The Earl of Desmond Hotel
About
The Earl of Desmond Hotel is an excellent choice for travellers visiting Tralee, offering a charming environment alongside many helpful amenities designed to enhance your stay.
For those interested in checking out popular landmarks while visiting Tralee, The Earl of Desmond Hotel is located a short distance from Chute Hall Ogham Stones (1.3 mi) and St. John's Church (3.1 mi).
Guest rooms offer amenities such as a flat screen TV, and guests can go online with free internet access offered by the hotel.
The Earl of Desmond Hotel features 24 hour front desk and baggage storage, to help make your stay more enjoyable. The property also boasts free breakfast. If you are driving to Earl Desmond, free parking is available.
While visiting Tralee, you may want to try some tapas at one of the nearby restaurants, such as Mozarts Tapas.
There is no shortage of things to do in the area: explore popular parks such as Tralee Town Park.
Enjoy your stay in Tralee!
Location
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Hotel was very good, clean and pleasant set in countryside grounds, Entertainment in the evenings , wi fi in the bar and reception lounge , woke up to birds singing in the mornings .
Food , always a holiday issue was very good . Usual choice breakfast, the difference being i had not tasted the bacon , black pudding and suasages like that for a long time , it tasted excellent possibly because it was locally sourced. Evening meals consisted of 3 courses each with 3 choices of menu and if that was not enough the staff at mealtimes did their best to accomodate so you recieved your preference.
The holiday was five days, made up with 3 days of touring and visiting in the coach . They were The ring of Kerry , the Dingle Penninsula and Killarney.That made up our itinery and was more than enought to see that part of western Ireland. The views were spectacular , the people were warm and friendly,
A special mention for our coach driver Alan, who for me made the holiday ,with his knowledge of the places we visited , where we were, the local history and sheer entertainment . Thanks Alan . If you decide on this holiday with National Coach Holidays then i hope that Alan is your driver.
One thing i have discovered apart from Ireland is that the coach holiday had left me with no stress at the end of it , no travel to the airport , no squashed sardine enviroment for nearly six hours on board a aircraft which i can hardly sit down in, no transfer to the hotel , all hassle .!
I would recommend this holiday and the hotel .
The rooms are adequate, clean and warm with tv and tea/coffee making facilities. There are no nice extras, such as a clock radio (or even a clock), pen and paper, phone book, tourist info, etc. are all missing. The bathroom is supplied with a bottle of Dove hand soap and a bottle of Dove shower/hair lotion attached to the wall. No little treats there!
Breakfast finishes at 10:30am and the bar opens at 1pm. We checked out at 11am, as requested by the hotel and had an hour wait before going to the airport. We were unable to purchase even a cup of coffee until the bar would open in 2 hours time......!
The food in the bar, restaurant and at the wedding reception was very good at all times. The hotel staff were on the whole, pleasant.
The hotel is 10/15 mins from Kerry airport, 2 hrs from Shannon and 2 hrs from Cork. Tralee town is a 10 minute drive.
We paid 130 euro per room, breakfast included. Whilst we did not have a bad experience as such, iif in Tralee again, I probably would bypass this hotel and stay in Tralee town itself.
I caught a tiny bit of the reply before my previous comment was removed and the response was a joke. I will give a few examples of what was done wrong but I would not have space to cover all of it.
When we arrived at the arranged time the bridal suite was not ready. I had to come back twice before the room was ready. We booked a party for 150 guests and I was given a hall that could easily hold 500 people. We saw the room that morning and commented that it was too big. They said that they could cordon it off if needed. They knew in advance that our wedding was abroad and that this was a party for friends and family that couldn't make it abroad.
We arranged a buffet and wine for the guests that were coming. I was asked to pick finger food which I did and on the night they brought out what they felt like. They dressed the hall for a sit-down meal with candlabras and lace. We had asked that the room be very understated. It felt copy-pasted from every other wedding day. All of our requests were ignored.
We were mortified when they brought out sandwiches and sausages onto the dressed tables. The group at the wedding party was very disjointed so people were coming and going all day, When the food did come out there were a lot of people missing, so the manager came out, stood in the middle of the dining room and, very openly, counted the heads that were there. Those who were out smoking or at the bar were not counted.
