The Best Hotel To Stay In Downtown Dublin
I’ll be in Dublin in a couple of weeks, speaking at Search Marketing World and I’m staying a few extra days to hang out with friends. I was looking for a hotel downtown and did a Google search for the best hotel to stay in downtown dublin.
Apparently, it’s the Leeson Inn.
(In case you see different search results than I do, 8 of the top 10 results are for that hotel.)
I can’t imagine this is the result of search engine manipulation, since all kinds of sites are showing up, including Yahoo! and Trip Advisor, which as far as I know, are separately owned. (Although in this age of user-contributed content, I suppose we could be seeing a new era of review manipulation for SEO purposes, as Larry points out in the comments.)
Is the Leeson Inn really the definitive answer to my question?
Looking at the user reviews on the Yahoo site, I guess this hotel it’s not so great. A series of bland favorable reviews, all entered on the same day. They look faked. The word “best” appears on the page–but it doesn’t refer to the hotel. It’s “best deals” or “Best Western”. I tried looking at pages about other Dublin hotels. They don’t mention the word “downtown”. When I Google “downtown”, the first result is a wikipedia entry that starts out “Downtown is a term primarily used _in_North_America_ to refer to a city’s core…” (emphasis mine). So… maybe the Leeson does well in searches by North American tourists because their ads use the dialect of those tourists? And maybe businesses that do business with lots of foreigners should study the dialects of their customers? Are you trying to teach us a subtle lesson?
I tried a Google Maps Search, centered on Dublin, for [best hotel]. I click on the first result, it’s an ad for a hotel, which is fine. Except that it’s playing music at me, which is not fine.
At this point, I close that Firefox window and start trying to think of who I know in Dublin who might let me sleep on a sofa in the living room. If they even have “living rooms” in Dublin.
Bizarre.
Yours may have been an entirely rhetorical question about search. However, I lived in Dublin for two years, and I’ve been back four or five times, so I’m somewhat qualified to answer. It depends what you mean by “best”, but I wouldn’t say that’s definitive.
Hotels in Dublin are notoriously expensive, and the Leeson’s rates look suspiciously cheap.
Holy crap, the conference you’re speaking at is way out in Santry. You’re wise to stay downtown.
I’ve stayed at the Alexander a couple of times, and enjoyed it (http://www.ocallaghanhotels.com/dublinmain/Alexander.aspx).
Any of the Jury’s hotels are totally unremarkable, but affordable (http://dublinhotels.jurysinns.com/).
The alternative is to stay somewhere slightly outside the downtown centre, and use Dublin’s excellent light rail (called the DART), street car (the LUAS) and taxi network. Check out places in Ballsbridge (commonly called ‘D4′_, on the south side of the river.
Incidentally, here’s my list of favourite Dublin places:
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2004/09/favourite-dublin-places.html
Hi Vanessa.
To location of the conference this year is actually not that central. It’s about 40 mins on a bus outside “downtown” Dublin. (We don’t call it downtown, just “town”).
You might be better off staying at the conference hotel to be honest, it’s brand new and really nice.
As for the Leeson Inn, I’d actually stay clear of that. It’s in the “redder” part of Dublin if you know what I mean. It is also on the South Side of the city which means it will take even longer to get to the conference center in the morning. (Possibly an hour by bus).
I would stay in the Morrisson (http://www.morrisonhotel.ie) or if you want to splash out the Westbury. Both are pretty much in the center of Dublin and are nice. The Clarence is also very nice (http://www.theclarence.ie/).
You mentioned you were going to hang out with friends, do know what part of Dublin they live in?
Hope that helped.
I think this might be a case where you can find better, more detailed information in a book, rather than online. The Rough Guide provides excellent detail about all of Ireland including Dublin.
I am going to Ireland on my honeymoon this spring, and for what it is worth, we chose Wynn’s Hotel as it was the right combination of price and amenities according to the book.
Hi Dave,
Thanks! I am actually staying at the conference hotel during the conference, then heading into town to see my friends for a day or two after that. And thanks for the tips!
Darren, I should have known you’ve lived there! I should have just asked you to begin with. I also love Trinity college. Haven’t been to the other places you mention, so will definitely check them out.
Larry, I like the way you think.
I’m not sure I’d stay at the Leeson (or why that hotel ranks for that phrase)– it’s rated #170 out of 198 Dublin hotels. Not good. The user photo of a room isn’t exactly inspiring.
You’d be better starting off on TripAdvisor’s Hotels listing page:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g186605-Dublin_County_Dublin-Hotels.html
where you could browse by the popularity index or filter by dates/availability. You could also search for map.
Or try the TripAdvisor forums- plenty of people there to give you advice.
Hi Vanessa – Looks like you’ve got enough feedback here. Just thought I’d let you know (this is literally what I did for 5 years) some stuff.
1) Many of the ‘review sites’ are ‘loaded’ by other hotel owners PLUS people are much more likely to post if they’ve had a bad stay than a good one.
2) TripAdvisor is part of the IAC spin-off (IE: Same company as Hotels.com, Travelnow, Hotwire, etc.)
3) Try Flickr. First hand views from actual travelers and be sure and look at the posting dates … things change!
Best
Charlie
I’d vote for the Morrison or the Clarence.