Pre-tour hotel in Dublin

Before my RS Ireland tour last year, I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on O’Connell St because it was a lot less expensive than the tour hotel and I had loyalty program points that I could use for one night. While this was not my favorite part of Dublin, the airport bus stops right in front of the hotel so it was an easy place to start my trip. O’Connell Street is very commercial and lacks charm, but it is easy to get around from there. The hotel itself was clean and modern and I have no complaints about the hotel itself; I’d stay there again if the price were right. I took the bus from the Holiday Inn to get to our tour hotel (we stayed at Buswell’s).

If you can find something in your price range south of the river in the same general area as your hotel, I’d choose that.

Thanks, Laura. I'll take a look at the Holiday Inn Express.

Hi Tony! I have a feeling you did, but I’ll ask anyway. Did you ask them for the RS rate? I know Lori was just telling me that they were quoted an outrageous per night price for coming in early on the Prague tour and she contacted the RS office about the price and somehow it was lowered.

Also, last year on our own, we stayed in Stanton’s on the Green which was nice with a lovely breakfast.

We stayed at Buswell's. (Definitely old fashioned.) But that was also where our Best of Ireland tour was staying. We've been on 4 RS tours and never found any hotel to give us any kind of remarkable RS tour rate pre/post tour. But, we've always had a room that we could remain in once the tour began or ended.

I want to give a big caution about the Holiday Inn Express on O'Connell. After our RS tour ended in Belfast, we took the train back to Dublin for one night. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express. As Laura mentioned, not the ideal part of town in that it's not charming; it's busy with chain retail shops, etc. Perfectly safe, full of tourists, and it was a decent distance to the airport. The hotel itself was perfectly fine. BUT, what was never mentioned in any review or on the hotel website is that there is (hopefully was, it was 2019) a disco underneath the hotel. No wonder the hotel gave us cheap worthless earplugs at check in. It was an absolute nightmare. The music blasted and room shook until after 2am. I can honestly say it was the worst hotel experience in all our years of travel.

Hi Margie,

Interestingly, the itinerary page, next to the first night hotel information, says "Note: Rick Steves Tours' reservations for this hotel are managed by "The Group Company.” Please reference this name when booking pre- or post-tour reservations."

I did tell them this was a tour managed by "The Group Company" and they gave me this price (385 Euro per night, which is 448.35 dollars). That price is not out of line with their regular price for that time frame (significantly less than what the website says), by the way; all hotels in Dublin seem to increase in price dramatically through the spring until summer, and June seems to be one of the most expensive times to travel there. I guess their season is short. Well, I picked June in Ireland for a reason (to maximize chances of nice weather) so it makes sense that others would feel the same way.

I think it would actually be interesting to see another hotel, and I'm having fun using booking.com to look at hotels all over the city. (I'm also reading through the RS Travel Forum to see what hotels people recommend.) Right now I am leaning toward a hotel called "The Alex", which would save us about $250 for the two nights. It looks nice, and I like the location.

I should have added: I see that I could stay in a dorm at Trinity College and save even more, and while that's something I might consider, it's not top of my list right now.

My RS Ireland guidebook is supposed to arrive on Monday so I'll soon see what is recommended in there.

I’ll just note that I did not experience any disco noise at the Holiday Inn Express in 2024 BUT I was also there on weeknights and on an upper floor. It is possible that the experience would be different on a weekend and/or different part of the hotel.

I will say avoid hotels in the Temple Bar area if you want to avoid noise. 20 years ago I spent 3 very noisy nights in a hotel in that area.

We stayed at Trinity City Hotel for 3 nights before an Ireland tour in June 2023 and thought it was great. Great location, clean, helpful staff. https://www.trinitycityhotel.com/en/

Maybe things have changed but more times than not over the last ten years and 12 RS we have received some type of reduction in rack rates when we’ve come in early or stayed late…not always… but then we also normally travel in spring or fall not in the middle of high season.

Tony, one more thing, if you guys like seafood look at Matt the Thrasher across from St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. And Ron says get some Murphy’s ice cream! Have a great tour!