offerendum

Corona casts long shadows. A relic from 2020 was a voucher from Eurowings for planned flights to Barcelona in April 2020. What to do with it? A trip to Ireland has been on the agenda for a long time, but I don't have time for a long trip this year. But since a good offer for 4 nights in Dublin appeared, a weekend trip there was booked without further ado.
On the Eurowings flights to Dublin there is no biz class, so it was the economy. But I was able to book a priority check-in in Düsseldorf for € 8 per person and a free middle seat for € 30 each way.

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At the airport, I used the American Express Valet Parking service, as all the airport parking spaces are booked up. More on that later. Just so much: I still have to talk to Amex about this.

In the terminal, the situation was then very relaxed, at the check-in was nothing going on. In the end, it took even longer at the priority check-in than it would have taken at the regular check-in. As 16 € thrown out the window.


At the security check you then have no priority for the 8 €, but again nothing was going on and it was our turn immediately. Everything went quickly.

In the terminal it went then for a long time times again in the Hugo Junkers Lounge, last I always took off from the C gates. The lounge was actually as always, for a short stay it is OK. The food selection is nothing special, the quality in the range of the expected (and you do not expect much).






At least you can look outside, which is much more pleasant than in the rather claustrophobic Open Sky Lounge.

Fabo.sk

ooh, a new offerendum report. Always a welcome event.

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This pleases me very much, now I can go to sleep satisfied

Harper50505

I haven't been in the Hugo Junkers Lounge post covid, it looks much better than I remember.

I'm looking forward to your report on the trip to my home land though I have to say, I don't think you're seeing the best of it!

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I will surely visit other parts in the future.

work2fly

+1

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We flew in an A 319, actually everything standard. First the farewell from Düsseldorf and a last view of the Rhine loop.







There are things that are more than understandable.

What was pleasant were the views from the plane. The view was mostly good, especially the coasts were well visible.







Approach to Dublin!




Landed!

Yippiiieee! We are right

Lots of green, even with the planes.

I love satellite terminals.

The entry was then quite speedy, also the luggage came relatively quickly. Unfortunately, our suitcases were once again almost the last to be unloaded. But well, you can not have everything.

I had decided against taking a limousine, a cab was ready. Absolutely uncomplicated, a standard car at Sixt Ride would have been more than twice as expensive even after taking into account a 20 € voucher.

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As a hotel we had chosen the Merrion. It is relatively centrally located and is housed among buildings in 3 Gregorian houses.


Main entrance

Restaurant entrance

Historic building

HLT1904

Looking forward to the trip report update. Thanks for sharing

offerendum

From the outside, the Merrion doesn't look like much, but they are historic buildings. After passing through the entrance door, one stands in the quite intimate entrance hall.



What must be said, the Merrion is extremely well staffed. There were always enough doormen, even though the hotel was fully booked.
The reception is located in the first of 3 rooms of a hallway.


Behind it are the upper and lower drawing rooms, and to the left the bar.



Again, there was plenty of staff at the reception. The receptionist was happy to check us in in German.
Then they organised a staff member from Germany to take us to our room. So far, everything went very smoothly.

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Let's move on to the most important part of the hotel, the room.
There are 2 types of accommodation at the Merrion, the Manor House and the newer Garden Wing. The general opinion is that the rooms in the Manor House are preferable, the only exception being the Penthouse Suite.
We had a Merrion Suite in the Manor Wing, no bargain at €1,550.00 Best Available Rate without breakfast.
The corridor plan seems to be limited in terms of scale, also we had no opening to other rooms.

There used to be other differences between the two buildings, for example, rooms in the Garden Wing did not receive a welcome gift. This unequal treatment has now been approximated, and now there seems to be no welcome gift in the Manor House either. OK, except for a bottle of water.

The suite is supposed to be 62 sqm, the photos on the website are from our suite. GF liked the furnishings very much, I thought it was nice, though not totally outstanding. The television was more symbolic.






But there were nice details like this memento.

The regulation of the air-conditioning already gives an idea that the technical equipment is not the latest. But I would have been interested to know whether the room could really be cooled down to 10 degrees. But we didn't have the air conditioner on for a minute.

The view of the inner courtyard is certainly preferable to the view of the street. Due to poorly insulated windows, it was still relatively noisy, the main noise factor being seagulls (no joke).

The bedroom was quite small with a fake door, what was missing was any seating. The bed was fine, 2 wardrobes provided enough space for 4 nights. The TV was again "cute".





The view was a little more limited.

But now to the bathroom. To say it in advance, it did not meet my requirements in any way. It showed its age, many things were simply totally outdated. While the marble was still quite nice, the dark yellow door did not work at all. The shower was not tight (door did not close properly), nor is a questionable shower head without a hand shower state of the art. The toilet was a bit inconveniently located (a guest toilet would have been nice anyway), and flushing was difficult and often only worked on the second try. The taps at the washbasins were so far back that it was very impractical.





But wait! The taps? Yes, there is pure nostalgia here. Cold water comes out of one tap, very hot water out of the other. I know that decades ago this was standard, especially on the islands, but today this kind of thing has absolutely no place in a suite in this price range.

OK, the bathroom could have been worse, no question. But I think that if you charge more per night than many people have per month to live on, it should be a bit more. Sure, in Paris it would be the price of a broom closet in one of the Palace hotels, but this is Dublin.
The suite is actually nice, but a bit of renovation wouldn't hurt.

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We've already seen the garden from above, now let's go inside. The garden is divided by a glazed walkway.
The garden is pretty, especially famous is the statue of James Joyce.

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There is also a SPA at the Merrion. The area is in the Garden Wing, so you have to go from the Main House through the lobby, down the glass corridor, past the restaurant and then into the basement.
There is a photography ban in the SPA, which is OK for now.

When no one was there but me, I was able to take a few photos. The area is pretty, even if there are no really nice relaxing areas.

dwugson

"When no one was there but me, I was able to take a few photos. The area is pretty, even if there are no really nice sunbathing areas"
Maybe it's the translation but doubt many people expect to sunbathe in Dublin!