The Metropole Hotel Cork

Beautiful old Victorian Hotel in a central location, making many of the main sites quite walkable. Being so close to the river allowed for a sweet morning walk and a fun adventure to the the English Market. It's very close to live traditional Irish music and offers a wonderful breakfast. My room was well appointed, clean and had high ceilings and reflected a care in maintaining the feel and character of the Metropole Victorian era hotel, elegant and simple. The noise level on my side of the building was higher than expected and I had asked to be in a quiet room. This was due to the fact that it was along a pedestrian walkway leading to a walkable bridge over the Reed River.

I don't even know where to begin for this review. First of all, their lobby is 100% catfishing. It does not even come close to what you find once you get on the elevator to the rooms. The hotel is not air conditioned (in the rooms) it is beyond dated, smells and is not updated. The rooms are small and look NOTHING like the pictures they show on line, and we had about 9 rooms over multiple floors between our family and friends so it was not isolated to one room. Everyone had the same experience. The rugs in the hall were filthy. The paint is chipping and the floor itself is so uneven, it was hard to pull my luggage through the hall. Also, without exaggeration, I would say my room was .25 mile from the elevator. The bathroom was disgusting. It has not been renovated in decades. There was rush all around the tub/shower, the paint was chipping and the tub/shower can't be code. I am 5'6" and the top of the tub was above my knee making it very sketchy trying to get in. 100% would tell you to steer clear of this place. They also lost my laundry. Had no record of it and asked me for a receipt??? I didn't have a receipt; I inquired at the front desk. Was told that the laundry is picked up at 7 am (or something like that) asked if I could drop it off the night before so that I didn't miss the timing and I walked down to the lobby, spoke to the girl on duty and arranged for my clothes to be cleaned. Simple, right? Almost all of my clothing for our 14-day trip was in that load of laundry. So, this was very upsetting. They did eventually find it after hours of worrying me. It was marked for another guest. I will stay the staff was really nice, despite this terrible review.

stayed here for a team workshop for 3 days, the standard rooms are very small so it's worth splashing out a bit more for the bigger rooms, staff were super friendly at all times, the lift is a bit slow, nice big bar area, the only thing i can fault is hearing a lot of creaking from the floor above me early in the morning, i was in a room on the third floor and could hear what sounded like footsteps and floor creaking and light switches turning on and off around 6am every morning for about 45 mins, it sounded like it was coming from the room next door but when i went out to check there was no activity there at all, so it must have been coming from the top floor, so for a good nights sleep i would recommend trying to book a room on the top floor, apart from that, all good!!