Review: Radisson Blu Dublin Airport
 

Also posted on TA.........

Stayed four nights. Not in the same class as the Dublin Crowne Plaza. Also expensive for what it is.

Room - carpet was stained, as was the handtowel. Sealant round the bath was stained yellow, as was the grout, and there was something black going on around the bath panel. Sink took around five minutes to empty - presumably years of shaving and soap congealed down there.

Lift was dangerous, as the panel was hanging off all week, and the buttons for 4 and 5 were hanging off and the circuit board/electrical wires were exposed. That lift woulldnt work therefore on some days, but as the other lift thought it was still operable, meant a ten minute wait for the other lift to be brought down by someone on a high floor.

Breakfast - in thirty five years or so, Ive never managed to make scrambled egg that sits in a pool of dirty yellow water. Is this powdered egg reconstituted with water, pre-cooked scrambled egg microwaved, or what? One day there was no juice glasses, another day there was no plates, another day there was no forks on the cheese/cold meat/smoked fish plates. I was also waiting at the entrance for five minutes, being ignored by everyone, when I am well capable of seating myself. One day they gave me someone elses table, so I took someone elses, who took someone elses......dis-organised chaos ensued.

Bar food was fine in the evenings.

Reception - for some unfathomable reason, you needed to queue up with the 27 people checking out to order a taxi!!! Bizarre. Walk to the road instead, and one will arrive in 10 seconds or so, as its right by the taxi holding pen for the airport.

Summary - poorly maintained hotel in need of a total makeover, and staff in need of proper management.

I am planning a stay in Dublin in August 2014 and due to a major event it seems airport hotels are my only option.
I would like to stay at the Radisson but this review put me off rather. I checked Trip Advisor and it seems nothing much has changed since this review, plenty of reports of run down shabby old rooms with cathrode ray TVs.
However as August 2014 is still someway off, I wrote to the hotel, mentioning the high volume of negative reviews and asked if a renovation is planned. I received a reply today confirming that a full refurb is underway, including LCD TVs in all rooms, new beds and new soft furnishings. This rennovation as apparently been underway since June.
So I think I will give it a try, I'd appreciate if anyone stays at this property soon to provide an update!

Just returned from a stay at the downtown Dublin Radisson Golden... or whatever they call it. All was fine. It was clean, great location, helpful staff and a nice breakfast. The airport is about 20 minutes away, about 20 euro taxi ride. We saved about 10 Euro on the taxi ride by walking to the main street (about a 2-3 minute walk) to hail a cab.

Might be worth it for those of you with doubts about the airport hotel.

Not available on the dates I want. I'm going for a college football game and it looks like the downtown chain hotels have sold all their rooms to American companies offering travel packages to Americans coming to visit. Same thing happened with Notre Dame vs Navy last year.

I'm staying at this property over the weekend on friday. Standard rooms look awful wheres the Business Class rooms look pretty decent. What is the hotel's policy about upgrades? Do they upgrade Carlson Gold to BC rooms or do they at least provide any form of amenity such as free breakfast in lieu of the upgrade?

Also from what I've understood the airport bus runs pretty close to the hotel. At what time do the busses stop running?

Radisson Blu Royal
 

Free breakfast to golds ( a nice touch) and U/G if they have availability.

Staying here tonight as a Gold and not a great experience so far, but I suspect mainly due to communication issues.

No recognition of status when I checked in or a room upgrade.

I asked politely about the breakfast for Gold members mentioned in this thread (and several other threads), mainly to see if my status was recorded. I appreciate that this isn't a published gold benefit. The response was that I wasn't a gold member.

Showed my Gold card and was still told this wasn't on the system, so also logged into the website on my phone to show my status there. At this point, the guy who checked me said that he knew I was Gold, but breakfast was only a benefit for Concierge. Not really an issue, but left me feeling a bit silly for asking.

The room itself is the same level I booked, but refurbished since last time I stayed here (an LCD TV instead of a CRT TV). No mention of a room upgrade when I checked in and no mention of a welcome gift, but just had a knock on the door and a fruit platter has been delivered. Very welcome, but a warning would have been nice.

I suspect your mileage may vary depending who checks you in.

Stayed there last weekend after arriving pretty late at DUB. Wasted about 30-45 minutes locating and waiting for the hotel shuttle. I could have walked to the property from T2 in about 4 minutes :p

While checkin at 11pm, it seems they only had two standard rooms left, but the front desk upgraded me to a 'business class' room after checking some cheatsheet paper he had in his pocket. I didn't complain :) He asked me if I wanted to sign up for club carlson, to which I politely pointed out that my number was already on file :)

The business class room was nothing special, probably just a bit bigger that the usual rooms with a desk and a sofa.

The room and pretty much everything in the hotel showed clear wear and tear. The bathroom was just OK and the showerhead fitted wrong leaking a spray of water across the tub to the washbasin :eek:

Breakfast was ok, a fair good selection, just as any business hotel would offer.

The location is great, would stay there again for the price I paid. (100€, business class would have been 129€ if booked for two weekend nights)

I've just had an email exchange with them, asked about the free breakfast for Gold members and their reply was: "As per club Carlson benefits, only Concierge members have breakfast complimentary included".

I'm due to stay here for one night in June 2015. The property has no cash rates loaded on the Club Carlson website for stays beyond April so I booked with points.

This strikes me as extremely strange behaviour. Why turn away paying customers for summer 2015? Perhaps the hotel is deflagging then? Or closing for renovations?

Anybody have an email for the property to enquire?