🟡 The Savoy Hotel, Limerick

A Nice Hotel. But It Was Just a Room.

We deliberately added an upscale hotel night to our Ireland road trip. In hindsight, some of our less conventional stays felt like much bigger upgrades.

Visited: July 2022

This review reflects our firsthand experience in 2022. Prices, amenities, parking arrangements, dining and spa offerings may have changed, so check current information when considering a stay.

🟡 EVALUATE

Would we recommend it to a friend? Maybe, depending on what they're looking for.

Nothing went wrong during our night at The Savoy.

That's what makes this review a little harder to write.

It was a nice hotel. The staff were pleasant. Our room was comfortable. Dinner was excellent.

But when we look back at our two-week Ireland road trip, The Savoy was our least memorable lodging experience.

And at just over $400 for one night in 2022, we expected it to be considerably more memorable than it was.

We Booked It as a Mid-Trip Upgrade

Friends had recommended The Savoy, and we thought an upscale hotel would provide a nice change of pace during a road trip filled with B&Bs and unconventional lodging.

A little luxury in the middle of the trip.

Why not?

Our friends had also taken advantage of some of the hotel's additional amenities, including the spa. Looking back, that may have influenced their experience and recommendation more than we realized.

Our version of The Savoy was different.

We essentially booked the room.

And without the extras, that's largely what the experience became.

A very nice room.

A Polished, Professional Arrival

Parking wasn't at the hotel and carried an additional charge.

That wasn't a major problem, but it added another step to arrival. We pulled up at the hotel, unloaded our luggage, Gina went inside, and I drove down the road to park before walking back.

Check-in was perfectly professional.

There was a smile. There were pleasant greetings. Everything worked exactly as it should.

But after the intensely personal hospitality we'd encountered elsewhere in Ireland, it felt more businesslike.

Nobody did anything wrong.

It simply felt like checking into an upscale hotel.

And that's exactly what we were doing.

The Room

Our room was comfortable and nicely appointed, but there isn't much about it that either of us remembers four years later.

That observation probably says more than a detailed inventory of the furniture ever could.

It wasn't unpleasant.

It wasn't uncomfortable.

It wasn't disappointing in any specific way.

It was just a room.

There are many very nice hotel rooms in the world. The Savoy gave us another one.

At a little over $400 for the night, we had hoped the experience would distinguish itself more.

The Extras Were Extra

The Savoy offered additional amenities, including spa treatments and massages.

We considered them.

Then we saw the prices.

They reminded us of cruise-ship spa pricing, and we simply couldn't see enough value in spending that much to add a massage to the stay.

That's not a criticism of the quality of the spa because we didn't use it.

It was a value decision.

We've enjoyed massages while traveling in places such as Panama and Costa Rica where the experience felt welcoming, personal and connected to where we were visiting. Paying a substantial premium for a more conventional hotel-spa experience wasn't particularly appealing to us.

So we skipped it.

And that may be an important distinction for someone considering The Savoy.

If you're going to take advantage of the spa, dining and other amenities, your experience may be quite different from ours.

Breakfast Somewhere Else

We stayed only one night and didn't have breakfast at the hotel.

Instead, the next morning we found a little café down the road, grabbed coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and had a very pleasant breakfast before continuing our trip.

Nothing elaborate.

Nothing expensive.

Just another small experience along the road.

And those little moments became a recurring theme during our time in Ireland.

The Problem May Have Been the Competition

This is where context matters.

The Savoy didn't compete against bad hotels.

It competed against our other experiences in Ireland.

At Lawcus Farm, we slept in a treehouse and were treated like family.

At Black Castle, we climbed narrow stone stairs, slept within massive castle walls by candlelight and drank a wee dram from rustic cups.

Then there was The Savoy.

We checked into a nice hotel room.

That's hardly a fair contest.

But it's also the reason we created our GO / EVALUATE / STOP system around a different question than star ratings.

Would we recommend it to a friend?

For The Savoy, our answer depends upon the friend.

Our Verdict: 🟡 EVALUATE

If you're looking for a polished upscale hotel in Limerick, prefer conventional hotel accommodations, and plan to take advantage of its additional amenities, The Savoy may be exactly what you want.

Our experience simply didn't justify the premium for us.

There was nothing bad enough to warrant a red STOP. Not even close.

But there also wasn't enough that made us say, You have to stay here.

If you have ten lodging experiences, one of them inevitably finishes last.

For us, The Savoy was last.

And that's okay.

Travel doesn't require every experience to be extraordinary. Sometimes a nice hotel is simply a nice hotel.

But our stay also reinforced something we've learned repeatedly while traveling:

The more expensive option isn't automatically the upgrade.

In Ireland, some of our biggest upgrades came from the places with fewer amenities, rougher edges and considerably more personality.

The Savoy gave us luxury. Ireland had already given us something we valued more.

Dinner Was Excellent

Here's where The Savoy deserves unequivocal credit.

We had a great dinner.

The meal was expensive, but the food was excellent. This was the portion of our stay that most closely delivered the upscale experience we'd expected when we booked the hotel.

It was an enjoyable evening, the setting was polished, and the food was very well prepared.

We have no complaints about dinner.

And that's important to this review because our 🟡 rating isn't shorthand for we didn't like The Savoy.

We did.

We simply didn't find enough about the overall experience to make us particularly eager to repeat it.