SST

We took Aadvantage of the el-cheapo LAX-DUB fares being offered by American Airlines to book a quick trip to Ireland, and set out to make an extra long weekend of it (5 nights), check out some Hilton and Starwood properties, and see a little of the Emerald Isle. I had business in LA the day before our trip, so getting to LAX wasn�t a problem. We overnighted at the Four Points LAX because of the $79 special in effect, and found it to be a decent if unspectacular hotel. Since we had suffered an awful fate at the HiltonLAX two weeks prior, I swore off that hotel (�swore at� was what I wanted to do), and was pleasantly surprised that the Four Points is civilized, both in terms of rooms and service/amenities. [They didn�t provide any automated checkout, and the lines were a dozen patrons deep, so I checked out by phoning after I left, which worked fine. Also, the airport shuttle is jam packed in the am, so minor demerits for these�]

AA�s First Class service LAX-ORD was fine, and the 767 service was appreciated after so many ridiculous MD-80s we have suffered to Chicago from SFO. OTOH, the �wrap� meal is NOT �First Class�. It is a travesty that AA thinks a lettuce salad with plasticized dressing and college-kid on-the-run food which wouldn�t have been acceptable in coach a few years ago can now be considered a meal in First Class. But it was �eat it or starve�, so we did. Luckily, EXP status came to the rescue and we could at least enjoy some pupus at the First Class lounge in ORD since we were traveling internationally.

AA ORD-DUB had superb service in Business. A good meal, decently rare edible steak, and drinkable wine (I had the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which is refreshing), and a tailwind gave us a 7 hour journey, so we only pulled down about 4 � hours of sleep.

An early morning cab ride for the three of us to the Conrad Dublin cost �40. Dublin has a huge construction project between the airport and downtown, so it was also pretty slow. The Conrad had rooms ready, and provided all three of us with breakfast coupons for the next two days, apparently our Hhonors Diamond benefit, since both parties got standard rooms. Our travel partner complained that she was situated next to the elevator on floor two, and was given a better room on the 7th floor. Ours was fine, but not anything special. The good points of the Conrad: the bedding is excellent with extremely comfortable pillows, complimentary breakfast is good, and the hotel�s location is superb, right off of St. Stephen�s Green, in a quiet neighborhood with walkable excellent-looking restaurants. There�s an onsite pub, water pressure is magnificent in the showers (talk about refreshing!), the place is spotless, and the concierge/door staff are really helpful with directions and recommendations. On the downside: the desk staff seem like automatons, aren�t particularly helpful, nor are the wait staff in the ground floor bar. The bar becomes crowded and unless you collar a server, you�ll wait half an hour to get your order taken; they are experts at walking right past pretending you are in somebody else�s station.

In all, the negatives are manageable, and we would happily revisit the hotel. We�d just drink elsewhere.

We spent the days in Dublin exploring the city. Took the omnipresent City Tour double decker bus, which provided a convenient one-hour orientation and is good for 24 full hours, allowing us to use it to visit the Guinness brewery (the tour is worthwhile but not spectacular) on day two, and the Writers� Museum (disappointingly modest), and National Museum (the special exhibit now on, Hats of Philip Treacy, was, surprisingly, one of the better shows I�ve seen in the last few years.) We wandered in Temple Bar, hit a few pubs, ate decent Nepalese Food at Monty�s of Katmandu, and visited the brand new John M. Keating restaurant, which is a converted church cathedral (an excellent use for a disused building, IMHO): the place, at the west end of Henry St., is a showpiece of remodeling, with a huge bar in the center, a restaurant above in the loft, and another downstairs in the basement. The restrooms are in a huge quasi-unisex hypermodern area downstairs�it�s well worth a visit to enjoy a soup (courgette/leek was excellent) and a drink. We went back for a dinner meal, which was fairly priced but pretty unremarkable.

The place we should have had dinner but couldn�t get a reservation was Ely Wine Bar (closed on Sundays, 22 Ely Pl., reasonable). There are a few other places that looked good in this general vicinity, which is a couple blocks from the Conrad. We found Dublin restaurants, for the most part, overpriced for the quality of the food and especially the service, which is amateurish bordering on the comic. And as far as I can tell, few Irish youths work willingly in the hotel or restaurant service business, leaving all the positions to a variety of young people from a diaspora of Eastern Europe. We began to hear the difference between Serbian and Croatian accents. And the service gaffes made clear that few if any had a lot of experience in fine dining establishments.

For the last night in Dublin, we moved to the Westin hotel, which turned out to be superb. Not only did they have a room ready when we arrived at 10 a.m., it was a full suite (Starwood Platinum Status recognition works again), and it was beautiful, with a huge bathroom, sitting room four steps up, and oak floors. Bedding was Starwood�s usual superb quality, and we had our best sleep there. It�s located across the street from Trinity College, a block from the shopping bonanza of Grafton Street, where we were impressed by the January sales� honest bargains. I found a Hugo Boss suit at Brown Thomas for E300 but my wife didn�t like the pattern, and I almost walked off with a Canali suit at E400, about 2/3 of the going San Francisco price, but decided at the last minute I didn�t like the fit, so I saved even more money by leaving. She, on the other hand, scored some very nice accessories, and even got a 20% tax rebate on the sale price. (The Dublin merchants really take the tax-free shopping program seriously, and don�t begrudge you one iota even if you make a relatively small purchase, mostly refunding the tax on the spot, even though you still have to turn in the forms at the airport. It�s quite civilized.)

