Limerick City Hotel — Hotel in Limerick

Stayed here for an overnight earlier in the week. We took the train and it’s only about a 10-minute walk from the station. Got a good deal from pigsback for a double room, bed and breakfast, a bottle of wine in the room, plus a two-course dinner for two. Our room was on the fourth floor, with a great view of the River Shannon. However, it was stifling, particularly at night, but opening the windows introduced too much noise from traffic. The meal was absolutely delicious, no complaints there at all. Sleep quality was good. There were a few niggly things though - shower was in the bath, and was the rain-forest type, but it didn’t work. There was only a trickle of water from it which didn't heat up, and the shower dial came away in our hand. The smaller shower handset didn't work at all. There was no stopper in the wash hand basin, which meant the tap had to be kept on whilst washing – a dreadful waste of water when we are all being asked to conserve this precious resource. The lamp on the dresser didn’t work, so we don’t know if the socket wasn’t operational or there was no bulb in it, this couldn’t be seen from the frosted cover on the lamp. Finally, and perhaps the most important point of all is the fact that this hotel never mentioned on its website, that it is being used to house asylum seekers. This became obvious to us on the evening of our arrival, as the lift stopped on a lower floor from where we saw baby buggies and children’s bikes stored in the lobby. At least one floor is being used for this purpose. There was a very strong smell of cooking next morning when the lift doors opened, and curry is a smell that nobody wants to get anywhere but a kitchen, and definitely not when you’re on your way to breakfast. A quick look at the internet revealed recent reviews which mentioned asylum seekers and those cooking smells, and we are sorry we didn’t see them beforehand. We’d stayed at this hotel before and didn’t see any reason to check recent reviews – well that’s a lesson well-learned for us. It certainly would have altered our decision about booking had we known. We didn’t encounter issues from anyone staying at the hotel, but it would have been helpful to have had the full facts before booking. In future when we see a pigsback offer we will meticulously investigate reviews for whatever hotel rooms they are selling. We did mention the shower and wash hand basin...

City Hotel advertises itself as a 4-Star hotel, when at best it’s 3-Star one. Pros: central location close to all the shops and restaurants downtown, friendly front-desk staff, rooms were decently furnished, 2 elevators.

Cons: There is no central air. I had to crank the radiator crouching down in the floor. Thankfully it was November—if you’re traveling in the summer, there is no A/C. Strange because the hotel is a newer built hotel (which was one of the reasons why I initially chose this hotel). The room wasn’t really big. Enough for a bed and a table and chairs, and a closet. A real 4-Star hotel room would be twice the size. There is no mini-fridge in the room, so forget getting drinks from the store and keeping them cold. Mini-fridges aren’t expensive, it would be a good investment for this hotel to install one in every room. There is no locked deposit box in the room. You have to leave your things with the front desk to have it locked. There is no hair-dryer in the room. There is a phone, but it’s not connected. You have to walk downstairs to talk to front desk. The hallway is very narrow, so you can pretty much hear every door slam. There is no/little insulation between rooms. I could hear the conversation the lady next door was having. The bathroom has a cheap low-flow faucet which, when you turn it on, sprays everywhere. This is Ireland, the land with plenty of water, I don’t see the need to conserve a bit of water, when the faucets are so annoying (I get it if this were Arizona).

I had only planned to spend 2 nights in Limerick, so the price of 97 Euros was fine. I took a chance, but did save money compared to the other more expensive hotels. Before this hotel, I was at the Hotel Clayton in Cork, so this hotel was a let down as it was not...

I initially had 5 stars from the first time I stayed here two years ago, I had told everyone how nice it was and that the food was one of the nicest meals I had, friends of mine came and stayed here after hearing what I thought of it. This visit was completely different, the only enjoyable part of our stay was dealing with Andrew on reception, he was lovely and really tried to help us out. Tiny dirty room, windows were thick with dirt, disgusting food, bad attitude from bar manager, extremely poor customer service. First day we arrived we said we’d have a bite to eat in the bar, waited 40 minutes for soup and nachos, it eventually came out, no sauces as requested, we had to ask for them again, anyways the food was vile, guacamole was stale and absolutely disgusting, the nachos were by no means edible, no one checked on us once to ask how the meal was. The girl came over and I handed her the nachos and told her they were horrible and asked for the bill, charged €10 for nachos that we didn’t even eat, the girl added ‘discount’ and gave us €2 off the bill, the staff just kept staring at us, they were waiting for us to complain as they knew what they handed us was disgraceful, Andrew on the front desk was the only one who seemed to take us seriously and gave great customer service. He was the only one that actually seemed to want our custom. We had a voucher for a meal so it’s the only reason we ate there the second night, food was horrible. Bar manager seemed to have an issue with us, Such a shame as we had such a great stay the last time...