The Royal Yacht Britannia

You get the whole of Queen Elizabeth II’s former Royal Yacht to yourselves for the evening, with a guided tour of the State Apartments, butler service and food cooked on board in the original Royal Galleys, all two miles from Edinburgh city centre and reached by tram. The venue says drinks receptions can take up to 500 guests across the State Apartments, and seated dinners run from 8 guests in the Officers’ Wardroom to 196 across its dining rooms. Britannia is berthed beside Ocean Terminal in Leith and is run by a charitable trust, which hires it out for exclusive evening events such as corporate dinners, incentive trips, client hospitality and private celebrations.

Event spaces and capacities

You can book four named rooms on board, and the venue says they can be combined for larger numbers. The State Dining Room is the largest dining room, seating 96 for dinner or holding 150 for a reception. The Royal Deck takes another 150 standing and, according to its room page, up to 80 more seated diners, with floor to ceiling windows, a teak floor with a glass staged area, a private bar and a PA system. There is no exhibition space and the venue publishes no theatre, classroom or cabaret layouts, so treat Britannia as a reception and dinner venue rather than a conference room. Floor areas below are worked out from the length and width the venue publishes for each room.

Capacities as published by the venue on its function rooms pages and drinks reception page, checked 5 November 2026. The events brochure gives slightly different dinner numbers (96 on the Royal Deck and 8 to 18 in the Wardroom), so confirm the figure for your date.

Getting there and parking

Your guests can reach the yacht without a car. Edinburgh trams run from the airport through the city centre to the Ocean Terminal stop, Lothian buses 10, 16, 34 and 35 come from the city centre, and the Skylink 17 bus runs direct from Edinburgh Airport, which the venue puts about 40 minutes away by road. Edinburgh Waverley is the nearest rail station. Ocean Terminal’s multi-storey car park is free and has 700 spaces, with disabled bays on levels C and E; the height limit is 2 metres on the directions page and 2.10 metres on the accessibility page, and there is no motorhome or caravan parking. Six 160kW EV chargers sit outside the shopping centre. Day visitors use an entrance on the second floor of Ocean Terminal, while event guests are piped aboard through the Royal Brow.

Catering, AV and accommodation

You do not need to bring in a caterer. All food is cooked on board by the in-house team led by Executive Chef Mark Alston, who the venue says uses Scottish suppliers, many of them Royal Warrant holders. A sommelier pairs the wines, and the chefs will prepare Halal and Kosher dishes. A typical evening starts with Champagne and canapés in the State Drawing Room and a guided tour, then moves to dinner. Entertainment the venue can book includes a harpist and flute, a jazz trio, a whisky tasting with three drams, an after dinner talk by a former commodore, and a Beating Retreat on the quayside by the Royal Marines band, as Queen Elizabeth II’s guests once had. Britannia has no bedrooms of its own, but its sister ship Fingal, a five-star floating hotel a short walk along the quay, can house your guests and has its own ballroom for meetings. On access, the venue says its five decks are served by a central lift, VisitScotland rates it Category 1 for unassisted wheelchair access, and wheelchairs need to be no wider than 670mm for the full route. It holds a Green Tourism Gold award and Green Key certification.

What to ask before you book

• Which dinner capacity applies to the Royal Deck and the Wardroom on your date, given that the room pages and the brochure differ.
• How the 196-guest dinner figure is split between the State Dining Room, Royal Deck and Wardroom, and whether every guest gets the State Apartments tour.
• The earliest start and latest finish for an exclusive evening, since Britannia also runs as a daytime visitor attraction.
• Whether a guest using a wider wheelchair or a mobility scooter can reach the Royal Deck, which is served only by the original on board lift.
• How many Fingal cabins can be held for your group; the venue’s pages quote both 22 and 23 cabins.
• The lead time and cost of the Beating Retreat, and what happens to it in bad weather.

Related on Events Review

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• Edinburgh Castle
• Dynamic Earth
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• Prestonfield House
• Edinburgh International Conference Centre
• Titanic Belfast
• Turn venue accessibility claims into a usable event plan
• Choose the venue around the event, not the headline capacity

Sources: exclusive use, function rooms, private dining, entertainment, directions, accessibility, environmental commitment and the events brochure, checked 5 November 2026.