Originally Posted by
Wembleygal
Any recent experiences?
I was booked into the HIE, but it is still closed, so they have moved me over.
I was there mid-April. Nice hotel with a couple of small restaurants in walking distance although everything else is a bus ride into the city or a cab ride to Swords or Malahide.
Hotel staff was uniformly excellent and friendly. The hotel has a very good breakfast if you have Diamond status. The lounge is also nice and has a small selection of food for breakfast and at happy hour.
The shuttle bus is a full-sized bus, not one of those smaller vehicles that handles only 15-20 passengers at a time. It runs on the hour and half-hour from the hotel. The check in desk told me that reservations aren't necessary, just show up in the lobby about five minutes before departure. That worked for me.
The hotel itself is in good condition and is in a residential neighborhood with a large park directly across the road. Although we did not use it, there's a public bus line less than 1/2 mile away, just after one of the restaurants and just before the other, that apparently runs into the center of the city fairly frequently.
The first restaurant is a sandwich/dinner place that closes around 8 p.m. while the other, a good Italian restaurant, is open at least until 9. There is a full-service restaurant on the property that's separate from the area where breakfast is served.
BTW, the shuttle bus driver told me that the HIE is housing Ukrainian refugees so that situation may continue for awhile.