I asked for wine with the finger food and I paid per head for this, yet a few weeks later I was told by friends that were there that they were told by staff under instructions to not leave the wine on the tables.
I am coeliac, there was nothing at the party for me to eat, I was given watermelon and a gluten-free roll, this could go on and on,
Now I could go on and on, and if tripadvisor feels I have not included enough I can add more details because I could write a book. I did not marry that day, if I had I would never have recovered. It was a party for friends and family who could not make it, but it was a terrible, terrible experience. I complained at the time and the email was ignored, I had actually paid for all of this in advance, but more family had joined us abroad than originally planned, so there was about €500 left over, I did not want to ask for my money back as I had made changes to the original booking and the hotel had accommodated us in this.
At least I thought they had! Anyway, I decided to ask for a voucher for their sister hotel to use later in the year. The manager could not even do this, He came back and tried to push a two night stay on me for 500 euro in Clare. That would be 250 a night for B and B, I found the whole experience terrible and horrible and I will never forget it,
I will say this, some of the staff were lovely and the breakfast was lovely. It is laughable that the hotel thinks a good reply to this is that it was ages ago, It was a year and 3 months ago and this is my third attempt at reviewing,
rooms good size, clean, some small problems with toilets not flushing but they moved clients to another room next day so full marks for that.
However, the couple of issues i felt is letting the entire hotel down??
one is the bed linen - the sheets are all 'a dirty grey colour' and it looks awful - on check out i noticed the replacements left out and not one of the sets were WHITE....this hotel is full most nights with group tours, please please replace your bed linen!!!...
my personal problem was that the beautiful big quilt on my single bed had the most peculiar smell of 'dirty/smelly feet' off it....please have these cleaned regularly.
we had wonderful music/dancing on Sat and Sun and then on Monday with 4-5 coach tours in house, NO MUSIC - surely for the cost of a singer/musician (150 or so) it would be worth the effort. all our group loved the first two nights with dancing and then when they were hoping to have a really great night on last night Monday - nothing provided so most of them went off early to bed and they are not big drinkers so staying in bar was not an option>???? Spoke to receptionist about it, but they didn't seem to know that it is advertised on their website as 'nightly'.
I would also love to see a manager meeting/greeting clients, checking in Dining room that everything is OK and to ensure everyone is happy, this surely should be part of their 'Quality Customer Service' chart.
Please Mr White, you have a great hotel, location and staff, make it great for the clients too....and encourage your staff to smile and interact more with clients, especially ARA clients they love talking to young people, and as the saying goes' a smile can speak a thousand words'///
so please do look after your business or you will be probably 'looking after your business' when it's gone to another hotel???
Good luck with the rest of the year and we would hope to return with another group in the future.
From the Manager Mark down to the Room maids
you are looked after, Nothing is to much trouble.,
Food First Class, Welcome from Reception was wonderful,
even bar staff wear great.
If you stay YOU WOUNT BE DISERPONTED .
Stayed two nights requested a change of room as the room had a damp smell. Although there was availability on the Friday night was told that nothing could be done as the hotel was fully booked on the Saturday.
The rooms are what you would expect for a 1980's hotel and are in need of a make over for the prices they charge.The flush for the toilet was in the shower.
The quality of the breakfast was appalling an overcooked fry with burnt toast. On complaining I was met with a standard of customer care consistent with all of the above.Their fist and only concern was to secure payment immediately upon check in.
I feel sorry for the busloads of Americans who stay here to be ripped off. I could accept these standards if they were priced accordingly like €70-€80 per night for the room.
The service was a little gruff from the waiters and waitresses and got gruffer as the evening progressed, ie sandwiches being slammed down without a whimper. However, management was much more attentive.
My room had a wonderful bathroom but I found the bed arrangement, one double, one single, rather odd. What strange group was it supposed to accommodate?
Mediocre coffee and tea sachets, disgusting long life milk, with a kettle, make my heart sink, wherever I find them. I'd rather go without. Better to provide bottles of water.
It's a little out of the way of Tralee itself, so travel will be a problem without a car but overall, the sight of it as you pull in is enough to raise the spirits. It is a bit grand from the outside.
"The hall ways are super long and if you have mobility issues, request a room near the lobby"Read full review
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