Our travel partner purchased some beautiful things, we all felt that the shops were welcoming, and the sales were genuine bargains. Note: I�m not so sure at other times of the year, as the markdowns were incredible, and regular prices seemed quite high.

We headed out after three nights to Hertz and our drive down to Kilkenny, for a stay at the Mount Juliet Conrad, in Thomastown. Scored an Opel Vectra, which I�ve driven before, which (unlike the Opel Astra) is a superb car for the money (our rental was E30 per day, plus fees and gas, for a total of E101.) Driving was pretty easy, though slow by US standards. We visited Kilkenny for a forgettable lunch, and Kilkenny castle, on the way.

Now, the highlight of the trip: The Mount Juliet Conrad must be one of the finest hotels in Ireland, if not the world. We stayed in the main house, which is a large manor house with superb, large rooms luxuriously appointed, on an estate which extends for miles with a river and studfarm, sheep ranches, golf course, spa, and trails. My wife and our friend both got a massage, while I headed out on a complimentary mountain bike for a wondrous ride across the river and into the countryside, something I haven�t done in years. In fact, it was so gloriously energizing that I skipped a massage and rode again the following day, for a couple hour spin exploring the farthest reaches of the property. We ate at the property (a special tasting dinner was a treat), took a walk, enjoyed the service and clublike atmosphere of the Main House�s bar (great Irish Whiskey selection), caught up with a couple things on the free internet terminal, and generally enjoyed the life of the country rich for a short period. Too short: although we got a late checkout, in retrospect we should have stayed the last night, too.

Why is that? The answer is because our final night was spent at the Mt. Wolesley Hilton, which is a disappointing Hilton Garden Inn-quality sales-seminar-with-the-family venue which was a complete letdown after the Mt. Juliet. While the drive up to the lobby is certainly impressive, the disappointment began upon first contact with the staff. I was advised that as a Hilton Diamond member, they had wanted to upgrade us but that the previous occupant of the room hadn�t vacated, so there would be none. It seemed odd since there were only about eight cars in a two-acre parking lot, and not a soul in the lobby areas, but we hoped for the best. Our traveling companion got a similar story. When we arrived at the room, we had been given what was obviously a single, with a view of the expansive roof of the conference center. We explored the hotel�s facilities and found that the Leisure Center is a well-staffed exercise room and a large indoor pool, which had a few kids running around. And that�s about it. There�s a large bar, but nobody was in it. And a restaurant, which, it appeared, was the best in town, but it wasn�t open or had no one dining or something.

We met up with our friend, and compared rooms: hers was bigger, better furnished, had a view of the golf course, and was lighter (this due to the fact that the second floor �deluxe� rooms have two windows, while the third floor ones �ours- have only one, and it�s small). The staff gave us a different room. It was better, full-sized, but featured cracked porcelain in the bathtub, no luggage racks or robes, poor finish in the bathroom/toilet room, lacked a couch, and had no clock/alarm, even on the TV. TV also had only about 9 channels, with CNN but no business channel. Our friend discovered a torn sheet made into her bed! When I went down in the evening to inquire where the business center was, the staff kept me waiting for a long time and then sheepishly explained that the internet �didn�t work, they thought�. We walked down there and tried, but it became apparent that you needed a prepaid card, and no one knew what to do. The night manager rescued the situation by letting me use the back office terminal, which was nice, but amazing for what was obviously a business hotel. I should add that any of these hotels would have charged me �20 a day for in-room internet access, which is why I don�t even bother to lug my notebook any more to Europe.

A reasonable breakfast buffet provided to us in the morning got us out early to Dublin Airport, about 2 hours away due to heavy traffic. We were amazed that as the only guests in the restaurant at 7:30 am, coffee refills were not forthcoming. But we were ready to leave.

We won�t be back to the Mt. Wolesley; our friend spent her third night at the Dublin Hilton, where she�s stayed before, and reports that it is not nearly so bad as others claim, and she would stay there again if there were a considerable discount to the Conrad. She also stayed last trip at the Dublin Airport Hilton, which she reported had the best service of all three "Hilton" locations (that is "Hilton", not Conrad or Starwood, which were better), seemed as clean and well-appointed as the Conrad Dublin, and provided a room rate about half of the downtown hotels. So any future short trips of this nature will feature either a last night in Dublin or at the airport, or a very early waking and a longer drive up from Mt. Juliet.

And we�ll be back to the Mt. Juliet. I still can�t get over how peaceful and serene the location is, and how pleasant the facilities. I don�t play golf anymore, but the course looked good: I prefer to ignore golf given my (lack of) talent at it. I don�t usually like to be around golfers, in fact, but I�ll make an exception here. This hotel is wonderful, and was the highlight of the trip. And on the way out of Thomastown, in a village on the Kilkenny road, we discovered a wonderful small leather artisan whose handbags, luggage and so forth were again on after-Christmas sale, so I�ll be reminded of our trip again for years with a couple small purchases.

mphall

I was just speaking with my brother this evening about our Ireland trip in October of 2004. We had three ghost experiences at the Mt.Juliet Hotel. We were the only guests on the third floor on the evening of October 31. The next day after we recounted our experiences with the waitress in the dining room, she said that there was indeed, a ghost on the third floor. It's just a funny coincidence that I saw this post.