Rochestown Park Hotel — Hotel in Cork

“Kindergarten style breakfast arrangements”, is enough to drive future Guests from this Hotel, The Rochestown Park Hotel, in Cork, has a rating of 3.9 out of 5 on Tripadvisor, so we were not expecting great things from this Hotel, however upon arrival, we were impressed by the spacious reception area and the sole Receptionist on duty, she really was very friendly and helpful, our room on the fifth floor was clean and tidy and there were no complaints there, we were really beginning to think that this was a great hotel, that is, until breakfast the next morning in “ROSO’S Restaurant”, now I have stayed in about 400 Hotels in Ireland over the last twenty years, not counting many in the UK, Germany, Spain, Gibraltar & China, etc, and I have never seen a set up like the system in operation in this Hotel, A ”Red”, “Orange” & “Green” time system, The Hotel advertises a “Continental Breakfast” now this is defined as, A continental breakfast is a light morning meal, in effect normally a Self-serving presentation, typically consisting of morning pastries and baked goods, fruits, toast, and Coffee/tea/Juice normally presented in a buffet presentation, And the official hotel website shows the “breakfast hot counter” with two servers and a pile of trays and four baskets containing packets of sauces, ketchup, mustard, etc, So, the Hotel breakfast room was and is still set up as a “Continental buffet style Breakfast” area, BUT the reality is completely different, You cannot operate a “table Service” in a breakfast room set up as a “Continental buffet style Breakfast” area, without Guests helping themselves to food, orange juice, and the like, etc, and then have staff chasing after them, explaining it is a table service only and they must return to their table and everything will be brought to them, Now, it should be stated here, that there is no complaints regarding the excellent hard-working Staff or the excellent food, of which we have no complaints, but it is the “table service” that is the problem! “ROSO’S Restaurant”, seats approximately at a guess about fifty four guests in a breakfast arrangement, the first morning there were twenty six Guests and the second morning about thirty six Guests, I counted ten staff on duty, a supervisor and seven waiters/waitresses, the hot food server and the chef who was coming and going bringing hot food out, all the Staff were friendly and hard working but they were run off their feet, two of them were stressed and I mildly clashed with them but later made up (became friendly), they are stressed and the Guests are stressed by operating a “table serving system” that is clearly not working for the Hotel or the Guests!

many Guests around me, including with Children were sitting without food, anyone who attempted to pour orange juice themselves or get toast or other items from the “buffet style Breakfast” were reprimanded, by “Staff” and it seems or appears were being told that they cannot help themselves to food on display, certainty, I was instructed, “that everything would be brought to me”, in effect to go and sit down, but I explained, I was only looking to see what was on offer, on both mornings the waiters/waitresses, became annoyed with me because they wanted me to order everything at the same time, Juice, fruit, toast, hot food, tea etc all at the same time, that’s not how it works, I normally go and see what is on offer and then decide if I want it or not, I normally get a glass of orange juice and a bowel of grapefruit segments, and proceed from there with hot food and later toast, and take my time but here I was being rushed, I was stressed on the second morning and wondered if it was worth my while even going for breakfast, remember Guest are bringing money to your Hotel, and with this carry on they will go...

I booked the Junior Suite for a 1 night stay as I was planning to propose during my stay. I rang the customer service team informing them of this and asked if the room could be decorated or made to look nice, I was told "no we don't do that" over the phone which was disappointing. Upon arrival, seeing the room is nothing like the picture when booking. The room was a nice size, but there were absolutely no decorations, just empty shelves where there should have been decorations. After checking out the room a little, I noticed that we had no robes or slippers, which were included in the junior suite package.

We had dinner booked for 6 pm, which was prepaid for as an extra package to the room. Before going for dinner, we asked reception to send up robes and slippers to the room as we didn't have any. We went for dinner and the food was lovely. We had a drink with dinner, which we knew wasn't included in the dinner package, so we went up to the till to pay for the drinks. When we asked for the bill, we were asked to pay for the entire meal even though I had given my room number, so they should have known dinner was already paid for. After fighting my case for a few minutes, they found that I had dinner already paid, so we only paid for drinks.

