Arlington Hotel — Hotel in Dublin

This hotel cares more about money retention than guest retention.

Some positives as I've stayed here many times: the location is excellent. most of the staff are lovely and helpful. the food is very good and I love the open restaurant area facing the Liffey.

Now on to why I'm leaving my only bad review of any hotel, ever:

I booked a non-fundable room on Expedia. I didn't want a refund, I only wanted to change my booking date. It was a simple 1 night booking and I wanted to stay on a Friday instead of a Monday night. I contacted Expedia who agreed to change the date and waive any fees on their end, telling me I would just have to pay the difference in room rate for that night which I agreed to.

The problem came when Expedia phoned the hotel, they were told to send the request in an email instead. (The reservations manager or reception staff could've just immediately denied the request since they know that's the hotels policy, read previous reviews about this issue). Instead they told the Expedia agent she must email it (why delay me in booking alternative accommodation when you know your own hotel policy?).

The hotel staff then called me the following morning (almost 24 hrs later) and said that they spoke to management who've denied my request, they blamed Expedia and said it was "Expedias policy". (Expedia had already agreed to change the date and waive the fees so that is just a cop out) I was then offered a 15% discount on the Friday rate instead. (€224 so with the discount would be around €190, so they get to keep my original bookings €136 for an empty room PLUS charge me €190 for the Friday).

I am also the reservations manager at a popular hotel. That is my job the last 10 years so I know for a fact that hotel policy overrides ALL Expedia policies and that if a guest requests a change through Expedia & Expedia agrees & the room is available the hotel CAN absolutely change it. It is 100% at the hotels discretion. It has nothing to do with Expedia anymore once they have agreed to change a booking and requested it on the guests behalf.

The funniest thing is that I managed to book the hotel for Friday, for a better room type for just €115 when I was only offered a 15% discount off €224 (so around €190) by the reservations manager mere hours before. So the Friday rate ended up cheaper than the Monday rate (€136) I was trying to change and they STILL wouldn't change it? Completely unreasonable.

This hotel is not so hard up for money that its necessary to treat returning customers this badly. I've stayed here loads of times by myself and with others. It's actually owned by the Louis Fitzgerald group (google them) they own this hotel, the Louis Fitzgerald hotel, Kehoes, The Gin Palace (Liffey Street), The Stags Head (Temple Bar), Quays (Temple Bar), Bruxelles (Grafton Street), and many more extremely profitable popular spots. They do NOT need my measly €136! It means a lot more to me than it does to them. And I didn't even request it back I merely wanted a date change. Unbelievable.

I'll be avoiding any establishment this group owns from now on and I also will never recommend them to my guests at work either. I wish I could take back any time I have ever recommended this or any of their other places to anyone, but all I can do is leave this review to warn others that even if you're a regularly staying guest this hotel does not care and only cares about...

We are writing this review on the Celtic Nights show and entertainment night not the hotel: So we attended 2nd of august 6:30pm show. The venue its self is medium sized venue so many of the times you are placed on tables amongs other people as they are trying to get as many people as possible so long tables with groups are 4-12 people sitting opposite each other. The venue is set up lovely candle lit the atmosphere straight away is nice. However we was placed on a table with us however with one of us having disabilities and severe allergies it was not safe or comfortable for us to sit amongst large groups we explained this to the staff and they kindly and happily changed our seating. Again as mentioned one of us had significant life threatening allergies and when explained on the phone when booking we was told that this can be accommodated. This was tried to be met as much as possible however it meant to had that one of us had to have watermelon started and that starter missing items as they wasn’t safe and we was informed we could have the potates without the allergen in question to make up for it (however at the end we was charged). However they explained they could have a main meal and allergen can be met and it was the main meal was lovely. Dessert was slightly worse as we was ill informed that there allergy free options for desserts however again just given a bowl of watermelon. So slightly disappointed as we did pay for the 3 course meal and it couldn’t be accomplished despite being told a few times it could be. HOWEVER granted with the food if you dont have allergies you will be absolutely fine as one of us didn’t have allergies and loved the food. The show its self was entertaining and enjoyable. The music was lovely! The main gentleman was charismatic, very funny and charming funny and got the crowd engaged. If you are looking for a irish themed night as we was then we would recommend as we have come from England, London and not in Dublin for long so wanted to experience the traditional irish dancing, food and music and this was definitely met. In an overall review i would definitely recommend if you want a sweet, cosy irish themed night out. However please understand the environment is extremely busy and there are definitely more people than staff and they are working quite hard and running around so ordering drinks at time was difficult and slow one gentleman we ordered drinks didn’t even get our drinks so we had to reorder after waiting and releasing it wasn’t coming. However we understood as we could really see how busy they were.

Again we highly recommend and had a lovely night and thank you for 1 accommodating the disability needs and trying your best to meet the allergy needs despite understanding it was so difficult each meal was double checked and insured it was safe and no reactions happened so overall...

Oh man, were we disappointed in the Arlington Hotel. We reserved two rooms for a two night stay in April 2025, and when I made the reservation I mentioned that we had three kids. Despite this, we were placed in the front, older part of the hotel on the 3rd floor (equal to the 4th floor for Americans). These rooms are so worn out and look nothing like the pictures they have on their website. There is no elevator - so every time we wanted to leave we had to walk up and down 4 flights of stairs - with three kids and then carry our luggage out. Some examples of how the rooms are just old and worn out: stains on the carpet, very dim lighting (in one room there was not even a lamp near the third bed which was off in a dark corner - it was weird and creepy), the water pressure in the sink was so low, you could barely brush your teeth, the shower took a while to come on (when it did, thankfully the water pressure was pretty good), no AC (we didn't need it, but it also meant we had to keep the windows open all night right on a very busy street, and on the day it rained).

Another weird thing was, we got to the hotel at 2pm, and check in was at 3 pm. They told us our rooms were not ready yet, which is fair. Yet we watched person after person check in after us and their rooms were ready. So, we had to wait for the absolute worst rooms in the hotel - and they are the same price as the nicer rooms on their website. This makes zero sense.

They also need a few basic amenities that guests are used to - like tissues (none in our room), an ice or water station that guests can access. The only place in the hotel to get ice or water is from the bartender in the main bar. We did this twice but they did not seem happy to help us - each kid wanted to fill up their (small to medium size bottle) and it was really awkward. We spent a week traveling over Ireland, and at every other hotel there was water and ice available to guests in some form.

The positives: the linens were really clean, breakfast was ok, some of the staff was ok. Yes, the location is good BUT for what they are charging, you can find many, many other hotels in the same price range and same general area that are much nicer and newer.

I did send this feedback to the hotel...