Good base - if you're flexible (Ibis Hotels in general)

Member Name: andymcf

Product:	Ibis Hotels in general
Date:	26/11/02 (649 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great value, Clean and comfortable, Wonderful satisfaction guarantee

Disadvantages: Location

We visited Dublin on a budget. We flew by Ryanair (plenty of reviews available here in THAT respect!) and stayed at the Ibis for about £40 per night. It's a pretty long (if inexpensive) bus journey out of town.

Location. Location. Location. It's crucially important; particularly in Dublin. This hotel is just too far out of town. You definitely miss out on the party which is quintessentially Dublin. You catch the last bus back before Dublin's excellent bars have shut. You are a party pooper in a town that parties with a particular style.

Anyway. The hotel. We arrived and checked in. Dublin's an incredibly multi-cultural, multi-lingual city and the receptionist was both French and friendly. We got our key-card for our room and proceeded upstairs, ready to drop off our bags and do the voyage back into the vibrant Irish capital. The card would not open the door to our room. We trudged back downstairs and highlighted the problem. We were escorted back upstairs by no-less than the very helpful hotel manager. He couldn't open the door either - so at least I wasn't made to look too stupid! Back he went and, before you could say a very short, witty phrase, he was back with a collection of keys which beggared belief....and we were eventually in our room. And with a thousand apologies. We sat on the bed, relieved, and wearily picked up a welcome card. "If any problem is unresolved within 30 minutes," it said "you won't pay for your room". That explained the manager's frantic efforts to get us in. He had just about made it, unfortunately!!! It's a pretty good guarantee of satisfaction, in anyone's book! Ah well! We'd got in...and we'd have to pay our bill!

We had a standard room, which was surprisingly spacious and very clean. The large double bed was perfectly comfortable. The ensuite bathroom was more than adequate. A large window afforded a clear - but fairly awful - view of the
local suburbs, although if you looked carefully, you could see the beautiful hills in the background. There was a colour television; all fairly standard stuff. To be honest, you really couldn't complain - and certainly not at the very decent price. To really enjoy Dublin, you don't just sit in your hotel room, anyway.

There's not much of a restaurant at the hotel but, in Dublin, there are a multitude of great places to eat and you'd probably really regret missing out by eating in your hotel. We skipped breakfast at the hotel, too, and stumbled upon Bewley's Oriental Tea House - an absolute gem of a place (and, rightly, quite an institution in Dublin) where we had a superb Irish cooked breakast at a very reasonable price. Highly recommended option!

We ended up having a really great time in Dublin. It's an absolutely superb city with fantastic, welcoming pubs (yes, the Guinness DOES taste different over there) and really friendly people. Dublin is breathtakingly multicultural and extremely vibrant. It's just a shame that the Ibis is SO far out that the evening had, inevitably, to be curtailed. Now we've got baby Josh, perhaps the focus has changed. I can still imagine that the location would be a huge problem. It's a shame, because - that apart - it's recommended.

Dublin is a fantastic city. This was a good hotel at a very good rate and if this is a hotel by which to judge the Ibis group, then I'd say that they've got the formula right - the satisfaction guarantee is pretty daring of them and speaks volumes about their determination to provide a decent product. It's just a shame about the location!

Andrew

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