A very hotel-like B&B, with a lovely interior and fairly friendly staff.
This location is situated less than a 4 minute drive from Cork city centre. Near two service garages and a bus stop, it is fairly conveniently located. That said, it's still about a 35 minute walk and 7.5 Euro taxi ride for two.
The B&B has free parking and they give you a key to the front door and to your bedroom.
Checking-in was relatively informal. You signed a guest card, gave them your reg, and that was that. If you pre-purchased breakfast (more on that later), it is served in a warm, but small, dining room and conservatory between 7 and 10 am.
The room was quite pleasant. It overlooked a lovely garden. Flat screen television, sofa, kettle with UHT milk, tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, and two complimentary kit kat bars.
The bathroom was modern and large, with a socket for your razor and attached hair dryer.
It was a full-house, so I was expecting noise between the walls and ceiling. There was none. So, either the other guests were quite quiet or the walls block sound.
The bed was a comfortable double, that had 4 pillows. One strange thing was that what appeared to be a duvet on the bed, was actually just a plastic-like curtain which matched the curtains on the wall. It felt like plastic and underneath there was no fabric. This quickly slide to the floor. Beneath that was a standard blanket and sheet.
The bathroom seemed to have an ant problem. Ants were coming in through the cracks. I was washing my hands and I saw one appear from a crack, followed by his co-worker. Later on, I would be brushing my teeth to be coupled with a sensation of an ant crawling up like ankle.
Fortunately, I didn't notice this problem in the bed.
Breakfast was ok. It was friendly and sunny in the dining area. Thing is, I don't think I'd pre-buy breakfast again. The full Irish felt more like a half Irish. The portions were relatively small, especially the hashbrown. The wee triangle of the hashbrown was, and I'm not joking, smaller than my thumb. It was like a baby hashbrown. In addition to that, the black pudding wasn't very good. Not certain what brand they were using, but it was over-gritty and yuck.
There was also a buffet you could avail of, with several different types of juice which you could pour into glasses that were only slightly bigger than shot glasses. While this may indeed limit how much I can drink, it is also going to annoy me to make frequent trips to the buffet to fill up on orange. Further, I'm going to probably, initially, just take several glasses with me. These were indeed small, barely above a shot glass in depth.
The selection was nice, there was some fruit and cereals. Then they come to take your order, in which you could get scrambled eggs (I believe), a poached egg, or a full Irish.
I would return, however before I were to book again, I would definitely compare the price difference between the lodge and some of the places in city centre. Reason being it's about a 6.5 Euro (+1 euro per extra passenger) ride, each way, into city centre. Depending on how many trips you plan on making, it may be more economical to just stay inside the centre itself. read more