Coming back to our room after dinner (around 8pm) we still hadn't got any robes or slippers to our room. We tried to call the reception with the phone in our room but the phone was broken. We also were going to order a drink to our room but couldn't because of the broken phone. We had to go back down to the bar and get the drink ourselves. It was around 9 pm now and still no robes to our room. We then wanted to relax and have a bath but we couldn't because the stopper for the bath was too big so we couldn't fill the bath. (Besides the size of the room, the main difference between the suite and double room is a bath and robes, which is why I booked the suite)

We rang the reception on our personal phones but had to go through a few extra steps as if we weren't staying in the hotel. Explaining our situation, we were told someone would be sent up right away with robes and to fix the bath. 25 minutes later, someone came to our door with robes and a random stopper that was too big for the bath, so it was no good. We were then told she would get the manager to ring us , which was around another 20 minutes. So it was now around 10pm, and we were told someone is going to fix the bath for us. Another 25 minutes later, the same lady came to our room with another stopper for the bath, which was too small. She told us that maybe the only way to fix it is if they could move our room to one where the bath was working. This wasn't really a welcome idea on a 1 night stay and it being 10.30pm. We asked her just to get the manager to call us again. We were waiting for about an hour for a call, but no call was made.

Next morning, we went for breakfast, which I expected to be included with booking a Junior Suite, and I had no option when booking to add breakfast. We gave our room number to the waitress and we were told we have to pay for breakfast and it wasn't included in our room. This was very disappointing.

Upon checkout, we handed our cards back and were also told we had a balance of €24.50 to pay on the room for an expense the night before. When we asked what exactly this expense was, we got no answer. We could order room service and we didn't charge anything to our room so there was no reason for this charge and they couldn't explain it.

Overall, I'm very disappointed with my stay, especially seeing as this was the experience we had on our engagement. I honestly couldn't recommend anyone stay here. It ruined what was supposed to be a...

We got a last minute booking on Friday to stay the Saturday, Joanne whom was the girl who took my booking an extremely nice person super easy to speak to, we stayed in room 103 ,on arrival at 3pm we were told the rooms may not ready ?? As we had booked the pool for shortly after check In, this statement was a bit shocking for me with my 3 young children and a daunting task anyway luckily or maybe actually reality set in to the receptionist and gave us a different room that was ready so panic was aborted, as i said room 103 a ground floor family room two double beds the room was immaculately cleaned, plenty pillows and space in the room, the decor was modern & stylish, there was coffee making facilities, a very good hair dryer and an ironing board, never checked for the bible, the bathroom a little bit of wear and tear again very clean plenty towels, toilet roll and soap , the shower was powerful like a massage loved that , The pool I’ll start with the fact we were not allowed in the changing rooms which was a disaster for any family or self conscious person “when I first checked in and the girl said go straight to pool instead of the room because the room wasn’t ready “can you imagine having just arrived at the hotel having to haul all your gear in to the pool and sort out everything out pool side with 3 young kids ,search for swim suits goggles etc and strip and dress yourself and your kids at the side of the pool where the floor was all wet all your bags and belongings would be soaked that would be a nightmare luckily again we were given another room so had the luxury or preparing before hand even though we were not aware of the changing room situation in the leisure centre I think the hotel need to provide robes in the rooms for guests because of this inconvenience at least that way you can go back to the room decently and alternative to awkward changing at a wet bench , the pool itself was beautiful place relaxing ambience, the showers on the side were fabulous my kids thoroughly enjoyed there swims both times The food from start to finish the restaurant was very enjoyable the food was excellent the only thing was it would be nice to have kid friendly plantbased options for vegetarians & vegans, i got the veef burger myself which my kids would have loved as an option the breakfast could have a plantbased type Irish breakfast too which lots of hotels offer now a days I felt it awkward the fact there was no vegan options for breakfast,I did note it in my booking also paid for it as apart of my hotel stay ,we would return to hotel in the future it’s definitely family friendly we did enjoy or stay and it is close to lots of nearby amenities I am knocking stars for the pool no changing facilities or robes for guests, and also for lack vegan plantbased children dinner options and...