We were really looking forward to this breakaway so much. The hotel looks great, it’s very deceiving from photos and from outside, it is a very big hotel.
Rooms- very clean and comfortable, but tired, the decor needs some maintenance.
On the day of arriving, we had treatments booked at the spa, which is such a lovely space, while we were at the desk, 3 ‘Chung wans’ from Dublin barged in, in a panic, basically barged past us, and the receptionist entertained it.. anyway ‘day were sorreee day wer late, d’lights war off on Blancheee” they were asked if they had booked treatments, and chief chung-wan said “noooooo wer havin da’TERMINAL sweeeeet” my eyes could not roll back far enough. We made our way to the thermal suite and the say 3 were so loud and having conversations on their phones, on loud speaker, this took away from the experience and no one endorsing the NO PHONES POLICY.
The treatments were AMAZING, the therapists know their stuff, so relaxing.
We decided to have dinner in The Ivy “fine dining” restaurant, this was a complete let down, they put more attention into making the plates and food look good than they do into the taste, everything was bland and taste less. We did an Eastern European waiter who was so attentive and polite, but the food was stink.
Breakfast is served in the same restaurant in the mornings. Typical Irish hotel breakfast nothing to make it stand out, there was options on the menu which cost extra which is a first for me if you’ve paid for breakfast already!! The likes of pancakes, eggs royal etc.. so basically they charge for the smoked salmon…on the 2nd morning I asked for poached eggs on sourdough.. an Indian manager said yes it’s extra… that was all I felt like eating so I said fine whatever, and she picked up the menu and pointed to the eggs royal and said it’s extra, my reply was I don’t care I just want 2
Poached eggs on sourdough, again she was adamant that work be paying, so I asked what exactly am i paying the extra for I don’t want eggs royale I just want eggs and bread… so she wanted to charge me €6.50 for the sourdough, when she realised what was coming out of her mouth, she said I’ll ask the kitchen. My 2 poached eggs arrived… with nothing else, so I had to help myself to the buffet and make Toast… 5 minutes later a slice of toasted sourdough arrived, if people are paying €300 plus for bed and breakfast and then you try to squeeze more money out of them it’s a bit of a rip off. She also brought me coffee in pot that looked like the spout had been dipped in me eggs…
We had some drinks in the lounge, again staff were nice. We had a couple of different cocktails (I trained with Ketel one mixologists in The Netherlands) so I know cocktails , my partner had ordered a Mojito which he said was nice, I had a pornstar Martini both €14, I feel mine lacked alcohol, I ordered a Mojito for myself, and one waitress said ‘oh can I make this’ they dropped the drink which tasted like lime and cold water very sour and bitter, I brought it back and told them it wasn’t a Mojito, I was told sorry we make the first one with TK lemonade… and this one with Soda…… SORRY… did you just say you charged me €14 for rum and TK lemonade, and ye juat decide on a whim what goes into your cocktails?
That put a hault to our spending at the hotel.
This hotel has so much potential to be an amazing destination, if it had the right people steering it or guiding the team.
GB
IE