Wellington Temple Bar — Hotel in Dublin

O'Riordan's. NB: This is NOT about the hotel, but about the ground floor hotel bar and bistro which the hotel website says (3 April) is still closed, but, no, it is very much open (has been for two weeks) and quite good. However, I don't see it listed separately anywhere - it is called O'Riordan's Bar on its street signage. So, I'll put this down under the hotel's general tab. They should feel free to let me know if the bar gets a separate pin on Google Maps and I'll re-review it. The Google Review format requires me to rank rooms as well as service and location so I put in five stars for that just so as not to inadvertently lower their rating. Think of it as five stars instead for the food and entertainment. We had been to a number of impossibly crowded and frankly kind of grimy Temple Bar establishments over Easter Week, but the real disappointment had been an inability to properly hear and enjoy live entertainment. Wellington's bar and bistro completely conquers that neighborhood problem. It's a bit of a paradigm shift because you're walking into a modern space with large picture windows over the River Liffey and Millennium Bridge. The view is wonderful and accessible from all tables, everything is tip-top shape, and the staff are very attentive. The food is quickly served and a definite cut above. I believe John was the manager who helped us out both times. Now, I had assumed all this would come at a cost, but I see from my credit card bill for dozens of pubs this trip that it was entirely reasonably priced. We saw four traditional sets there by four artists over two nights. All of the acts - three duos and one solo guitarist - were well-chosen and largely veered away from or at least generously supplemented the Dirty Old Town playlist one gets everywhere else in Temple Bar. This alone was enormously refreshing, but the real treat is the acoustics. Walls and ceilings have proper acoustic tiling, meaning that you hear everything without its being drowned out by the huge amplification required in the rest of Temple Bar's pubs. Seating was no problem, possibly because the place is so new. This is a photo from the river: I think it has an unexpected Edward Hopper...

The best part about this place is the location as well as the overall cleanliness of the rooms. It’s right in Temple Bar, making it super easy and accessible for anyone planning on going out around there. It’s also a great central location for visiting the sites!

However, there are a number of things worth knowing from my experience of staying 4 nights there:

Upon check-in, they put me in a completely windowless room which was really claustrophobic. The room was already small and the lack of windows made it seem even smaller. While there is great sound barrier to the noise on the street (probably partially due to the lack of window, to be honest), you can hear everything going on in the halls, including the door to the elevators which slams every time someone goes through it, as well as the alarms on the doors that go off if they’re not closed properly. Again, probably not a huge deal if you’re out late anyways but since I had an early flight it made it a bit rough to sleep! There is construction currently going on at the property at the time of posting, with what looks like half the floors currently being renovated. It only happens during the day and it’s nice that the rooms are newly renovated, but worth knowing in case you like to sleep in, as the noise starts around 9am-ish

Overall, it wasn’t a horrible stay but I only slept probably 2/4 of the nights I was there due to some of the sound issues as before and struggled a bit with the claustrophobic room. It’s worth noting there were some other small issues like the hotel running out of hot water one morning as well as a fire alarm that went off for 2 minutes in the middle of the night. I assume they are one-time things so not worth mentioning above, but in case specifically the water heater thing happens more often, it could be worth noting!

Overall I had an amazing stay while in Dublin, but I had an amazing trip despite this hotel—not because of it. That said, it did offer a safe, somewhat comfortable, and clean place to decompress and the price wasn’t too bad. You definitely pay for what...

I stayed here for one night in a small, windowless (noted at time of booking) room. Overall, my experience was positive and I would stay here again.||Location: The hotel is in a good, central location - if you want to be in or near the Temple Bar district of downtown Dublin. The airport express bus #782 stops near the hotel (note: when returning to the airport, you can pick it up on the other side of the River Liffey, instead of at the stop on the same side as the hotel, to shorten your bus trip).||Room: While the room was small, it was clean and served my needs well. Everything in the room and bathroom worked fine. The pillows were a bit cheap/rubbery. There was an electric kettle with a couple of biscuits in the room. The shower had plenty of hot water and the bathroom had good quality tissue paper.||Service: Service was beyond expectations. Victoria (from Moldova), at the front desk, was friendly, professional, and very kindly helped me print out some papers I wanted (Thank you again Victoria!). Allen in the bar, where one eats breakfast, was friendly and helped me get my breakfast quickly so that I could make my airport bus (Thank you again Allen).||Breakfast: I booked a room rate that included breakfast. I'm glad I did. One of the breakfast options was a full Irish breakfast which was tasty, filling, and good value.||Noise: Some reviewers have complained about noise from the bar/pub downstairs. My room was on the 4th floor - and I heard no noise from the bar. My room did have an electrical breaker box in it that emitted a quite loud hum, but that served as white noise rather than an...