Ballymachotel Reviews 6

A gem of a hotel . Beautifully maintained grounds as is also the inside which is kept to a high standard of cleanliness. Rooms are extremely clean and hotel staff could not have done enough for us . Well done to everyone at the Ballymac , we will be back .

Day two at the Ballymac. Fantastic food, first class Guinness and staff that take real care of you.

Great food and staff were very friendly

When I was in my teens, I stayed at a camp site on the Isle of Wight. It was on a steep hill. During the night, I woke up multiple times to discover myself down the bottom of the tent, heading downhill under gravity. Our night staying at this hotel was very reminiscent of that highly uncomfortable experience. I spent the entire night sliding off the edge of the bed. The mattress was of such poor quality that it was indeed shaped like a hill; high in the middle, low on the edges. The only way I got my pitiful three hours of sleep was to sleep with my elbow and knee bent at right angles, in an effort to avoid the inevitable downward fall to the floor beneath.

In my experience, there are only a couple of reasons for this. Either the bed is really old and knackered, or otherwise, the bed is so cheap and nasty and it has so few springs that none of them can be spared in keeping you on it. I tried to speak to somebody about this at the time to no avail. Check in was LITERALLY the only time that the reception desk was manned. Otherwise, there was nobody there at any other point in the day or night to address issues to – there wasn’t even anybody there to assist with checkout! We just had to leave our key on the front desk and hope for the best!

Consequently, I chose to try and raise a complaint once we were back home. But a similar trend was experienced. It took me several weeks of emailing and phoning most days. I eventually got through to a member of staff. Her offer was that if we were to return to the hotel for another stay, she promised to (and I quote) “take care of me”. Hopefully this comment was meant in the non-mafia sense, but either way it didn’t matter because the truth is, they literally couldn’t have paid me to stay in this hotel again.

The staff member also went and checked out the bed in our room, declaring it no different to any other bed in the hotel. To me, this suggests that it wasn’t just our room which had a damn uncomfortable bed in it.

On top of the discomfort, the food was a joke. We ate in the bar for dinner, which was thoroughly overpriced and certainly not worth what we paid for it. I guess if you are located in the middle of nowhere, with no other eating options nearby, you have a captive audience and can do as you wish. And the breakfast was also a joke. I think if you wanted anything at all cooked, then nothing was available until after 10am!!! Otherwise, your only option was the most uninspiring display of vacuum-packed, highly-depressing food that you could ever have the misfortune to consume.

Overall, the price we were charged for such an unpleasant stay was, in my opinion, criminal. The staff member I spoke with did promise (back in November 2023) to speak to their manager to see if they could come up a partial refund option and she would phone me back within 24 hours. Needless to say, nobody ever contacted me again. I did try to chase them up by email and phone AGAIN, several times, but to no avail. It would be truly ironic if the hotel now found the time to respond to this published comment!!! Will they sit and ignore it, like they have ignored me for the past two months, or will they respond, trying to suggest how rare it is for them to have a dissatisfied customer? We will wait and see! In the meantime, take my advice and AVOID THIS HOTEL LIKE THE PLAGUE. You will likely get more than three hours sleep if you just sleep in your car.

Recently booked an Overnight stay as I attended a relatives wedding, when I came down to the room to charge my phone at 7.20pm I noticed how dirty the room actually was, the bathroom was Full of mould, fixtures hanging of the wall, small black hairs in bath and dried blood on windowsill, stains on sheets!!!

It was DISGUSTING, I recorded everything and took pictures straight away, there was no one at hotel reception so I carried on to the wedding party, the next day I showed the receptionist the time stamped videos and pictures and explained how unhappy I was, she apologised and agreed and said she will get the manager to phone me, the manager was nothing but RUDE. He said that it could have happened after check in at 2.30pm, which is just a lie
(bags were dropped in the room and we went straight to the wedding)

I told him I have time stamped pictures and videos from when I went to the room at 7.20pm to charge my phone, he said the room was fine he checked it, the hygiene standards of the hotel must be extremely low if a dirty mouldy bathroom with fixtures hanging of the wall is acceptable.

I’ve stayed in hostels that are cleaner than the ballymac hotel. Would not recommend to anyone

Unsanitary unclean and rude management