down the street and many shops in the area for clothing and memorabilia shopping.

When you walk in the small front door of Greyfriars, you are immediately faced with the Bar and greeted by the Bartender who will ask, how can I help you? My response was, “I’m looking for the hotel?”  And the bartender will reply, “this is the hotel, I can check you in.”  Yes, it’s a bar, hotel and a restaurant, all just as it would have looked 100 years ago.  For those you old enough to remember the TV show Gunsmoke, imagine walking into Miss Kitty’s Saloon and telling the bartender I need a room, a hot bath and a shot of whiskey. That’s Greyfriars Inn!

The Bar at Greyfriars Inn

As I had my wife with me, my first thought was, I’m going to love it and she is going to hate it (my wife being one who enjoys the creature comforts of a fine hotel).  However; to the contrary, my wife was fine with the place and had no objections.  The rooms are a little dated but they were clean and functional.  The bathroom included a tub and shower and had everything we needed.  The bed was queen size and sufficient for two people.

The room included breakfast which was acceptable, but euro-style.  Don’t expect bacon, eggs and biscuits. A euro-style breakfast may include boiled eggs, bread, jam, ham and possibly blood sausage (don't ask) and/or beans.  You can always find enough choices to get you thru the day, but when in Europe breakfast is not my favorite meal.  Their restaurant food for lunch and dinner is filling and comparable to anything else you might find in St Andrews.  I liked the fish & chips.

All in, my wife and I both found Greyfriars to be a perfect spot for our St Andrews visit.  We were there for two nights which cost us $591 USD in total (including all the taxes & fees).  We were more than happy with our choice of hotels.

This seems to be a good place to jump into the foodie section.  Attention folks: this is St Andrews, the Home of Golf…..it ain’t Paris, and it’s not about the food here.  Yes, there are some high-end food establishments, such as The Seafood Ristorante or the Road Hole Restaurant which is in the Old Course Hotel and they are both excellent if that’s your thing.

As previously noted, you could eat every meal at Belhaven, the Greyfriars Inn Restaurant, and be perfectly filled and satisfied.  But, many of you will want to wander out and about to see what else might tickle the tummy.  If you’ve had your fill of fish & chips and long for some good old American food you may want to try Ziggy’s.  Rusack’s One Under Bar also offers good food and at a reasonable price. 

Speaking of Rusack’s Hotel, which is one of the previously mentioned upscale hotels, one of the don’t miss opportunities is a visit to the 18 Bar atop this hotel.  The terrace from this bar looks down on the Old Course 18th green and was where we took the photo included on my first post.  My wife and I shared a bottle of champagne and spent a couple of hours here just watching the golfers.  They also have a putting green on the terrace which is challenging and good practice.

                              Rusack’s Hotel 18 Bar Terrace 

If just finishing your golf round and you want a drink, snack or a full meal, stop in Tom Morris Bar & Grill located in the St Andrews Links Clubhouse.  Another place with good food and a view is The Niblick Restaurant & Bar located in the R&A World Golf Museum (a good place to kill a couple of hours if it’s raining).

One other Hotel, Bar and Restaurant worth mentioning is The Dunvegan St Andrews.  It’s very similar to Greyfriars and right down the street.  The Dunvegan is a bit pricier for the hotel, but is a must stop, even if only for a pint (as in pint of beer). Many of the world’s most famous golfers have stayed there, as the photos on the wall will attest.  The bar staff is more than willing to share a story about which famous golfer sat at your table.

There are plenty of hotel options in St Andrews that will range from $200 to $1000 per night.  Likewise, you can spend anywhere from $20 to $200 on a meal.  Depending on your budget, you will have plenty of choices.

Please note that all of the prices I have quoted in this blog were those charged to us in July, which is the High Season (most expensive).  St Andrews offers 3 seasons and prices at the golf courses and hotels will reflect the season.  I’ll speak more about the seasons in my next post, which will cover what will it cost you to play the Old Course and how you can get a tee time. 

Allow me to thank all of you that read my first post and have responded with kind comments.  Your thoughts are much appreciated. I hope you will continue to find value in my blog and share it with others who might enjoy it.

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My next installment is titled How You Can Actually Play the Old Course and will be posted in about a week. Stay tuned!