The Charles Stewart Guesthouse

We have stayed at the Charles Stewart before so made a booking which had to be postponed due to the first covid lockdown. The hotel agreed to carry over the booking until later, but that was not their generosity as we first thought, just a means of keeping our money. We got in touch again in March 2022 to re-book and even extended our stay for which they took a further payment, knowing that the hotel would not honour the booking since it had become a hostel long before! Now they tell us they cannot honour the booking but they ignore my requests to return our money.

Booked Charles Stewart Hotel in Dublin in 2020 through Booking.com but had to cancel due to COVID restrictions. Booking.com said it would be up to the hotel on whether they would refund our money. We received confirmation that they would carry over our reservations until 2021. Again, could not travel in 2021, so they agreed to carry it over to 2022. The dates were confirmed via Booking.com in 2022. About a month before our trip, we received a poorly written email from Mario at the hotel indicating they were housing Ukrainian refugees and could not honor our reservation. We had to cancel through booking.com in order to receive our refund. We also had to find last minute reservations for the three nights we had planned to stay in Dublin. When we inquired about our refund, we were advised to send our bank routing number. That is a bit suspicious. We requested they process our refund back to the credit card and they said they can only do bank transfer. We reached out to Booking.com for assistance and they indicated we would get our refund when we provide our bank account information. Since our trip was imminent, we decided to go to the hotel when we were in Dublin. We rang the bell and a gentleman answered. We told him our story and he indicated that the hotel was turned into a homeless shelter at the beginning of the pandemic. He had never heard of Mario but gave us a name of a woman to call. We tried calling her multiple times but kept getting an answering machine for another hotel that indicated if you wanted to make or change a reservation for that hotel to go to their website. We decided to walk to that hotel and to our surprise, it was a hotel used for individuals with COVID. Needless to say, we did not go in. We are out the money, but booking.com was absolutely no help with this matter. The fact the hotel continued to renew our reservation when they knew they could not accommodate us since 2020 is terrible. We still had a great time in Ireland as we didn’t let Charles Stewart dampen our adventure.

This is my very first one star review on Trip Advisor, but I and my friend have been dancing with the Charles Stewart since 2019 when my friend had to cancel a stay because of covid. Charles Stewart said that they could not refund her money at that time, but would hold a credit. We finally had the chance to return in April. The hotel told my friend that she could transfer her money, almost $300 to us for charges. But the night before I left for Ireland, the hotel emailed me canceling our room because they were getting in Ukrainian refugees. I was promised at that time that since it wasn't our fault the second cancellation was made, the money would be refunded to my friend. Oddly enough, now, Charles Stewart will not refund that money. They want banking information I wouldn't give to my mother. I've never known a hotel that would not either credit a credit card or forward the money through a version of Paypal. They're still running around with her, and her lawyer is involved. I will happily change this review the minute she sees her money. Til then, it stays.