Dublin Hotels

Andrea, go to www.tripadvisor.com and there will be user reviews on any hotel you can think of. We booked the Belvedere for only $53/nt on Orbitz (for our September trip) but the price has doubled since we booked it. It's within walking distance of Temple Bar. I think the special ended in February BUT I have no idea when you're traveling. I found a room by going on orbitz and starting with the cheapest rooms, and finding them on Tripadvisor to see what they were rated. I'm not sure what you consider "budget" as some people's "budget" rooms are too expensive for me! :)

As this was an unexpected trip, I would like to keep our costs to a minimum. Ideally I would like to spend no more than $100 (dollars, not euros) per night, and it would be nice if it was less. Saying that, I don't want a place that is so noisy we can't sleep or is falling apart. I would like to stay within walking distance of the major sites. We will have a car for the beginning of the trip and it's only an extra $50 (dollars) to keep it the entire week. I am considering staying somewhere further out and taking transit into town. If I subtract the amount of the airport bus from the $50, it might be worth keeping the car we can be sure to get to the airport on time to go home. I have been checking Trip Advisor, but just when I think I've found somthing that would be okay the reviews get bad.

Oops...I forgot to say that we will be in Ireland the last week of April.

Andrea,

Your criteria for a Hotel in Dublin might be a bit hard to achieve - "I don't want a place that is so noisy we can't sleep or is falling apart" and also at less than US$100 per night.

One Hotel to suggest that's within reasonable walking distance of the Temple Bar area and other sights is www.hardinghotel.ie/ however it can be a bit noisy in the evenings due to the "Darkey Kelley's Bar" and a double is definitely more than your price range.

Have you ever considered "the Hostel experience"? There's a Hostel attached to the Harding Hotel, so that might want to have a look to see if they have a double available. Check the website at www.hosteldublin.com/hosteldetails.php for details. I believe it will fit your price criteria.

Good luck and happy travels!

There is an area of hotels, guesthouses, and hostels on Gardiner St., just behind the Custom House. I stayed at the Glen Guesthouse, which was nice enough. Breakfast was included, and they advertise their "power showers", the best I had the whole trip. It's a couple of blocks off of O'Connell St, and just across the O'Connell street bridge from the Trinity College/Temple Bar area, easily walkable. I didn't notice any noise from the street at night.

Okay, on booking.com I found the Best Western Premier Academy Plaza Hotel. Because we are staying for 3 nights we got it for 197 euros total. That works out to just over $83 per night at todays exchange rate. The reviews were mostly positive, so I am hopeful it will be a good place to stay. If anyone has stayed there recently I would love to hear about it. It appears they recently went through a big renovation. Thanks to all for their advice.

My husband and I stayed at the Charles Stewart Hotel last May and had a great experience. Nothing fancy, but clean, good breakfast, and nice customer service. We'd definitely stay there again. Frankly - our room was huge and we loved the walk to everywhere - didn't take one cab the whole time we were there. We definitely felt it was a great room for the price, and we actually liked being a little outside of the truly "central" area, though very close. Book it!

Andrea, though what you're looking for may be "hard to achieve", it can be done. I was very worried when we first started planning that Dublin was going to kill us OR we'd have to stay outside of the city just to afford it. But I researched and watched for a few months and we did it! Of course, you don't have as much time to research as I did, but you just have to spend some time online to find what you want. Your trip is just next month, you must be very excited!

I booked at the Best Western I mentioned. The advantage, besides the cost, location and good reviews are that I can cancel with no penalty if I find something else more to our liking. I think it will be fine, as we won't spend much time there anyway. With such a short trip we will have to manage our time wisely. Thanks to all for their suggestions. We are really looking forward to this trip.