I have been highly critical of the Radisson Blu Dublin Airport during every stay there recent years.

This is a review from 2012 which was pretty good in fact.

Since then the experience has been awful – dirty and soiled furniture, lack of upgrades for Gold Club Carlson members, rooms in lower categories than booked, rooms not as advertised, and finally I did manage to snag an upgrade. Plus the great images of their rooms on the web site feature only a small number of rooms, the rest have not been renovated.

Each time they sent me a post stay survey (magically they have stopped doing that), I tell the truth.

About six months ago the General Manager reached out, explained some of the service issues and promised me a nice upgrade for my next visit. Indeed it was a nice upgrade to one of their suites. Intervening stays have experienced all the same service problems but this was nice. She explained that as an airport hotel upgrades are rare except at weekends. There never was an explanation as to why a room booked with a sofa bed morphs in a room with a table for my stays. I think the upgrade issue is because this property (and perhaps all Radissons) allocate upgrades at check-in. Hyatt seems to do them on the morning so that they sell what’s left after upgrades are done, whereas Radisson sells what it has and what’s left is available for upgrades.

The bus from the airport took much longer than normal to arrive after I called – a 15-20 minute wait for me. It was raining so I was not going to drag myself over the hotel as it involves a good 15 minute walk, not undercover from Terminal 1.

The view in the image above is of Terminal 2 from my room.

The suite was spacious, a large sofa and separate easy chair and provided a good night’s sleep. Of course, the TV didn’t work so I suppose I was not supposed to have everything!

 

The WiFi at the hotel is free and despite being near the lifts I did have a good nights sleep once I had managed to close the window. The Floor to ceiling windows were great as they provided a lot of light. As it was summer I appreciated the evening light before settling in to bed.

The bathroom was pretty much the same as the ‘normal’ rooms I had experienced.

 

I woke before dawn for the short shuttle bus ride to Terminal 2 and my flight to New York. The shuttle service was running two buses that morning as I think there were a lot of people travelling at the start of the kids holidays. The short ride dropped me off right outside Terminal 2.

I never manage to have breakfast here as my flights are too early. I have a couple more stays before my Gold Status with Club Carlson expires at the end of the year and I will let you know how they go. I don’t expect to see the inside of a suite again.