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Last summer my wife and I spent a month in England, France, Northern Ireland and Ireland. At the tail end of that trip we stayed four nights in Dublin, three of which were spent at the Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin.
I booked that stay as it was good value when using World of Hyatt points, but what I hadn’t anticipated was that it would put us in a part of the city that we’d particularly love and was the perfect location for this trip.
This Hyatt Centric is a great hotel in a great part of a great city – here’s why I liked it so much.
Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin Bottom Line Review
- Points Price: At the time of our stay in September 2022, this was a category 3 property. That means the nightly cost is 9,000, 12,000 or 15,000 points per night depending on if it’s at off-peak, standard or peak pricing. All three nights of our stay were at standard pricing, so we redeemed a total of 36,000 points. The fact that it’s a category 3 property and often has cash prices means it can be a good use of category 1-4 free night certificates earned at renewal on the World of Hyatt credit card, through $15,000 spend on Hyatt cards, through Milestone Rewards or Brand Explorer awards.
- Cash Price: Dublin hotel rates can get pretty expensive. For our dates it would’ve cost us $328.12 per night including tax.
- Points Value: Potentially very good. We got 2.73cpp (cents per point) of value by using points, but you might be able to get even more value depending on your dates.
- Resort or Destination Fee: None.
- Parking: The hotel has a limited number of parking spots in its secured underground parking lot at a cost of €30 per night (free if you have Globalist status and are on an award stay). Their website also lists a parking lot a 7 minute walk away which costs €21 per night.
- Room: We’d booked a 2 twin bed room as that was the only room type available by the time we made our reservations a couple of months before our stay. It was a good enough size with a small dining table and a couple of chairs, as well as a separate work desk and chair. There was a small open closet and mini fridge, an electric kettle with tea and instant coffee. The bathroom was an OK size too with a walk-in shower.
- Housekeeping: From what I can remember we declined housekeeping during our stay, but I think they were offering it every day if desired.
- Turndown service: Nope.
- Internet: This is complimentary for all guests and was a good speed during my stay. I still had to work while we were overseas and I didn’t have any problem being productive there.
- Dining: The Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin has a couple of drinking and dining options:
- Liberties Gate Bar – This is open daily from 12:30pm-9pm for food and 12:30pm-12am for drinks
- Liberties Gate Restaurant – This is open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner:
- Breakfast – 7am-10am Monday-Friday, 7am-11am Saturday-Sunday
- Lunch – 12:30pm-5pm
- Dinner – 5:30pm-9pm
- The hotel’s website also lists a Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea experience – here’s how they describe it (side note: pet peeve is that it looks like they list macaroons but mean macarons. Then again, baking show judges on the Food Network somehow manage to call them the wrong thing too):
- Take a magical trip down the rabbit hole when you join us for Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea at Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin. This Alice in Wonderland themed event features a selection of chocolate truffles and macaroons, freshly made sandwiches, and mini scones and sweet treats. It’s the perfect opportunity to sit back and enjoy time with friends and family.
- Spa: Not that I saw.
- Fitness Room: Yes – it was an OK size with several pieces of cardio equipment as well as weights.
- Pool: None.
- Welcome Amenities: None.
- Service: Service was pretty good, although our interactions with staff there were minimal seeing as we didn’t have any problems and declined housekeeping.
- Location: We ended up loving the location. I hadn’t realized that ‘The Liberties’ in the name of the hotel refers to the Liberties part of the city. You can read more about the history of its name here, but nowadays it’s most notable for its distilleries and breweries. It’s where you’ll find the Guinness Storehouse along with the Whiskey Triangle which is an imaginary triangle within which you’ll find a lot of whiskey distilleries. Many of those disappeared following the rise of bourbon and particularly prohibition back in the day as they exported a lot of whiskey to the U.S., but the area has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Just around the corner there’s Teeling Whiskey Distillery; this is definitely worth touring and doing a tasting experience – even if you don’t like whiskey, they have a cocktail option at the end that my wife loved.
Due to the location, our Dublin visit ended up becoming very much a drinking visit, so it was nice being within walking distance to many of those places. - Elite Benefits: I have Globalist status which meant I was eligible for a number of benefits during our stay. However, the benefits I actually received were limited for one reason or another:
- Room upgrade – The hotel was fully booked during our stay, so we didn’t get a suite upgrade. There weren’t even any suites available when booking our stay two months ahead of time as I had a suite upgrade award I could’ve used.
- Club Lounge access – The hotel doesn’t have a lounge
- Complimentary breakfast – We received free breakfast every day.
- Parking – This would’ve been free due to my status and the fact that this was an award stay, but we hadn’t rented a car and so this was moot.
- Would I stay again? Definitely.
- Pros:
- Value – It’s easy to get 2cpp+ of value when booking award stays.
- Location – If you’re interested in visiting the Guinness Storehouse, Jameson, Teeling, etc., this is a great place to stay. It’s right next to St Patrick’s Cathedral which is also where you can catch a hop-on, hop-off bus tour to explore the city.
