Just one more day left in an eventful 2012. It's been a great year for us and we hope for you as well.
Except for a disappointing stay at Lough Erne Resort over Christmas last week (which you will all likely read about in April when the G8 visits there) we have had a wonderful year. So good, in fact, that we've decided to extend our stay in Ireland. We will definitely be here until at least November 2013 and I'm lobbying hard for another year after that. We will make our decision on that in April when our lease is up on the property we're renting now. If we stay I'd like to move from the tony Sandymount to a place where actual Irish people live. It's a little like living on Embassy Row here, not quite as snooty but close.
We just returned from our Christmas trip to Ulster, the northern province in Ireland that includes my mother's home county of Donegal and Northern Ireland. Donegal is in the Republic of Ireland but the rest of the province is in Northern Ireland. We spent Christmas Eve and day at Lough Erne in County Fermanagh, the county adjoining Donegal. The only thing to be said for those two days is that it was expensive. We had a pretty good time with one another, but could have done that just as easily in Dublin. On the day following Christmas (Boxing Day here) we moved to Donegal and visited my mother's family. That was great and really made up for the bad time in the hotel. We should have angled for an invitation to Christmas Dinner with family instead!
We decided to fly into Donegal this time. It's about the distance from DC to New York so it's not a long drive but I don't like the car very much and it just seemed easier. All went to schedule, except the 80 mile-an-hour winds when we returned made for a harrowing landing back in Dublin at the end. I don't think I've ever been afraid on an airplane, but I was then. Fortunately the (woman) pilot was experienced and she seemed to think this was all in a day's work. I was happy to be on the ground.
I hope you are all looking forward to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2013.
We made our reservation for your Christmas program with
high expectations. We have experienced
Ulster 5-star hospitality at Solis Lough Eske in Donegal several times. Soon after booking we learned that you would
host the G8 in the spring. We were sure
a stay booked as a "program" in such a venue would be more memorable
than a nice bed and some meals.
Before going into our list of disappointments let me say
your staff is lovely. To a person
everyone was kind and interested in our comfort. It could only have been better if they were
more well-informed.
Before we arrived, we read, with dismay, about the fire
in the pool area and received a call about same in advance. We were told that there would be an
adjustment to the bill for the spa treatments we booked. We were a little surprised that the rate
wasn’t reduced because without a pool a 5-star becomes a 4-star in our opinion,
but we were also told during that call that there would be entertainment
nightly during our stay. At this point,
we would have cancelled except for the promise of ‘nightly entertainment’ and
the strength of the G8 booking, which we considered a ringing endorsement.
When we arrived we were surprised at the architectural
sameness of the campus but encouraged when we saw the warm appearance of the
lobby. After check-in we encountered our
first major setback. Our room was a long
hike to a side hall that reeked of paint.
The odor didn't encroach on the room so we didn't complain but we found
as our stay progressed that we became more sensitive to the unpleasant
passage.
Once we were settled we decided to explore our
surroundings. We took the first stairway
we encountered and discovered that the only egress at the end of the stairway
was to the outside. Since we weren't
dressed for it, we thought a sign alerting us to that on floor two would have
been nice. Later, after a real chill we
started just trying doors because there was no indication of which of the many
doors might lead us back to the lobby. The
dearth of signage in such a large establishment was a problem for us several
times: looking for the room for
Christmas lunch and the massage location most notably.
The most memorable thing about the Christmas Eve dinner
was the popper. The wine stopper was a
nice gift. As far as the meal, except
for my overlooked pork belly, my husband and I were hard pressed to remember it
the next morning. Meals in general were
disappointing. Overcooked fish and meat
and undercooked morning eggs were the norm.
Page 2
Still, it was Christmas and we were determined to be of
good cheer. When we asked at Christmas
lunch if there would be turkey on the evening buffet in advance of making or
meal selection we were assured there was. Imagine our surprise when we discovered it was
turkey cold cuts and the hot meal was curry!
Surely the waiter didn't think we'd have passed up the hot turkey at
lunch for a turkey sandwich in the evening.
When we’d received the telephone call after booking we
were told that we couldn’t have our massages at the same time. We didn’t question it because we assumed that
they would be booked in tandem and there were limited facilities. Again a disappointment to discover they were
3 hours apart and when I arrived for my 1 p.m. massage, I was sharing the
facility with a mother and daughter who had just booked. Both my husband and I were very much looking
forward to the Thai massage because they are hard to find in Ireland but having
one at 10 and another at 1 meant there wasn’t much we could plan for that
day. As it happened, we were so
disappointed with Lough Erne that we’d already decided to cut our visit short
and only stayed two rather than the three nights. So, this timing was really inconvenient
because we had to check out of the room at noon which meant a rushed shower for
Alan at 11:30 when he returned. At this
point, I called the desk and was assured that there were shower facilities in
the spa. When I got to the spa, it was
clear that a shower would have been a major inconvenience for the staff and so
I just passed it up and I had no shower that day. On top of this, when we paid, we had to ask
for the adjustment that was promised. If
I hadn’t asked, it would not have been honored.
We were also assured that there was “free internet.” In most fine hotels “free” is truly free, you
don’t have to provide your information to Bitbuzz in order to access it. Contrary to what many people think, one’s
private email address is valuable to services such as Bitbuzz or any other ISP
so while there is no monetary charge, it is not free. In addition, it didn’t work very well. Because there were so many people staying
there with electronic devices, any short hiatus in searching meant one had to
sign in yet again through Bitbuzz. The
severe lack of internet bandwidth available there also affected the cable
television reception.
Except for the terrible smell in the hallway and the not
very well prepared food, we might have been able to overlook the other small
annoyances if our biggest disappointment was absent. We asked about entertainment and were assured
it was planned for “every evening.” But,
45 minutes of carols at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve and background music on piano
for a few hours nightly is not what we expected at all. There was no attempt in any way to engage us,
no sing song, no guided walk, no singer or dancing, no talk or lecture and,
above all, no attempt in any way to help the many couples, without large family
in tow, to get to know one another.
Ireland is so noteworthy for friendliness, music, dance, beautiful
environment, storytellers, and so much more, but there was nothing like that
for us this Christmas. We could have
booked at the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin if all we wanted were meals and a nice
bed. We were very sad about that.
In short, all we can say for our Lough Erne experience
was that it was very, very expensive.
With best regards to your very nice staff, we are,
Monica Dignam and Alan Balkema
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