Carlton Hotel Dublin Airport

...had not heard of the Carlton hotel chain prior to my visit to Ireland in late 2006, but it turned out to be a brand new 4 star modern hotel and the cheapest of this hotel class in Dublin at the time of my booking. I had already had a bad experience with a previous hotel in Ireland and was anxious that I didn’t want this episode repeated, so I took the plunge and booked with the Carlton.

I was not disappointed and will be returning ...
...business meetings, people with an interest in aviation and families.


LOCATION

The hotel is located about 5 minutes drive from the main airport terminal. The hotel is new, it only opened about a year ago, it’s smart, modern and extremely competitively priced for hotels in this class, especially when using one of the many online travel companies to make a booking.

Getting to the hotel is easy, if ... more

OVERVIEW

I had not heard of the Carlton hotel chain prior to my visit to Ireland in late 2006, but it turned out to be a brand new 4 star modern hotel and the cheapest of this hotel class in Dublin at the time of my booking. I had already had a bad experience with a previous hotel in Ireland and was anxious that I didn’t want this episode repeated, so I took the plunge and booked with the Carlton.

I was not disappointed and will be returning later this year. The hotel is ideal for short breaks, business meetings, people with an interest in aviation and families.

LOCATION

The hotel is located about 5 minutes drive from the main airport terminal. The hotel is new, it only opened about a year ago, it’s smart, modern and extremely competitively priced for hotels in this class, especially when using one of the many online travel companies to make a booking.

Getting to the hotel is easy, if you hire a car, you’ll need to print out the directions from the website, but the hotel offers free parking. We didn’t initially plan to hire a car in Dublin as we thought the buses etc would suffice (although later changed our minds) so we used the free courtesy bus instead. It ran every 10 mins or so from the hotel to the terminal building from where you could pick up a hire car or bus. We all commented on how friendly the courtesy bus driver was.

FAMILY FRIENDLY

I have stayed in a few hotels that have been rated as 4 star, and sometimes when you go in them you feel out of place, because you are surrounded by business people in suits which gives the place a stuffy atmosphere. Well I didn’t find that at this hotel, on the day we arrived, the restaurant was buzzing with a children’s party. This isn’t to say that children were running riot, far from it, it just gave the place a nice calm, relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

ACCOMMODATION & DINING

The hotel is very new and extremely clean. We found that everyone was so friendly, I literally mean everyone we came across from the staff in reception, to those in the restaurant and all the cleaners, they all said good morning and were helpful.

Initially we were given two rooms on the ground floor (one had an LCD TV) but I am really interested in aviation and the hotel literature mentions views of the runway at Dublin so we asked if they had anything else available. We were then offered 2 rooms on the third floor and although they were in different corridors they both had great views of the airport. I was given a smoking room (although we requested not to have one in our initial booking) however, you really couldn't tell, everything was very fresh and spotlessly clean and as a non-smoker I pick up on things like that!

The noise of the planes wasn't that bad, the rooms are insulated, although if you wanted to open the window eg in the summer I think it would be difficult to sleep, but having said that there is a temperature control panel in each room so probably air conditioned.

The beds in the twin room were single beds, but they seemed larger than a normal single, but not as big as queen sized beds you get in US hotels but very comfortable and as I say they were bigger than a normal single bed.

The rooms came with tea/coffee facilities, a normal TV set (not lcd) and a computer keyboard. I though this was neat, you could access the internet from your TV. My only issue here was that the TV reception was poor and limited channels, our BBC/ITV channels kept dropping, but it was very windy whilst we were there which meant we had RTE/TV3.

The bathroom was spotless, and topped up daily with soap, shower gel etc. There were dressing gowns and huge luxury soft towels.

Other amenities included iron and ironing board, but no fridge or safe in our rooms.

The hotel has the usual room service which is nice if you don’t feel like eating in the restaurant, or alternatively there are two restaurants to choose from, the bar area called Kittyhawks (the hotel has an aviation theme) and the Clouds restaurant on the third floor. Each has patio-heated outdoor areas. We didn't eat in the Clouds restaurant although we had a look, it was a bit posh for me! So we ate in the Kittyhawks restaurant/bar.

We found serving sizes to be exactly right, well presented and good value. The breakfasts offered all manner of choices from cereals to cooked or fruit etc. and was included in our room price.

In my opinion, the hotel thought of everything, even down to fresh flowers in the lobbies on each floor.

For travellers, there were LCD screens in the hotel lobby detailing arrivals and departures information. There was a wide array of brochures and leaflets for local attractions available as well.

CONCLUSION

This hotel exceeded all of our expectations, and set a very high standard of what a customer should expect from a hotel of this class. I probably wouldn’t recommend the hotel for anyone who intends on going pubbing and clubbing in the centre of town every night, although there are bus links, I think that would be a bit of hassle. However, it was in a good location for tourists like me though because I got to indulge in my aviation interest, the hotel was in a good location for hiring a car and driving out into the Wicklow mountains and Glendelough, but equally well placed for getting into town to the Guinness Brewery and other attractions.

The hotel was spotlessly clean, full of very friendly staff and attentive staff, and had excellent timely room service. The only minor fault I had was the TV reception and the view your bill function didn't work.

I have booked to stay at the hotel again this year for a couple of nights and am very much looking forward to it. I would recommend to others. Whilst there we saw other families, business people and couples. We got an excellent deal via ebookers which included breakfast in the charge.

I hope this is helpful for anyone looking at Dublin hotels. 

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