- Cons:
- Breakfast inconsistency – This is just nit-picking really, but I ordered the same cooked breakfast all three mornings and it was served differently every single day, with only one of the three mornings actually having everything listed on the menu
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We’re staying there two nights arriving May 24 to Dublin airport at 4:55am. Any chance we would be able to get early check in (I’m Hyatt Explorist)? Also wondering the best way to get there from the airport. Thanks.
You’d have to contact the hotel to see if you can check in early. If you want to guarantee an early check-in, you could book the night before too. That would obviously cost an extra night in cash or points, but it would mean you’d definitely have a room available. If doing that, you’d want to reach out to the hotel to let them know that you’ve booked it a night early as you’re not arriving until the morning.
If you can’t get an early check-in, the hotel can keep hold of your bags while you explore the city. One low-key option would be to do a hop on, hop off bus tour. There’s a stop for those by St Patrick’s Cathdral which is a 1-2 minute walk from the hotel; that way you can see the city without having to wander all over after an overnight flight.
As for getting there from the airport, you can take the Dublin Express bus straight from the airport to Merchant’s Quay, then walk ~10 minutes to the hotel. An easier option will be a taxi or Uber though.
Thanks, Stephen! Hop on, hop off bus tour sounds good. We usually do those anyway.
What is the actual Globalist breakfast benefit at this hotel? One item from the menu? Unlimited choice?
One entrée and a drink per person
Thanks
I really loved this hotel and would stay there again in a heartbeat. I don’t care for whiskey usually but Teelings and The Liberties area made an Irish Whiskey fan out of me.
I wanted to mention a hidden gem nearby that Stephen didn’t go to. If you are a bibliophile, library lover or just love history and cool places there’s Marsh’s Library right next to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and on the library website you can get joint tickets for a small discount on both locations.
Marsh’s Library is an enlightenment library, that hasn’t changed much since the 1700s, that was made a public library forever by an act of Parliament.
There are books in languages that are no longer spoken, Bram Stoker and Jonathan Swift (and others) did research there for their own books and there are reading cages. Books were only for the wealthy and so to ensure books weren’t stolen people were locked in the cages to read and then the librarian would let them out afterwards. It’s a reference library so you can’t check books out but it’s open to the public so you can sit and read books while you’re there (I plan to do that next time).
Just wanted to drop this special little spot in the comments.
Stayed one night there in April on the way in for 8k. On the way out, stayed at the Westin for more than a week. Westin is spendier, but I feel the location was primo, the staff was amazing, the breakfast was spectacular. Not the best deal and the rooms are a bit tiny, but loved it.
I empathize with your disappointment…
Macaroons are one of my favorite desserts, especially when dipped in chocolate. Meanwhile, macarons are basically packing peanuts, better confined to the garbage, and I can’t understand why anyone likes them.
I do like macarons, but macaroons are my favorite as I’m a sucker for coconut and chocolate.
Stayed there last year for St. Patricks’ Day with points and loved it. Great service, we showed up at about 8:30 AM and they let us get to our room. The tea is good but kind of crazy in terms of volume of sandwiches and sweets. And with respect to a car, you don’t really want a car in Dublin itself, but there was a Hertz car rental place about 15 minutes walk where we rented a car to tour around the country.
I have 2 nights booked with free night certs for St Patrick’s day, cash rate was 400 euros/nt. Thanks for the review, we’re looking forward to it!
Thanks for the review — this hotel is now on my list! Wish we had stayed here last September instead of The Marker, which was just terrible in so many ways: bad location, impossible to get taxis, public transport difficult to reach — I could go on and on.
Its an excellent property for 12k and I think it’ll be shooting up to 15k before long, its usually < $300/night. Pretty much nailed upgrade off peak as a Globalist too, even NYE just gone I got upgraded to one of the Liberties Suites.
The Capstan bar next door is a great pub too.
We stayed there for a week last summer combing points with free nights from credit card. Agree with review and our yearly trips will include this hotel for the future. Very important to ask for a quiet room. An adjoining business features a club with DJ. Was really loud. We also bring Roku devices along on our travels. Unfortunately the inputs on the tvs don’t allow for it but Chromecast works fine. Great location but be aware public transportation in the early morning is extremely difficult to obtain. The neighborhood taxis and buses are packed with workers and students. Anyone with a morning flight would be wise to spend the previous night closer to the airport or at least outside the city center.
I recently stayed there and would agree with all the positive benefits of this hotel and location. All the tourist destinations within the city are in walking distance. I respectfully disagree about the comments about proximity and location of Dublin Airport, it’s only 20 plus minutes away and the Liberties Centric staff called for my ride the night before. The rate in December was less than $25.
I think it depends on what time of day you need to head to the airport. We had an early-ish morning flight back to the US and were concerned about rush hour in the morning, so we stayed at the Hilton by the airport. Getting there in the evening rush hour took over an hour, so I imagine the same could happen in the morning too.
Yep, we ended up staying out by the Hilton the night before our morning flight in case we hit bad traffic.