Last weekend, i stayed a night in The Beacon Hotel, Sandyford. Good points? Modern, clean, friendly. Bad points? No air conditioning in rooms or corridors…
Expanding on the good points
The Beacon hotel offers free wifi in all rooms and free underground parking for guests. Stuff that should be standard in all hotels, but rarely is. If you don’t drive, there are two Luas stops (green line) about a 10-15 minute walk away.
You’re also a 5 minute drive away from Dundrum Town Center or the “big, dumb suburban temple to consumerism” as this foursquare user put it…
The staff at the Beacon were all extremely friendly and the hotel, from what we seen of it, was extremely modern, clean and bright. Lots of glass and lots of white apart from in the corridors which have a dark theme going on.
Expanding on the bad points
For the past week, every Irish driver has been cursing the fact that air conditioning didn’t come as standard on their car. We don’t need it often, but with temperatures consistently in the mid to high 20’s, you do start to long for the cool, cloudy weather we’re used to.
Being stuck in a hotel room with no air conditioning and a wall full of glass facing the sun isn’t fun. The minute we stepped out of the lift in to the 7th floor corridor, the heat hit us. It would have been nice in January, not so nice when it was a hot & sweaty 25 degrees outside (that’s exceptionally hot by Irish standards). Room 702 was equally as hot as the corridors although a balcony and two windows provided some sort of refuge. It spoiled what was an otherwise flawless bedroom & experience. As our room overlooked a fairly busy road we were faced with the classic catch 22 question at night – do we leave the windows open and risk not getting to sleep because of outside noise, or do we keep the windows closed and hope we get to sleep before all the cold spots in the bed / pillow are gone?
Also, check out the mini bar prices… €4.75 for a mars bar? It’s not wonder minibars are becoming relics. I’m not sure if it’s been done before, but i’d be really interested to see what would happen if minibars were stocked with things at ‘normal’ prices. I’m guessing at those kinda prices, the stuff just goes out of date…
The Verdict
For 360 days of the year, i’m sure The Beacon Hotel is as good a 4* hotel as you’ll come across in suburban Dublin. For those 5 days of summer we seem to get though, you do not want to be spending too long in your uncomfortably hot room. I’d go back if for some reason i had to stay in the area again, but i’d only stay if it was winter or the weather forecast was poor (which is usually all year round).
