The Worst Guesthouse

It is possibly the worst guesthouse in which we have ever stayed. It could possibly be the worst in Dublin.

The Man of the Place booked us a room in a hotel/guesthouse on-line last week for our stay in Dublin. It seemed that this was no mean task as we needed a room for three people. This usually means that we require a family room. Sometimes hotels will put a fold out bed in a double room, but we couldn't find that. Dublin was full. Naturally, if we had loads of money, we could have stayed in very very nice hotels, but sadly, we're on a budget. The Dublin version of The George V was not for us this time.

There was a phone call at the house the day after the booking was made. It involved Henry having discussions with somebody for ages. It turned out that where he had made the reservation required that guests stay for a minimum of two nights at the weekend. In the end, somebody phoned him a second time and said that the reservation for one night would be fine and they looked forward to seeing us on Saturday. With that Henry printed off the confirmation voucher and packed it with the rest of our travel documents.

We went on to Dublin. We arrived in the city early in the morning. It was too early to check in, but we had been told that they would be happy to hold our bags until later on in the day. When we arrived at our guesthouse, we were met by the owner of the guesthouse herself.

Henry explained that we had a reservation for the night and immediately there was a problem. She stated that she wasn't going to be honouring the confirmation voucher as it clearly states in all the information about her place says that there is always a minimum stay of two nights when booking on a weekend. The confirmation voucher Henry held and the conversations he had with the assistant manager were worthless in this woman's eyes. In the end, she deigned to let us have the family room at an inflated 55 Euros per person. That comes to 165 Euros for the night!

At this point, if there had been any other room available in Dublin we would have left then and there. We were over a barrel and took the room.

Later on in the afternoon, after check in time we came back and viewed our room. At first glance it was depressing. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke. There were cigarette burns on all the bedside tables. The door knob on the bathroom door was dangling and certainly un-lockable. We had to promise George that nobody would accidentally walk in on him when he was in the bathroom. The sheets were clean, but the bedspread had old cigarette burns in them. Who was in here before? The Marlborough Man and his family?

The room was tidy but uncared for. The last time they had painted the room, the headboard on the double bed was left bolted to the wall and the painters merely painted around it. There were coffee mugs, tea bags and sachets of coffee on a tray, but no kettle. (sigh) It would have been so much worse for our young traveler if the tv was broken, but no. The tv worked just fine.

I am an early riser and Sunday morning was no exception. I woke before everybody else. So as to not disturb my slumbering husband I got out of bed and went over to the unoccupied second single bed to read. This is the point in our stay where if we hadn't been stung for so much money, it would have been very funny. There were dried boogers (bogeys) on the wall! Yuck!

Breakfast was okay. It certainly didn't make up for the condition of the room. There were two women serving breakfast. One was madame hotelier herself. The other was a young woman who obviously hated her job. Service with a sulk! That's what we like!

Please avoid the Phoenix Park Guest House when visiting Dublin. It's awful.