Edinburgh attractions and things to do (merged)

If you buy your main shop at Tesco, be sure to swap the Clubcard vouchers for Days Out as their value multiplies by 4! i.e. If you get a voucher for £2.50 you can get £2.50 off your next shop OR £10 towards Days Out Vouchers for you and the kids during the summer.

There are dozens of places to go & things to do around Scotland (pick up a booklet in any of the larger shops) or call Tesco free and get them to send you a booklet.

Edinburghlass will be the best to advise you possibly on the Edinburgh pass.
As to the silvercard, got one myself and it more than paid for itself immediately when we ate at Frankensteins. If your girls are into ghosts/ghoulish things, they will love Frankensteins, and the menu is good, wide variety - suggest you book in advance, just in case. Unless it has changed, you have to phone to get silvercard. Lady I spoke to was a gem, sorry cannot remember her name, but did tell her I had been recommended by a member of this site, and advised her to look us up.
National Museum of Scotland is our favourite, something for everyone there, no matter how against history/museums they are. The millenium clock is amazing - your girls will love it, even if they don't want to go round and see anything else. Best of all museum is free. They do always have a fee paying exhibition on too, but last time we were down it was dinosaurs, and my daughter has outgrown the fascination with them.
Greyfriars Church and graveyard is worth a visit - being a total coward, have only done that in daylight!
Just few steps away is a shop called "Joe's" -which has funky jewellery and other bits and pieces, starts off really cheap. Keep heading round on same side and shop on corner which does all kind of clothes for teenagers - can't remember the name of shop, sorry. It isn't cheap, but has different things.
Fiscals is really good and cheap for food - they serve food there all day, which we love, as often find us having late lunch at 3pm or whatever. Staff are absolutely brilliant and very helpful. They have comfy settees which is much appreciated after plodding about all day, and drink prices are extremely good, whether it be soft or the hard stuff. If couple of you are drinking wine, suggest you buy a bottle, even though you won't drink it all, might be cheaper than having 2 glasses each. They have "specials" on various bottles of wine. Soda water and lime really cheap, and just what you need as thirst quencher!
Loads of good shopping for weird stuff in Cockburn Street (pronounced Coburn), which is just off the Royal Mile - or just up from Waverley Station from Princes Street end. Loads of other good shops Grassmarket area.
Edinburghlass will no doubt be able to help here - I know where I want to go/get there, just don't know street names too well, and although I can get there, my explanations are truly bad, so I have been told! Will ask my daughter names of "cool" shops for you to visit, but won't be until Tues/Wed, so will post back then.
In the meantime, if you can hint at your family's shopping preferences, someone will point you in the right direction.
Also during summer, Royal Mile and other areas have loads of stalls selling jewellery and goodness knows what else - never have the chance to find out what else!
Great wee sweetie shop in St Mary Street. This is just off Royal Mile and opposite city centre Travelodge. Old fashioned sweets galore, wonderful chocolates, Edinburgh rock - don't really have a sweet tooth thank goodness, but just had to get a quarter of this and that! Kept seeing sweeties from the past and had to have some. Wonderful lady was refusing to sell me anymore! Am sure she didn't believe that I really don't eat many sweets - I did share them all around when I got home, just not my fault that hardly anyone wanted to try the plain/dark chocolate ones! No idea what they are missing out on - and not telling them!
You will have a great time in Edinburgh. Just set yourself up with a map - don't buy one, loads free at hotels, make sure everyone is wearing comfy footware, and get walking!
P.S. You might get bother with suggesting comfy footwear to your daughters - only going on my experience about 3-4 years ago. No matter what you say, they will wear what they want. Some cushioned elastoplast is a must, so advise buying in advance - keep some in handbag!

First of all I know nothing about the Pass, lol, being a resident but if you would get free entry to all those attractions you would probably get your money's worth depending if you have the time to do them all.

The open top Bus tour is quite expensive but it does take you round the city and you can get off an on, one of the stops is Dynamic Earth and the Parliament building nearby which looks fantastic and you can get a tour round and I believe the coffee shop is nice. We were members of Dynamic Earth when my 14 year old was younger and really enjoyed going, she went recently with a trip and still quite enjoyed it. The Bus tour is also good for 24 hours so if you do it in an afternoon you can also get on again the next day. We went to the Zoo for Mother's Day, reduced entry for me of course and we always enjoy it but I have to say as you are going to be in Edinburgh during the Festival there is so much "free" stuff going on that you may not even need or have time to visit attractions. So to be honest I think you could easily spend no money just taking in the atmosphere!

Morningside Road is the best place for charity shops and Causewayside for bric a brac and antique shops. Have to say that Princes Street is no longer "the" place for shopping, loads of cheap book shops, mobile phone shops and tourist shops. Mainly the out of town shopping centres have take over for clothes shops. No Primark or Wilkinson sadly but large shopping centre by Britannia called Ocean Terminal with the usual BHS, M&S food shop, International, nice Baxters shop, Boots etc etc. Once again boarding Britannia is expensive but perhaps the girls could be shopping while Dad goes onboard, lol.

As for ghosties and ghoolies, a night time walking tour from the Witchery is a must, preferably the last one when its really dark but by then the tattoo is on so I am not sure what times and where they depart from during then.
Also the tour of Mary King's Close is a must although I haven't done it personally. I'll check in a minute as I am sure I have linked to all these websites in another post here.

Parking, I'll pm you about later, Hopetoun House, nice enough but can be missed, lol. Edinburgh Dungeon I'm sure we get reduced ticket prices in Tescos come the tourist season, I'll keep an eye out.

Hanging out my washing before the thunder and lightening comes, its not too far away judging by the clouds so I'll come back to this later

Edinburghlass in right about festival time. You can spend a lot of time in the High Street watching street performers. The council now have it set out into areas where each performer gets an allocated amount of time and space and it is quite organised.

Toozie, tend to agree with Edinburghlass on Edinburgh pass, seems an awful lot of dosh to spend, when there are so many freebies going on at that time, and having time to get round everything. It is all down to personal preference though, may be worth it for your family.
Did a quick search for airport parking, which is definitely cheaper than parking in Edinburgh using https://www.airportdog.co.uk (sorry can't do the link thing) Prices ranged from £14-£40 for 5 days, so well worth booking in advance. Have used airport bus which is great, think they run every 10/15 mins or so from airport into centre (last stop Waverley Station), takes about 20-30 mins, costs £5 return for adult, £3 for children.
Will update later if I think of anything else.